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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42641 |
Messages in this thread
SubjectRe: [PATCH, RFC] char dev BKL pushdown
On Fri, 16 May 2008, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> I'll put a shortlog and diffstat at the end of this message. For
> completeness, there's also a list of files I examined and did *not* change.
May I suggest just adding a comment in those files, just saying something
/* This does not need the BKL, because .. */
where even the "because" part could be dropped when it's really obvious.
That way that "list of files I examined and did *not* change" would be
obvious in the patch itself, and we also have some documentation that
somebody actually looked at the path.
> Assuming nobody tells me I'm completely off-base, I guess my next step is
> to start running individual patches past maintainers. Some of them,
> probably (I hope), will tell me that I've been wasting my time and that
> their code doesn't need the BKL. In such cases, I'll gladly drop the
> associated patch.
Same deal - just document the fact that the BKL isn't needed.
Yeah, in the long run that kind of documentation is worthless and we may
want to get rid of it again in a year or two, but in the short run it's a
good idea. If only to help people who want to review your patches.
Btw, do you have gitweb running anywhere?
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42667 | Subject: Re: What about startup scripts??
To: Al B. Snell <>
From: Frederick Bruckman <>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 01/04/2001 15:55:28
On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Al B. Snell wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
> > OK, so anything's possible. Your example, IMHO, demonstrates exactly
> > why we should leave all the config's in /etc.
> Why?
Because the resulting rc.d scripts are more complicated than the base
scripts. I was originally against rc.d, because of the requirement to
write all those scripts for packages. Now that I see how easy it is to
copy an existing base script and modify it -- using the full power of
rc.subr -- I'm all for it, but that only works if you drop them into
/etc/rc.d, and set their variables in /etc/rc.conf (or /etc/rc.conf.d,
or somewhere else on the / file-system). Having to write stand-alone
rc.d scripts, so people could keep their /etc pure, sucks.
> > By the way, xfstt installs to ${X11PREFIX}, not pkg. Some users set
> > LOCALBASE to /usr/local, so they don't even have a /usr/pkg.
> Yep, but there are existing solutions to all that - $LOCALBASE can be read
> in the install script and the scripts created accordingly.
Well ${PREFIX}, but yeah, you have to do that anyway, to get the path
to the binary.
> > If
> > you want all the configs in one place, rather than in
> > /usr/{,X11R6/,pkg/,local/}etc, that one place should be /etc. :-)
> Yeah... but we don't want them all in one place!
There seems to be a philisophical precipice here. It could fall either
way. From my point of view, if it saves one or two key-strokes to put
everything in /etc, that's where it should be. That's all I have to
say about that.
> > Here's my xfstt script. Compare. Here, the user edits exactly one line
> > in /etc/rc.conf (or /etc/rc.conf.d/xfstt).
> Whoa! You've gone right back to the "create rc.d scripts for packages in
> exactly the same was as for everything else" method I suggested
> originally! Everyone complained that package stuff should live outside of
> the roo partition, which is why I came up with the system I've been
> explaining, which provides the same features while keeping /usr/pkg
> contained.
Well, not everyone. BTW, this was all discussed extensively back in May,
with no clear consensus:
Interestingly, more than a few folks asked that simply dropping the
script into .../etc/rc.d/ should activate it, rather than also editing
a config file. I almost hate to ask, but have we abondonded that idea?
[I never liked it.]
> And you say "Here, the user edits exactly one..." as if this doesn't hold
> for what I proposed too - just the line the user edits is in
> /usr/pkg/etc/rc.conf instead in my version...
I read that you were proposing two versions of the rc.d script to
serve two different set-ups. Maybe I didn't understand. It also seems
that your script is not complete and working. Filling in the missing
functionality which is found in /etc/rc.subr (choice of
.../etc/rc.conf or .../etc/rc.conf.d/, for one) would make it a lot
more complicated than the script I gave. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42668 | Subject: Re: RFC: Subpackages from a single package Makefile
To: None <>
From: Julio M. Merino Vidal <>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 05/31/2004 21:04:13
On Sun, 30 May 2004 19:39:08 +0000
"Johnny C. Lam" <> wrote:
> I've attached a proposal to allow generating multiple subpackages from
> a single package directory. I would appreciate comments on:
> (1) why this is a bad idea in pkgsrc;
It's not! This is something I wanted, for example, to install libraries
w/o header files in my server, where the later are completely useless
(and many Linux distros allow this structure, with their -dev packages).
Furthermore, it will make maintaining of packages a lot easier (as you
say in the document).
> (2) For package views users, it becomes easier to install bits of a
> package into different views without dragging in the whole package
> into every view. This becomes important with "extensible"
> packages that need to be added to the depot directory of the
> extended package, e.g. add just the Perl bits of cyrus-imapd-2.2.4
> into the perl-5.8.4 depot directory.
Have you considered the wrapper idea I proposed in a previous mail (from
beginning of May, IIRC)?
I don't like very much the idea of adding stuff of a package into the
depot directory of another one... (but well, I could stand it if we
have good granularity of packages, with this new framework...).
> (3) All subpackages are always built and installed if building from
> source.
I have to agree with this. This simplifies the build a lot, as one
doesn't need to mess with the build infrastructure of the package
(i.e., install everything and then create different binary packages).
This is the "purpose", right?
And at last, something that is not clear in the document. How do you
specify different dependencies for the different subpackages?
For example, consider librsvg2. The basic library could be in a
librsvg2-lib package, which does not need to depend on gtk2. Then,
there could be a subpackage, librsvg2-gtk2, providing the gtk module,
which needs gtk2. There should be a way to specify which depends
belong to each subpackage.
Thanks for doing this!
Julio M. Merino Vidal <>
The NetBSD Project - |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42669 | Subject: Re: pgsql's home
To: None <>
From: Louis Guillaume <>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 04/16/2007 16:58:30
Johnny C. Lam wrote:
> Geert Hendrickx wrote:
> hier(7) on NetBSD says:
I understand that there has been a lot of discussion in the past
regarding what goes where and hier(7) is supposed to have at least some
of the answers.
But hier(7) doesn't explicitly cover where things like databases and web
sites should go. Maybe that should change.
I'm curious regarding the history of /var. Doesn't "var" stand for
"variable", or "things that change"? In which case database data would
be included?
> I picked
> ${PREFIX} because that's the only place that pkgsrc really "owns" and
> controls. In any case, it's usually irrelevant... the pgsql rc.d script
> always uses the home directory that's set in /etc/passwd for the
> location of the database.
I don't want pkgsrc to "own" or control the data, just the packaged
software and configuration files. That's why I want the location to be
outside of ${PREFIX}.
Installing pgsql's home directory under ${PREFIX} is exactly in line
with their documentation (defaults to /usr/local/pgsql), since
/usr/local is the default for the --prefix configuration option.
But many admins (myself included) don't like to keep databases or things
like web servers in the ${PREFIX}. This way, I can cleanly remove my
whole /usr/pkg directory if things for some reason went awry with the
pkgsrc installation.
Many packages use /var for data files: mysql, openldap, subversion,
spamassassin; to name a few that I use.
For this reason I would prefer to keep pgsql's home in /var and hence my
suggestion in the patch. That's not to say it's the answer for pkgsrc,
just the obvious choice for me.
Perhaps this can be configurable in mk.conf.
Hmm, it dawns on me now that I might be able to add
"PGHOME=${VARBASE}/${PGUSER}" in mk.conf. If this works I'm happy.
Another suggestion related to your comment on the rc.d script: perhaps a
MESSAGE to tell the installer that they could "usermod -d
/preferred/path pgsql" if they wanted to change the location of the data |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42672 | tech-userlevel archive
Re: regexp word boundaries
On Sun, Dec 02, 2012 at 07:35:51PM -0500, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> >
> > It's long been a pet peeve of mine that regexp matching for word
> > boundaries has an annoying dependency on the implementation.
> >
> > My thanks to the many people hwo helped out with this table, reproduced
> > below, which shows what works, and what doesn't work, when attempting
> > to match the zero-width pattern at a word boundary.
> \b is a perl feature
> man perlre explains about that, and \<
> (BRE's versus ERE's, essentially).
Let's look at what happens:
vile-9.8nb1 on NetBSD/amd64 6.99.10, vile /usr/share/dict/words
cursor is placed at the start of the word "arch" on line 12397, as I
would expect.
vile-9.8e on FreeBSD/amd64 9.0-RC1 (I know, I know), vile
cursor is placed on the "arch" in "agonistarch" on line 4109
i.e. \< as a word boundary is not respected.
/\barch results in a "not found"
now another try:
vile-9.8e on FreeBSD/amd64 9.0-RC1, vile /etc/motd
The text reads
Welcome to FreeBSD!
Results in "not found"
so now let's use the one derived from perl regexps
and the word "to" is found.
(unfortunately, the cursor is placed on the space before the word "to".
So, it's not quite zero-width, and some people may find that close
Again, unfortunately, I'm not one of them).
not quite what i'd expect from RTFM, but thanks for the suggestion.
> > regexp word boundaries
> > \< \b [[:<:]]
> > perl not works not
> (see manpage, as noted)
I think it would probably be best if you viewed what I wrote as a general
criticism that is the trainwreck of regexp word boundary matching, rather
than pointing me at a manual page for one of the programs involved.
> > freebsd vile not works not
> > netbsd vile works not not
> without version numbers, I can only guess what you're referring to with
> (vile matches whitespace rather than a word boundary). Both are in the
> help-file. See
Thanks - I remember fixing the \< zero-width matching in the mid 1990s
on vile, and Paul merged the fix. Unfortunately, your change log only
goes back as far as 1999 when the license was changed to the GPL (and
when I stopped working on vile), so there's no record of anything going
back that far.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42677 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
1. Given 2 polynomials $p(x)=\prod_{i=1}^{r}(x-r_i), q(x)=\prod_{j=1}^{s}(x-r'_j)$, what is the name of the operation that constructs $f\#g(x) = \prod_{i=1}^{r}_{j=1}^{s} (x-r_i r'_j)$ from $p$ and $q$?
2. Let's say $p, q \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$. Is there an algorithm for computing the monic polynomial in $\mathbb{Z}[x]$ of least degree such that it vanishes on the set $\{ r_i r'_j \}_{i,j}$? I know that $p\# q$ has integral coefficients (by symmetric polynomials arguments), but I have examples where some elements occur more than once in the multiset $\{r_i r'_j \}$, and I guess it may effect the degree of the polynomial I seek.
The case $p=q$ is of big interest to me.
Motivation: given 2 linear recurrence (with integer coefficients) sequences $\{ a_n\}, \{b_n \}$, their Hadamarad product $\{a_n b_n \}$ also satisfies a linear recurrence with integer coefficients. Specifically, if $a_n$ satisfies a linear recurrence with characteristic polynomial $p(x)$ and $b_n$ with $q(x)$, then $\{a_n b_n \}$ satisfies a linear recurrence with characteristic polynomial $p \# q$ - but it may not be the minimal one, and that's why I am investigating.
share|improve this question
Re: 2, why not just divide $p\#q$ by the greatest common divisor of $p\#q$ and $(p\#q)'$? Multiple root elimination – user31373 Jun 19 '12 at 16:42
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1 Answer
up vote 0 down vote accepted
1. I don't know if there is a widely accepted name, but I would call it the Kronecker product. The reason is that if $M, N$ are two matrices with eigenvalues $m_i, n_i$ then their Kronecker product $M \otimes N$ has eigenvalues $m_i n_j$.
2. Let $M, N$ be the companion matrices of your polynomials. Compute the characteristic polynomial of $M \otimes N$, then divide it by the gcd with its formal derivative as Leonid says in the comments. This is divisible by the polynomial you want and from here I think you just have to factor it.
If your actual goal is to compute Hadamard products of rational functions, there is another way to do this using complex analysis. This is described in this blog post.
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This is a follow up to this question.
I'm looking for terminology or references that describe a property of these problems related to how much easier or more difficult they are to optimize as we constrain or expand the domain. This is motivated by looking at search procedures that successively assign values to a subset of variables, and I'd like to understand problem characteristics that make it so assigning more variables in the search tree will make the constrained combinatorial problem easier or harder.
It's not always the case that assigning variables makes the problem easier.
Example: suppose we have an optimization version of the subset-sum problem: find a subset of integers $S = \{x_1, \ldots, x_n\}$ whose sum is as large as possible but not larger than $t$. If one of the elements of $S$ is $t$, then the problem is trivial. As a less extreme example, if one of the elements of $S$, say $x_i$, is $t - k$ and another element, say $x_j$, is $k$, the problem is also trivial. However, if we branch in the search tree on $x_i$ not being used (or any other $x_{i'}$ being used where $i' \not = i, i' \not = j$), then we get a potentially hard optimization problem.
Conversely, Jonah raised the point in the previous question comments that if you think about this in the other direction--of trying to expand the domain to make a hard problem become easy, then
Is there a term to describe this property--how much easier or more difficult can you make a class of problem by constraining $k$ variable values? Are there other cases where constraining variable values makes a problem harder (other than more examples of constraining a variable eliminating a trivial solution)?
I realize that "harder" and "trivial" need to be defined better. I'd also be curious about ideas on that.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42684 | I've noticed a number of users spamming the site today, either by asking the same question over and over, or by posting rap lyrics as comments in nearly every thread.
I feel powerless to stop it after I've used up my 5 offensives (and don't want to waste any more karma downvoting).
Is there a way to report patterns of spamming? Is there anything I can do to help remove spam more quickly?
share|improve this question
yeah this needs to be taken care of, IP banning probably. – Luca Matteis Feb 21 '09 at 3:38
Incidentally, my spam fighting today has cost me 140 karma points, since 5 people marked my "stop spamming" answer as offensive. If you want to discourage people from helping eliminate spam, that seems like a pretty good way. – jrockway Feb 21 '09 at 3:39
I will vote up your stop spamming answers. – magnifico Feb 21 '09 at 3:39
don't worry jrockway , I'll search for 14 good answers and upvote. Well done. – Learning Feb 21 '09 at 3:40
@learning those votes will get rolled back by the fraud detection – Rex M Feb 21 '09 at 3:40
+1 on this one, karma comin' back! – Marc Novakowski Feb 21 '09 at 3:41
I learned today that I can only flag five offensive posts per day. And accidentally earned the Citizen Patrol badge. And used some rep. This is just annoying. – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 21 '09 at 3:42
It's a mess. Here's my lame suggestion: stackoverflow.uservoice.com/pages/general/suggestions/… – Shog9 Feb 21 '09 at 3:43
Thanks everyone! I didn't mean to dwell on the karma loss, but I appreciate the concern :) – jrockway Feb 21 '09 at 3:45
Yeah, next time don't even bother downvoting - it doesn't do anything to the spammer and you just lose your own rep. – Kyle Cronin Feb 21 '09 at 3:47
I'll upvote only 2 a day :) – Learning Feb 21 '09 at 3:48
@ jrockway : You were downvoted because of your first line, you know what you said. That is just as bad. – Ed Swangren Feb 21 '09 at 3:50
+1 here though, someone needs to have ban power. – Ed Swangren Feb 21 '09 at 3:51
Fair enough. I don't see why we need to be nice to people that are ruining the site, though. (FWIW, "STFU and write some code" is a conference t-shirt. Not offensive :) – jrockway Feb 21 '09 at 3:52
+1 to recover some karma (but you should not have been abusive in your response (if yours was the post I remember (with the F word))). – paxdiablo Feb 21 '09 at 4:02
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Aug 5 '09 at 2:54
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14 Answers
These posts come all in one wave it seems. The offending person will keep posting until they get bored. One way to deal with this is to have a cap on how many questions can be asked in a given period of time. Just a thought.
If you have more than 2K reputation, you can edit their question and title or post to something not offensive.
share|improve this answer
I did this, many, many times. The spammers are automating the spamming, or at least revert my reverts very quickly. – jrockway Feb 21 '09 at 3:46
A real risk in editing offensive questions: I think there's a 100-point hit on rep to the last editor when the question gets closed with 5 offense points. This could easily happen with 5 people having the 'bad' question open and flagging it without seeing your 'good' changes. Then you suffer. – paxdiablo Feb 21 '09 at 4:11
@paxdiablo's comment is not accurate. The -100 point reputation loss applies only to the author of the original revision. There is no penalty for editing offensive or spam questions. – Cody Gray Aug 6 '13 at 13:02
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I'm wondering the same. Also I have to go through 'human verification' when I try to edit the offending posts.
EDIT : I noticed few things after this :
1. 5 offensive votes per day? What's the logic. I want to mark as many offensive posts as I see.
2. Human verification after each 2-3 edits? If I've verified I'm human once at least give me 30 minutes before popping the question again.
3. How come spammers are faster than all the other people combined?
share|improve this answer
On a related note: thanks for cleaning up a lot of the spam. – BenMaddox Feb 21 '09 at 3:48
on point 1 -- the logic is to keep spammers from flagging things as offensive, I imagine.. – SquareCog Feb 21 '09 at 4:01
If you give those 30 minutes, bot can be semi-automated, with a human passing the verification every 30 minutes. – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 21 '09 at 4:02
@SquareCog: You need 15 rep to flag as offensive. – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 21 '09 at 4:03
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Simply let the reputation to go negative values, once one reaches, say, -20 reputation he can't post for some time perioud, or gets deleted, castrated or what not...
share|improve this answer
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as negative reputation. Not that it matters - spammers would just create new accounts by deleting their cookies and continue spamming. – Kyle Cronin Feb 21 '09 at 3:40
There's no perfect cure, ever. That would just help the community to manage the site, which is, after all, the goal of SO. – arul Feb 21 '09 at 3:41
Well, a spam filter, an IP throttle and some new functionality changes as proposed by others would go a long way towards keeping it down... – alphadogg Feb 21 '09 at 4:07
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I just used up my 5 offensives too. I'm of the opinion we need more moderators - a few trusted individuals that can swiftly delete and ban spammers.
Also, I have an idea that might prevent abuse of the offensive flag and still allow users to have as many as they need in this case: Once a post is removed as offensive, the offensive votes are returned to the users. That way in this sort of rapid-fire situation the 'good guys' aren't stuck without ammo. (The potential abuse is a malicious user having 5 sock puppet accounts removing things as offensive without limit, but that would take more time to cultivate and operate than some two-bit drive-by spammer)
edit: suggestion now UserVoice'd
share|improve this answer
+1. It would be nice if there was an IRC channel where we could coordinate anti-spam efforts. (Hey, sometimes I have too much free time, and this is a not a bad way to kill it off :) – jrockway Feb 21 '09 at 3:41
If you're into IRC, there's #stackoverflow on freenode – Shog9 Feb 21 '09 at 3:47
There are more moderators now - anyone over 10k rep. – Jay Bazuzi Feb 21 '09 at 3:55
I have over 10k and I had 5 offensive votes. After that all I could do was watch it burn. – Kyle Cronin Feb 21 '09 at 3:57
*5 offensive votes = I can cast only 5 offensive votes per day – Kyle Cronin Feb 21 '09 at 3:58
meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/7878/… ( I just noticed this ) – Brad Gilbert Aug 15 '09 at 17:46
There are also some abusive moderators. Don't forget, the system favors people with enough spare time to be a moderator, which isn't the optimal way of choosing the best and the brightest. – thrillscience Jan 2 '11 at 19:53
@thrillscience This post was written when the only moderators in the system were Jeff, Joel, Jarrod, and Geoff. I agree that the burgeoning number of moderators may present issues now, but at the time this post was written the opposite was the case. – Kyle Cronin Jan 2 '11 at 20:16
That said, editing offensive/spam posts will clear the offensive/spam flags as relates to the automatic deletion when it collects enough community votes. Mods still see the flags, but the community could often delete them more quickly. – Andrew Barber Aug 6 '13 at 14:51
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Yes we have all wasted some points and offensive bids, but this discussion itself belongs on uservoice, we don't want to proliferate bad content.
Another note I think providing attention is just causing the enjoyment to grow, possibly ignore and stop editing his posts and maybe he/she will get bored faster.
share|improve this answer
I was about to say the same thing. zabzonk, as annoying as he/she was, got stomped for a uservoice-ish question... – alphadogg Feb 21 '09 at 3:43
Yes exactly, unfortunately sometimes the correct channels aren't followed although the ghost of a rapper that is currently posting is much different then zabzonk or so it seems. Although this will pass, sometimes the children need to feel empowered by disrupting a community. It will pass. – Quintin Robinson Feb 21 '09 at 3:45
How come the rapper has amassed 45 rep? – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 21 '09 at 3:49
@CQ: Yes, eventually it will pass. @Martinho: I was wondering the same... – alphadogg Feb 21 '09 at 3:51
Must be that other guy with javascript problems... – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 21 '09 at 3:54
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But what's going to keep him/her from getting a different login? This is a great site. Doesn't it have moderator that could just delete and block abuse.
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In the podcast, Joel stated his opinion that the voting system can handle abuse. Voting against an abuse post is one way for the voting system to handle the problem. Another way the voting system can handle the problem is if we vote up legitimate questions. So if you are afraid of spending any more reputation on spammers, you can still help by up voting legitimate questions.
share|improve this answer
This is one time Joel is obviously wrong. You guys do realize that even Joel can be wrong sometimes, right? Moderation is not the way to go, but there are probably clear-cut business rules that could be applied to the egregious cases. – alphadogg Feb 21 '09 at 3:55
BTW, the second sentence has a smiley... :) – alphadogg Feb 21 '09 at 4:05
Whether Joel is right or wrong is not the point. The point is that his view on this issue has influenced the site design. – magnifico Feb 21 '09 at 4:10
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Rate limiting would be nice, I see at least 6 posts done in the same minute by this spammer, that seems a bit excessive. Putting an limit on the number of new questions per minute would clean things up a bit. Start it at something reasonable like 5 and if that is hit or exceeded decrease it.
share|improve this answer
There's already the "30 second comment" limit, which hits me when I realise a mistake in my first comment and want to immediately make a second comment to admit/correct it. Allowing 6 questions per minute, but preventing 3 comments per minute, sounds more like a historical accident than a policy :-) – onebyone Feb 21 '09 at 3:53
IMHO 5 questions/minutes is still too much. Nobody can ask 5 reasonable good questions in a minute. One question in 5 minute in quiet enough. – Luc M Feb 21 '09 at 4:00
I agree with Luc M – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 21 '09 at 4:05
Agreed, I feel it's better to err on the side of caution for someone who has several fine-grained questions to ask that merit multiple posts however. 2-3 per minute would be a fine middle ground. – Sid Farkus Feb 21 '09 at 4:12
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Until this ends, I am just using the "Hot" list instead.
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I would recommend to offer to not only report the post as "offensive", but if you report the second one from the same user as offensive that the system asks if you want to report the user as offensive (or does automatically so). This may help a little bit (although spammers would quickly change their strategy, but this time spam was not the problem, just a teenager having too much testosterone combined with whatever...).
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This happened once before and I used the "contact us" link at the bottom of every page to notify the SO admins. The user was deleted shortly thereafter. I have done this today as well for 2pac but I'm not sure what hours the admins work, so it may take a while. Just ignore it, go away for a few hours. When you get back, things will be back to normal.
If it happens again, I sure the admins will post a N-questions-per-minute limit along the lines of their comment add and delete policies.
Don't waste your downvote points, mark it offensive if you like, but trust in the admins to sort it out (either manually or by introducing some limitation).
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It appears this may have worked (or 2pac has left the building :-). – paxdiablo Feb 21 '09 at 4:00
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In an earlier podcast, Joel suggested setting an "evil" bit on an abuser's account. All posts from that account could be made invisible to non-evil users. The abuser would see their posts normally, rather than seeing them getting removed. They would think they were just being ignored rather than thinking that they were really irritating someone.
Another option mentioned would be slowing down the site for abusing IP addresses for some period of time. How long would you hang around if every page took 15-30 seconds to load?
I don't think these features were ever implemented. Maybe it's time they should be.
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This isn't a big deal, at least it hasn't been so far: how many examples of blatant, disruptive abuse have you seen in Stack Overflow since you started? I haven't seen much.
I think that poorly-written questions and questions that are clearly intended to farm rep instead of spread knowledge are a much bigger blight on SO.
Perhaps users with only 1 reputation should only be allowed to post once / day.
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once/day may be too low, but six times a minute is definitely too high. I'm sure nobody can type more than one well phrased question in five minutes, though. – gimpf Feb 21 '09 at 4:02
I may only be 24 days old on SO, but this was by far the worst time I have had. Poorly-written questions are forgivable. Also, in terms of "being able to do something about", dealing with 2pac would be easier than only allowing people who know how to ask questions... – alphadogg Feb 21 '09 at 4:03
I just had a case when some Python zealot perceived that I was insulting Python and he went and downgraded every answer I made in the past few months (and told me he did so). This makes me not want to support or recommend StackOverflow to anyone – thrillscience Jan 2 '11 at 19:56
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One thing that I think would help: If a spammer gets the boot then all negative points people got for reporting him are refunded. This would remove the downside of reporting the scum and result in them getting closed and booted faster.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42685 | I was trying to press the log in button on the top of the math site, and it showed me the “Aw, Snap!” page every time. I tried all alternative sites, including the main login. However, I am still shown the same page with that browser. The incognito mode doesn't work either.
I am using Chromium's version 26.0.1389.0 (177870) but for typing this question out, I have to use IE which I personally don't prefer to use.
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I don't think that version (a dev release) is supported just yet. (Though I have no idea if that might contribute to the cause) Did you try a regular version? – Bart Jan 20 '13 at 10:04
@Bart Google Chrome? Yes, it does work on Google Chrome. – Parth Kohli Jan 20 '13 at 10:12
Okay. Then I think the answer is going to be "yeah, we don't support that yet". But I'm sure someone will have a look. – Bart Jan 20 '13 at 10:15
Using future version of browser is no different than using very old version where it concerns browser support in sites: things might or might not work. – Shadow Wizard Jan 20 '13 at 12:08
Related: How to get more info when the “Aw Snap” screen shows up in Chrome? (and "Aw, Snap!" in Google's help). – Arjan Jan 20 '13 at 17:00
@Arjan I checked out the latter, and I recall doing a browser test on StackExchange where everything was shown okay. – Parth Kohli Jan 20 '13 at 17:03
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42700 | How Safe Is Your Brokerage Account?
These are the protections in place if your firm fails.
When a brokerage firm fails, customer assets are usually still safe—up to a point. All brokerage firms that do business with the public are required to be members of the Securities Investor Protection Corp., a nonprofit organization that provides some insurance to investors if the firm becomes insolvent.
SIPC covers the replacement of missing stocks and other securities up to $500,000, including $100,000 in cash claims. Investors typically receive their assets in one to three months once liquidation is initiated. The cash comes from a reserve fund authorized by Congress specifically for investors at failed brokerage firms.
But customers get these payouts only as a result of the firm's failure or special financial circumstances in which customer assets are missing, like theft, conversion, or unauthorized trading. SIPC does not reimburse ordinary market loss or investments not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, like hedge funds, fixed annuities, commodity futures, currency, or investment contracts. People with significant ownership of the failed firm, like directors, officers, or partners, are ineligible for this protection.
Customers who have multiple accounts with the same brokerage firm, such as an IRA, joint account with a spouse, and an individual account, for example, are eligible for the $500,000 coverage of each account or the replacement of $1,500,000 worth of assets.
Here's a list of tips for brokerage firm liquidations and a guide to avoiding firms that pose a financial or fraud risk to investors. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42703 | Export (0) Print
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operator MOD
Returns the integer value of the remainder (modulo) when dividing expression1 by expression2.
expression1 MOD expression2
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The char keyword is used to declare a Unicode character in the range indicated in the following table. Unicode characters are 16-bit characters used to represent most of the known written languages throughout the world.
Type Range Size .NET Framework type
char U+0000 to U+ffff Unicode 16-bit character System.Char
Constants of the char type can be written as character literals, hexadecimal escape sequence, or Unicode representation. You can also cast the integral character codes. All of the following statements declare a char variable and initialize it with the character X:
char MyChar = 'X'; // Character literal
char MyChar = '\x0058'; // Hexadecimal
char MyChar = (char)88; // Cast from integral type
char MyChar = '\u0058'; // Unicode
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IDL Attributes
Traditionally, maintaining an .idl file meant that you had to:
• Be familiar with the structure and syntax of an .idl file to be able to modify it.
• Rely on a wizard, which would let you modify some aspects of the .idl file.
Now, you can modify the .idl file from within a source code file using Visual C++ IDL attributes. In many cases, Visual C++ IDL attributes have the same name as MIDL attributes. When the name of a Visual C++ IDL attribute and a MIDL attribute are the same, it means that putting the Visual C++ attribute in your source code file will result in an .idl file that contains its namesake MIDL attribute. However, a Visual C++ IDL attribute may not provide all the functionality of a MIDL attribute.
When not used with COM attributes, IDL attributes let you define interfaces and when compiled, are used to define the generated .idl file. When used with COM attributes in an ATL project, some IDL attributes, such as coclass, cause code to be injected into our project.
Note that idl_quote lets you use MIDL constructs that are not supported in the current version of Visual C++. This and other attributes such as importlib and includelib help you to use existing .idl files in your current Visual C++ project.
Attribute Description
aggregatable Indicates that a control can be aggregated by another control.
appobject Identifies the coclass as an application object, which is associated with a full EXE application, and indicates that the functions and properties of the coclass are globally available in this type library.
async_uuid Specifies the UUID that directs the MIDL compiler to define both synchronous and asynchronous versions of a COM interface.
bindable Indicates that the property supports data binding.
call_as Enables a nonremotable function to be mapped to a remote function.
case Used with the switch_type attribute in a union.
coclass Places class definition into an .idl file as coclass.
control Specifies that the user-defined type is a control.
cpp_quote Emits the specified string, without the quote characters, into the generated header file.
defaultbind Indicates the single, bindable property that best represents the object.
defaultcollelem Used for Visual Basic code optimization.
defaultvalue Allows specification of a default value for a typed optional parameter.
default Indicates that the custom or dispinterface defined within a coclass represents the default programmability interface.
defaultvtable Defines an interface as the default vtable interface for a control.
dispinterface Places an interface in the .idl file as a dispatch interface.
displaybind Indicates a property that should be displayed to the user as bindable.
dual Places an interface in the .idl file as a dual interface.
entry Specifies an exported function or constant in a module by identifying the entry point in the DLL.
first_is Specifies the index of the first array element to be transmitted.
helpcontext Specifies a context ID that lets the user view information about this element in the Help file.
helpfile Sets the name of the Help file for a type library.
helpstringcontext Specifies the ID of a help topic in an .hlp or .chm file.
helpstringdll Specifies the name of the DLL to use to perform document string lookup (localization).
helpstring Specifies a character string that is used to describe the element to which it applies.
hidden Indicates that the item exists but should not be displayed in a user-oriented browser.
idl_module Specifies an entry point in a DLL.
idl_quote Allows you to use attributes or IDL constructs that are not supported in the current version of Visual C++.
id Specifies a DISPID for a member function (either a property or a method, in an interface or dispinterface).
iid_is Specifies the IID of the COM interface pointed to by an interface pointer.
immediatebind Indicates that the database will be notified immediately of all changes to a property of a data-bound object.
importlib Makes types that have already been compiled into another type library available to the type library being created.
import Specifies another .idl, .odl, or header file containing definitions you want to reference from your main .idl file.
include Specifies one or more header files to be included in the generated .idl file.
includelib Causes an .idl or .h file to be included in the generated .idl file.
in Indicates that a parameter is to be passed from the calling procedure to the called procedure.
last_is Specifies the index of the last array element to be transmitted.
lcid Lets you pass a locale identifier to a function.
length_is Specifies the number of array elements to be transmitted.
licensed Indicates that the coclass to which it applies is licensed, and must be instantiated using IClassFactory2.
local Allows you to use the MIDL compiler as a header generator when used in the interface header. When used in an individual function, designates a local procedure for which no stubs are generated.
max_is Designates the maximum value for a valid array index.
module Defines the library block in the .idl file.
ms_union Controls the network data representation alignment of nonencapsulated unions.
no_injected_text Prevents the compiler from injecting code as a result of attribute use.
nonbrowsable Indicates that an interface member should not be displayed in a property browser.
noncreatable Defines an object that cannot be instantiated by itself.
nonextensible Specifies that the IDispatch implementation includes only the properties and methods listed in the interface description and cannot be extended with additional members at run time.
object Identifies a custom interface; synonymous with custom attribute.
odl Identifies an interface as an Object Description Language (ODL) interface.
oleautomation Indicates that an interface is compatible with Automation.
optional Specifies an optional parameter for a member function.
out Identifies pointer parameters that are returned from the called procedure to the calling procedure (from the server to the client).
pointer_default Specifies the default pointer attribute for all pointers except top-level pointers that appear in parameter lists.
pragma Emits the specified string, without the quote characters, into the generated .idl file.
progid Specifies the ProgID for a COM object.
propget Specifies a property accessor (get) function.
propputref Specifies a property setting function that uses a reference instead of a value.
propput Specifies a property setting function.
ptr Designates a pointer as a full pointer.
public Ensures that a typedef will go into the type library even if it is not referenced from within the .idl file.
range Specifies a range of allowable values for arguments or fields whose values are set at run time.
readonly Prohibits assignment to a variable.
ref Identifies a reference pointer.
requestedit Indicates that the property supports the OnRequestEdit notification.
restricted Specifies that a library, or member of a module, interface, or dispinterface cannot be called arbitrarily.
retval Designates the parameter that receives the return value of the member.
source Indicates that a member of a class, property, or method is a source of events.
string Indicates that the one-dimensional char, wchar_t, byte, or equivalent array or the pointer to such an array must be treated as a string.
switch_is Specifies the expression or identifier acting as the union discriminant that selects the union member.
switch_type Identifies the type of the variable used as the union discriminant.
transmit_as Instructs the compiler to associate a presented type, which client and server applications manipulate, with a transmitted type.
uidefault Indicates that the type information member is the default member for display in the user interface.
unique Specifies a unique pointer.
usesgetlasterror Tells the caller that if there is an error when calling that function, the caller can then call GetLastError to retrieve the error code.
uuid Specifies the unique ID for a class or interface.
v1_enum Directs that the specified enumerated type be transmitted as a 32-bit entity, rather than the 16-bit default.
vararg Specifies that the function take a variable number of arguments.
vi_progid Specifies a version-independent form of the ProgID.
wire_marshal Specifies a data type that will be used for transmission instead of an application-specific data type.
See Also
Attributes by Group | Attribute Limitations (Edit and Continue)
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42797 | Konstantin Kakaes
Konstantin Kakaes, author of The Pioneer Detectives: Did a distant spacecraft prove Einstein and Newton Wrong?, is a Future Tense fellow at the New America Foundation writing about science and technology, and is the former Mexico City bureau chief for The Economist. His work has been published in The Wall Street JournalForeign Policy, and The Washington Post and appears frequently in Slate. He was a 2010 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before becoming a journalist, he studied physics at Harvard University. He lives in Washington, D.C.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42801 | Using your phone's internet browser
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I have Franklin Templeton FT India Blanced Fund - Growth.
I want your advice on whether to retain it or sell it or is it a dead fund.
Asked by kumaraswamy, 05 Feb '09 12:30 pm
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Hi Kumar,
This is not the Good fund amongst Balanced Funds you should go for-
Kotak Balanced Unit SBI M agnum Balanced Tata Balanced Fund .
Otherwise you should Switchover to Franklin India Prima Plus-a good fund from Franklin.
For any further queries on INVESTING you can contact me, if you are satisfied with this answer pl. comment/ rate the usefulness.
Answered by prasanna patvardhan, 24 Feb '09 11:36 am
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42805 | Slowly, she began lowering my self-esteem
from Eminem – 50 Ways Lyrics on Rap Genius
Little by little she began to lower his self-esteem, making him feel like crap.
To help improve the meaning of these lyrics, visit “50 Ways” by Eminem Lyrics and leave a comment on the lyrics box |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42832 | New Catholic Dictionary – Venerable Leonard Lessius
Jesuit theologian, born Brecht, Belgium, 1554; died Louvain, 1623. Having gained his doctorate of philosophy at Louvain when only seventeen, he entered the Society of Jesus, 1573. He studied theology in Rome, and was sent as professor of theology to Louvain where he remained for 15 years, acquiring a reputation for learning surpassed only by the esteem he was held in for his practice of virtue. His first writing Theses theologicæ (1586), provoked a violent controversy over his doctrine of efficacious grace and biblical inspiration. A brief apologetic work on the true religion effected many conversions. His most valuable treatise, however, is his De justitia et jure, marked by clearness of mind, sound judgment, and common sense. Among his ascetical works are treatises on the Supreme God, the Divine Perfections, and the Names of God; the last named was translated by T. J. Campbell and published in New York, 1912.
MLA Citation
• “Venerable Leonard Lessius”. New Catholic Dictionary. October 2012. Web. 16 March 2014. <> |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42834 | Blair: With a Single Glance: Buddhist Icon and Early Mikkyō Vision
With a Single Glance: Buddhist Icon and Early Mikkyō Vision. Cynthea J. Bogel. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009. 496 pp.*
Reviewed by Heather Blair
There is simply no other book like With a Single Glance in (or out) of print. This volume makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of the complex field of esoteric Buddhist visual culture. Cynthea J. Bogel’s focus is the establishment in ninth century Japan of a systematized complex of representational, ritual, and doctrinal practices that she refers to as Esotericism or Mikkyō, as distinct from un-systematized (and lower-case) esoteric elements current in the Nara period. Her stated mission is to “challenge the authoritative status of the text” (p. 58) in mainstream Buddhist studies and to exhort us to consider “Buddhism as a visual and material tradition” (p. 56). Appropriately, the subtitle of the book is a fair indication of Bogel’s project: she eschews aesthetic assessments or use of the term “art” in favor of an analysis that highlights the “visual efficacy” of Esoteric icons—that is, their abilities to instantiate as well as to represent, to enlighten and to “look back” at the practitioner. She achieves this goal through the presentation of an impressive array of information over the course of 300-odd pages. Significantly, her arguments are supported by more than 100 high-quality, mostly color illustrations.
Given the historical focus of the volume, it can come as no surprise that Kūkai (774-835, a.k.a. Kōbō Daishi) and his Shingon teachings play a starring role here, but Bogel also incorporates welcome discussions of nascent Tendai Esotericism and its imagery into her discussion. In fact, one of the major strengths of the project is its thoroughgoing attention to context. To chart out the religious and visual culture with which Esotericism interacted upon its arrival in Japan, Bogel analyzes a considerable body of non-Esoteric material from the Nara and early Heian periods. Similarly, in order to assess the relationship between Mikkyō’s continental inspirations and its development in Japan, she provides a very useful treatment of the scant but striking material evidence for Tang Esotericism.
The book is divided into five more or less equal parts, and the argument is more lateral than linear. As a result, the five-fold structure is reminiscent of a mandala, and given the subject matter, it seems unlikely that this is coincidental. Definitions of major terms, the state of the field, and assessments of Buddhist “visualities” and iconicity occupy the first several chapters. Thus the first part of the book introduces Bogel’s fundamental argument on the importance of visuality to Buddhist culture in general and Mikkyō in particular. Part Two considers Kūkai’s mediation of continental and Japanese Esotericism. First Bogel examines evidence for Tang Esotericism, including little known and little published icons excavated at the Anguosi site and material imported to Japan by Saichō; then she takes up Kūkai’s itemization of major objects that he brought back from China (the Shōrai mokuroku). This is a rare survey and analysis of all items listed in this famous document, and it comes complete with plentiful illustrations. The result is a fascinating glimpse into the multi-faceted materiality of Kūkai's transmission of the Dharma. Part Three is devoted to establishing the Japanese context for the arrival of imagery and ideas discussed in the previous chapters. It works to document the roles of “vision” in Japanese religious culture—both in terms of the physically visible (e.g., icons) and invisible (e.g., visualized images)—prior to and during the early diffusion of Mikkyō. Part Four focuses primarily on the mutual integration of Esoteric images and ritual practice. This portion of the book includes one chapter on contemplations (C: guan; J: kan) and one on the use of imagery in Esoteric ritual. Interestingly, this is the least-illustrated portion of the book, and there is little by way of thick description: the discussion remains fairly general and theoretical. Part Five considers the physical and ritual spaces of Esoteric visual culture, and begins with a survey of the architectonic contexts inhabited and the ritual work done by mandalas, paintings and sculptures. The last chapter provides an in-depth case study of the complex ninth century sculptural mandala installed in the lecture hall at Tōji in Kyōto. Here Bogel provides an interesting analysis of the mandala as related to but not derivative of texts (i.e., sutras or ritual commentaries). This is where the book ends—there is no separate conclusion.
Each of the parts just outlined stands more or less on its own and could be read independently by an audience with basic knowledge in Buddhist studies, Asian art history, or Japanese cultural history. Those with little familiarity with the topic at hand are advised to begin by reading the first chapter prior to the introduction in order to avail themselves of definitions and introductions to major terms. Overall, the multi-centered quality of the discussion undermines argumentative incisiveness on a macro-level, and in this respect it is significant that the book ends without a formal conclusion. On the other hand, the interlocking structure contributes to a subtle kind of provocation: Bogel’s work is so informationally dense that it invites active and ongoing reflection.
As invaluable as With a Single Glance is, there are also several issues that make reading and reference more difficult than need be. Perhaps the most obvious is the incidence of spelling and orthographic errors—e.g., Śuśruta samhitā for Suśruta saṃhitā, BuddhālocanaK for Buddhalocanā, or Huayen for Huayan (Pinyin transliteration is used for Chinese terms). For the most part, such errors are minor, and readers familiar with Sanskrit, Chinese, and/or Japanese will be readily able to infer the correct terms. Then again, misspellings may cause difficulty in tracking follow-up references. This is a shame because this book will be quite useful to graduate students and members of the art history and museological community who do not have specialized language training. There are also cases of inconsistency and situations in which cross-references or more careful editing would have increased readability, particularly for non-specialists. The author works with numerous texts (sutras, ritual commentaries, historical records, etc.). While this is part of the appeal of the book, it may also provide ground for confusion. In many cases, including the index, sources’ titles are given in English translation. At other points, however, titles appear solely in transliteration. For instance, the Nihon ryōiki is cited numerous times—and to good effect—beginning on page 24. The first reference is to its Japanese title, but on page 30, the title is given in English translation with a note that it will appear henceforth as Miraculous Stories. Then, on page 57, it crops up again as Nihon Ryōiki, and the best background information on its content is provided only on page 148.
Unfortunately, there is also no comprehensive list of illustrations—and given the number of figures, a table of contents would be of considerable help in (re)locating particular images. With respect to back matter, there is no glossary, an addition that, once again, would have made the book more accessible to non-specialists. The index, however, is functional, if not as detailed one might wish (for instance, “logic of similarity,” one of Bogel’s major analytical concepts, is not included).
Many issues of interest to different constituencies surface at various points in the book. These range, for example, from treatments of obscure and little-discussed sculptures, to discussion of debates about just what Kūkai imported from China and what he invented, to well-turned comments on textiles. In short, this is a rich volume indeed: With a Single Glance will be useful to researchers, graduate students, collectors, and museum professionals, both as a monograph and as a support for ongoing reference.
Heather Blair is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research specialty is the pre-modern history of Japanese religions. Her 2008 dissertation in Religion at Harvard University—"Peak of Gold: Trace, Place and Religion in Heian Japan"—won the 2009 Weinstein Dissertation Prize given by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. Her article “Zaō Gongen: From Mountain Icon to National Treasure” is forthcoming in Monumenta Nipponica.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42842 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
Well... title says it all, actually. We've got a Scheduled Task set up on a windows server 2003 box running as the Network Service, and the batch file it runs will invoke "sc" to stop and then start a service on another windows box, however sc reports:
[SC] OpenService FAILED 5:
Access is denied.
Running the same batch file via the windows explorer has no issues, and my user account is part of the Administrators group so I believe this is why there are no issues when I try it manually. Is this a permissions thing I enable for Network Service on the first server? Or do I enable permissions for Network Service somehow on the target server?
This question (http://serverfault.com/questions/19382/why-sc-query-fails-from-one-machine-but-works-from-another) touches on something similar, but I'm looking for enabling the Network Service to access the service via the scheduled task.
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Try adding the AD account for the computer which is trying to run the command to the Administrators group on the computer with the service being modified.
If the computer running the scheduled task is SERVER1 and the other machine is SERVER2 then in SERVER2's local administrators group put YOURDOMAIN\SERVER1$. The $ is important.
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thanks, we will try this out. the other server is administered by a different group so it might take a few days to get to it... – weiji Dec 1 '10 at 18:20
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42847 | Blog Posts by Woman s Day
• How to Sew a Button
By Crystal Tate
Everyday Things You Need to Know
Woman's Day has always been committed to helping women "live well every day." And while that saying applies to the big things in life, it's knowing how to tackle the little tasks that keeps your day-to-day running seamlessly. That's why we're introducing a new series, All's Well That End's Well, where we'll give you the tips and tools you need to know for solving daily dilemmas. First on our list of things to teach you? How to sew a button. Use these step-by-step photos and tips from Erin Bried, author of How to Sew a Button and Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew if you ever need a quick fastener fix.
Everyday Things You Need to KnowEveryday Things You Need to Know
Step 1
Gather your supplies- the button, a needle, about 2 feet of matching thread and a pair of scissors. (Tip: To make needle-threading easier, cut the thread at an angle.)
Photo: © Jonny Vali
Step 2Step 2Step 2
Thread the needle. Knot the ends together by making a loop and pulling the ends through. Knot once more.
Photo: © Jonny Read More »from How to Sew a Button
• Workout Routine: 20 Minutes to Slim
By Denise Austin
All photos by Hilmar Meyer-Bosse
20 Minutes to Slim20 Minutes to SlimThe fat-burning routine I've created for you here has 10 moves, each of which you'll do for 2 minutes. (You can use your cell phone or a stopwatch to keep tabs on time.) Do this workout three days a week and you could lose up to 5 pounds in just three weeks!
Warmup/Power March with Arm Firmer—AWarmup/Power March with Arm Firmer—AWarmup/Power March with Arm Firmer-A
March or jog in place, keeping your abs in tight, back straight, for 40 seconds.
Warmup/Power March with Arm Firmer—BWarmup/Power March with Arm Firmer—BWarmup/Power March with Arm Firmer-B
Keep marching as you pump and curl your arms toward shoulders (like a bicep curl) for 40 seconds.
Warmup/Power March with Arm Firmer—CWarmup/Power March with Arm Firmer—CWarmup/Power March with Arm Firmer-C
Continue marching and repeatedly press your arms behind you for 40 seconds.
Punches DownPunches DownPunches Down
Stand with right leg slightly bent, left leg extended to side with toe touching ground. With hands in fists, pull right elbow back toward ceiling and extend left arm down toward the ground. As you shift your weight to the left foot, bending left knee, pull left elbow back and up
Read More »from Workout Routine: 20 Minutes to Slim
• Wabi Sabi: Making Peace with Imperfection
By Lori Erickson
And as I stood there, contemplating the changes that had somehow snuck up on me, I felt a twinge of sorrow for my lost youth (Where did it go? Where did I go?)-and then I began to appreciate how wabi-sabi my face looked.
Read More »from Wabi Sabi: Making Peace with Imperfection
• How to Arrange Multiple Picture Frames
By Woman's Day Staff
How to Arrange Multiple Picture Frames
Photo: © Shutterstock
How you arrange your art makes as much of a visual statement as the art itself. A free-form approach gives off a creative vibe. For a crisp look, go with a grid. And to be casual and modern at once, the ledge is a trendy option.
This is your best bet when you have a variety of styles and sizes you want to display together. Select your largest piece first and decide whether you want it to be at the center or off to the side. Then, arranging all of your artwork on the floor, place your other pieces around the largest one. Keep the same distance between each frame. When you're happy with the arrangement, transfer it to the wall.
If you have four or more paintings of equal size, go for the striking, graphic look of a grid. Precise measuring is essential with this arrangement-if one painting is slightly off, it throws off the crisp look of the composition. Keep the same distance between each
Read More »from How to Arrange Multiple Picture Frames
• Take the Stress Out of Organizing
By Angela Ebron
Take the Stress out of Organizing Take the Stress out of Organizing If just the idea of getting organized makes you feel overwhelmed, think on the small side. Micro-organizing gives you the same sense of accomplishment-without all the hassle. Here's how it works: Instead of spending hours tackling the entire house, pick one small thing that you can put in order in a fraction of the time. Who knows? It might just spur you to do more.
Glove Compartment
Admit it: You're really not sure what's in there. Well, now's the time to find out. "Have a trash bag handy when you empty the contents so you can quickly toss old maps, stale gum and anything else you don't need," says Regina Leeds, author of One Year to an Organized Life. Once you have it cleared out, give the inside a quick swipe with a moist towelette to pick up any dirt and dust. Then neatly put back only necessary items. "The glove box is really meant to hold the car manual," says Leeds. "But you may also want to store your registration and any repair receipts in there as well." Add
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• 7 Ways Stress Can Actually Be Good for You
By Sarah Jio
1. It can help you be more creative. Ask any writer or artist about the creative process and she'll tell you that her best work often comes as a result of a lot of head-pounding frustration and borderline agony. There's a reason for that, says Larina Kase, PhD, a Pennsylvania-based psychologist
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• 11 Ways to Destress Before Bed
By Barbara Brody
11 Ways to Destress Before Bed11 Ways to Destress Before Bed
You're so exhausted your eyelids feel like lead, but you can't actually get yourself to drift off to dreamland. Instead, your mind is racing with everything that went wrong during the day-or that could go wrong tomorrow. Or maybe you're worrying about how to pay the bills this month or how your child is going to do on his math test, or even about a sick relative. No matter how serious or trivial your concerns may seem, one thing's for sure: If you're stressed out about them, they're keeping you awake. These 11 expert tips should help you clear your mind so you can get the rest you need.
1. Take time to wind down. "I suggest patients set aside at least 30 to 45 minutes-an hour is even better-to wind down before bed," says Shelby Freedman Harris, PsyD, director of the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center and an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. During that window of time, you should ban yourself from anything
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• Health Musts for Every Decade
By Barbara Brody
It's never too soon-or too late-to take steps to protect your health. But, of course, the sooner you start, the healthier you'll be. Here are the essentials to keep you on track in each decade of your life.
In Your 20s:
1. Schedule annual physicals. You're a grownup and no one is making you go for checkups regularly-so you need to take charge yourself. This is the time to find a primary care doc you like and trust, establish a relationship, and get checked out (ideally once a year), says Shantanu Nundy, MD, an internist at the University of Chicago Medical Center and author of the forthcoming book Stay Healthy at Every Age. Annual physicals are the best way to see where you stand and catch any emerging problems before they get out of hand. Your doctor should check your body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure as well as take blood to check your thyroid health and cholesterol levels.
2. Ditch unhealthy habits. OK, so maybe you did some stupid things in
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• Will You Experience Menopause Like Your Mom?
By Nancy W. Hall
Will You Experience Menopause Like Your Mom?Will You Experience Menopause Like Your Mom?
My friend Susan recalls that during her high school years, her mother would quietly excuse herself from the dinner table, reappearing a few moments later wearing only her slip. "Nobody ever said a word about it, but in retrospect," Susan says, "I think it was a really classy way of handling her hot flashes." Her own approach? "I warn everyone within earshot by yelling, 'I'm flashing!'" Susan clearly inherited her mother's sense of humor, but are her own fiery hot flashes also a gift from her mom? Here's a guide to menopause across the generations.
Taking On the Taboo
For years, especially during the mid-1900s, menopausal women were treated as if they were losing both their desirability and their grip on reality. Ads for hormone treatments and "gentle daytime sedation" called middle-aged women names like "Unstable Mabel" and promised that drugs with a "low incidence of toxic reactions" would make them "pleasant to live with once again" and keep them "feminine
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• 9 Surprising Symptoms of Stress
By Sarah Jio
1. Tweaked Muscles
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Comment: Iphone 2G =Yes, multiband Motorola = no (Score 1) 149
by Blorgo (#37610868) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Advice For Using a Cell Phone In China?
I went there two years ago in September. I took 2 phones there, a little Motorola that works in all the USA and Europe (but as it turns out, not China) an unlocked Iphone 2g. (I left my then-new Iphone 3g at home - not unlocked, higher theft value). I kept it on my person at all times, and Customs didn't ask about it when I entered the country; it was in my pocket.
It worked fine; I bought a 300 MB data-enabled SIM which lasted me 10 days (remember, Edge speeds). As a phone it worked fine, and when I got text messages in Chinese they were either spam, or sent to my Chinese friends from their family. I didn't try to get texts in English but I heard they work too.
With the data plan, I could pull up Google maps, check email, etc. Google maps helps a bit for finding your way, if you know about where you are and where you want to go, but without a GPS it's only partly useful.
I had to find a bilingual person who knew what I was talking about to make sure to get the right SIM card (with data) - mine was China Telecom. And I had to set my DNS and Edge settings correctly, I had done my homework and knew the correct settings (but the cheerful girl at the corner mobile phone stand knew the settings too, and it was the one thing in English on the SIM packaging).
My last day there, I tried to exhaust the data plan by emailing pictures from my high-speed train ride, but failed. I used 272 MB total in 10 days - mostly email and checking mainstream US sites for news, some map lookup, etc.
Things may have changed since then, especially around GPS and the Great Firewall of China (thus access to some US sites). If you're paranoid, set up a new Gmail account and use only it on the Iphone - assume it's compromised from day one, and don't do anything on that account you wouldn't want a lumbering but occasionally paranoid foreign communist government to know about. Commercial or personal stuff is fine, just stay away from politics.
Comment: Feel-a-vision? (Score 1) 111
by Blorgo (#27256165) Attached to: Jacket Lets You Feel the Movies
It was either "Kentucky Fried Movie" or "Amazon Women on the Moon" that had a funny skit called Feel-a-vision. An usher performed the 'feeling' part for the patron - the first movie was a detective mystery; the second was announced as Deep Throat (at which point the movie patron ran away at great speed). Someone who remembers it better should chime in with the details - the motto of the decade seems to be "Everything old is new again, this time with computers!"
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Comment: First Post! (Score 1) 4
In other news, Netcraft confirms: Steven King is dying.
Therefore, it is apparent that Steven King is dying.
Source: Netcraft Survey March 15, 2013
Comment: I miss my friend (Score 1) 1
Submitted by dragonfly_blue
Link to Original Source
+ - Cannabis cures Crohn's Disease, finds study->
Submitted by terrancem
terrancem writes "The marijuana plant (Cannabis sativa) induced remissions in patients with Crohn's disease, according to a new study of 21 patients who hadn't previously responded to other forms of treatment. The study is published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology."
Link to Original Source
+ - Seamless Channel Bonding-> 2
Submitted by Anonymous Coward
Link to Original Source
Comment: Postcard Chess : (Score 1) 2
Also, Bollywood-style musicals don't seem to move letterpress paper products the way they did when I was a kid.
Dubstep music also seems to have tapered off of late; perhaps another casualty of Adult Onset Short Attention Span Shadow Puppet Theater Disorder.
Fibre-channel remote booting off a hard drive in a data center you don't know about using Diamond Multimedia Power Line communications devices hidden in a desktop's actual Power Supply Unit still seems to be a fairly solid bet for technology that will stick around for a while.
Comment: As long as I'm not using an IBM 3270... (Score 1) 1
by dragonfly_blue (#43459059) Attached to: The forgotten MACRO language of HTML, XBL
...Terminal Adapter to have Macros available to me, me & my carpal tunnel & tendonitis & shooting pains will probably be satisfied. No matter *what* kind of bastardized remnant of w3c's weird RFC-cluttered Obfuscatathon is currently Remajiggering the Decombobulators, I'm actually pretty happy with them overall.
Still, ECMAscript->JavaScript->Weird_Asynchronous_Wormhole_Allowing_Full_Duplex_Suddenly does not a particular robust, str_cpy resistant, MitM-attack resistant language. Strongly typed, dynamically typed, wat.evar.
+ - Ask Slashdot: What Does The Free/Open Source Community Currently Need?
Submitted by
+ - Happy Swedish Fish Day!
Submitted by dragonfly_blue
- Jack Merlot
a.k.a. dragonfly_blue
a.k.a. Mark Beihoffer
Yours Truly,
Your Friendly Neighborhood ( BoF ) Systems Administrator
- Jack A. Merlot"
Girl Seeks Help On Facebook During Assault 417
Posted by samzenpus
from the emergency-status-update dept.
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Comment: Re:I dont blame power amplifiers (Score 2) 110
by icebrain (#41841505) Attached to: Breakthrough Promises Smartphones that Use Half the Power
I only got a smartphone two-something years ago. Prior to that, I had a dumb phone with extended battery; after three and a half years, I still got 3-4 days between charges. When new, I charged it once a week, and that was with heavy talk usage. So even today's smartphones seem to have short lives compared to that.
I have an extended battery on my current phone (rooted Samsung droid charge), and I still have to charge it every day, at least during the week (but that's also because I now work in a large metal building with very poor signal inside). I don't use much data, either, but "cell standby" is usually in the top two list of power consumers on my phone.
I'd be happy with just an extended battery option on future phones, though it would be nice if things like cases and covers were available for phones fitted with said batteries.
The "thin!" mantra is getting ridiculous, though; when I got my current phone I asked about an extended battery and the sales people just got a blank look. "Why would you want that?" they asked. "You could get the wireless charger and then the phone would still be thin! You could get a car charger! Why would you make the phone not thin?!" It blew their minds that someone might not care about thinness, or might even prefer a little thickness.
Comment: Re:I dont blame power amplifiers (Score 5, Insightful) 110
by icebrain (#41840135) Attached to: Breakthrough Promises Smartphones that Use Half the Power
I think it's got a lot lot more to do with:
- Big, bright displays
- Multicore, gigahertz CPU's regularly kept busy with background apps
- Far more sensors embedded in the unit to power - GPS, accelerometers, etc.
Plus, the whole obsession with "the phone must be THIN!!!1!"
If the manufacturers quit worrying about trying to fit the phone into the form factor of an index card, there would be enough thickness for a reasonable battery.
Comment: Re:Libertarianism Is A Dream (Score 1) 503
by icebrain (#41809597) Attached to: Favorite U.S. Political Party
He lost (note: "lose" and "lost" both have 1 "o", not 2) his house because of his own stupidity. See, a few years before, he set his house on fire doing something stupid, and they came and put it out (since it was a small fire) even though he hadn't paid his subscription. The fire department subsequently warned him that they wouldn't do that again, and told him to pay his fee.
Well, he refused. Then, his house caught fire again, and this time they stood by and watched it burn to the slab. He claims he even offered to pay the full cost right there, but it was too late. The whole point of a subscription rather than a bill-on-service setup is to ensure that equipment and training are in place before the fire.
The fire department was fully justified--no lives were in danger, and that fool, more than anyone else, should have known better.
Comment: Re:My Civic CRX got 56 MPG in 1985 (Score 4, Informative) 717
by icebrain (#41585761) Attached to: How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025
-Higher crash standards demand more structure and additional equipment like airbags
Comment: Re:But it had nothing to do with Obama (Score 1) 524
by icebrain (#41547371) Attached to: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
I'm better off too... two promotions (and associated raises), 40lb lost, joined the fire department, just ran a half-Ironman, and about to start building my own airplane. Things are a lot better than four years ago--and that's despite Obama and much of Congress demonizing the industry I work in (business aviation)...
Comment: Re:Overreaction. (Score 1) 632
by icebrain (#41525947) Attached to: You Can't Print a Gun If You Have No 3D Printer
More precisely:
The National Firearms Act of 1934 says that:
-rifles with a barrel less than 16" long, or less than 26" long overall
-shotguns with a barrel less than 18" long, or less than 28" long overall
-firearms that shoot more than one projectile with a single trigger action (i.e., machine guns--shotguns are excluded provided they only fire one shell at a time)
are illegal unless a $200 tax is paid, and the owner passes a background check. The Hughes amendment further states that it is illegal to manufacture a new machine gun for civilian, non law-enforcement use after 1987, and illegal to posess such a weapon.
Provided that you you file the appropriate paperwork with the feds, pay for your tax stamp, and you stay in line with your state's regulations, you can manufacture a suppressor, short-barreled rifle, or shotgun, or convert an existing "regular" weapon into a short-barreled version. But you still can't manufacture machine guns.
Now, a semi-automatic (one round per trigger pull; also called "autoloading) rifle or handgun is a different matter; those are just "normal" firearms, except for a few states with "assault weapon" (read: painted black and/or looks scary) bans. Some states also have restrictions on hunting with semiautomatic weapons.
Comment: Re:A decent canteen and staff facilities (Score 1) 422
by icebrain (#41514865) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Would You Include In a New Building?
No, there is something worse. Try having 40+ guys sharing 2 stalls--or worse, 350 people sharing 7. Just take whatever the building code says for restroom requirements and triple it. Make sure you have a shower or two on site, as well as good ventilation for the bathrooms.
Next, install a couple of restaurant-level coffeemakers (they can handle a high duty cycle with abuse) and supply coffee, filters, and generic creamer/sugar.
A cafeteria is a little too much for a small company like the OP works at.
Comment: Re:Volt NOW (Score 1) 490
by icebrain (#41438741) Attached to: Toyota Abandons Plans For All-Electric Vehicle Rollout
It's not an econo box like a prius, it's a lux car.... This thing is game-changing
It's not a game-changer because it is a luxury car. I understand the whole early-adopter thing, but for it to really be a game-changer, it needs to be much more affordable.
Ford has come closer with the new C-max plug-in, but it's still priced a little high (and only offering it in the premium trim package doesn't help matters). I seriously considered buying one, but the cost difference was too great (too long of a payback time) and there's too much cargo room sacrificed. I'm probably going with the regular hybrid, if I can ever find one to test drive...
Despite claims to the contrary by ditto heads, GM is at or near breakeven on this car, by the car, now. Some of the hate on electrics is due to taking all the NRE and billing it to the number of cars sold already - by that metric, the first hamburger sold at a new burger joint franchise is losing a million bucks per. Check the facts
Much as I don't like GM, this has bugged me. Breakeven, NRE vs. RE, etc. need to be taught in high-school economics (which really ought to be a full-year class).
Comment: Re:Usual NASA tech progress bullshit (Score 3, Informative) 421
by icebrain (#41360503) Attached to: How the Critics of the Apollo Program Were Proven Wrong
What I have found is showing around 15 military missions, not nearly the 2/3 figure you're suggesting.
Now, if we're talking design features of the shuttle, those were heavily influenced by military requirements. The only way NASA could get enough funding to build the shuttle was to ask the military, which imposed significant performance requirements that drove up the weight and complexity of the shuttle. And, while useful, the additional capability was never fully used, nor was it ever used for its intended purpose.
Comment: Re:Red herring (Score 1) 372
For large airlines, that 35lb argument is such a red herring. $1.2 million in fuel savings when spread out per flight has to be so far below the noise floor as to be completely meaningless... Maybe the weight makes a difference on a small 206 Caravan, but for these big birds, call a spade a spade - the pilots want their toys.
Why is this modded informative? 35lb of weight savings is a big deal even on large aircraft. Aircraft manufacturers will spend thousands of dollars (even in recurring costs) to save a single pound of weight, let alone 35. And it doesn't matter what other factors are present, that 35lb saved is still 35lb less weight the aircraft carries around, reducing fuel burn--and that amount is quantified in the performance equations, and is measureable over time. Or, it's another 35lb of revenue-generating payload that can be carried.
But then, I'm just an engineer at an aircraft manufacturer, and a pilot. What do I know?
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Comment: Re:Privacy Concerns (Score 1) 244
by imemyself (#40248159) Attached to: After Launch Day: Taking Stock of IPv6 Adoption
It's actually even better than that. The official recommendation is a /48 per end-site. As far as I have been able to tell, I think ISP's are generally following that. I had heard something about using /56 per end site for residential users. That still gives people plenty of room to have multiple subnets though.
Comment: Re:Network gear features are still WAY behind v4 (Score 4, Informative) 244
by imemyself (#40247637) Attached to: After Launch Day: Taking Stock of IPv6 Adoption
I definitely agree with the concerns about IPv6 in the enterprise. Sure, almost everything has had some IPv6 support for years, but the feature parity with IPv4 was not there. (For example maybe something supports OSPF / BGP with IPv4 but only static routes with IPv6...or you can reference address groups from within a IPv4 ACL but not from IPv6). Even today some vendors (*cough* Juniper on their EX switches *cough*) see IPv6 routing as "extra" feature that isn't available on the basic license level. This is unacceptable, and shows a complete disconnect between vendors and enterprises / service providers with respect to what's actually needed for real world IPv6 deployments.
Comment: On the surface (Score 3, Interesting) 67
by imemyself (#38847229) Attached to: Mars-Bound Probe Serves As Radiation Guinea Pig
Comment: Re:Just more things to break ... (Score 1) 433
by imemyself (#38229968) Attached to: Red Hat's Linux Changes Raise New Questions
My point is that RH isn't going to make that kind of change in an existing version of RHEL.
Now upgrading from 5 -> 6, or 6 -> 7 whenever that's released. Yeah...stuff's going to change. Maybe they'll put this in RHEL 7. But I don't this significant of a change would be pushed down as a normal update within v5 / v6 even in a 6.x or 5.x update.
+ - Web links don't constitute defamation, Supreme Cou->
Submitted by omega6
Link to Original Source
+ - German Gov't Trojan Eavesdrops on 15 Apps->
Submitted by
itwbennett writes "Researchers from Kaspersky Lab have discovered that the R2D2 surveillance Trojan, which is used by German law enforcement to intercept Internet phone calls is capable of monitoring traffic from popular browsers and instant messaging applications. 'Amongst the new things we found in there are two rather interesting ones: Firstly, this version is not only capable of running on 32 bit systems; it also includes support for 64 bit versions of Windows,' said Tillmann Werner, a security researcher with Kaspersky in Germany. 'Secondly, the list of target processes to monitor is longer than the one mentioned in the CCC [Chaos Computer Club] report. The number of applications infected by the various components is 15 in total.'"
Link to Original Source
+ - Java Plugin For Firefox Spared From Ban->
Submitted by
itwbennett writes "Oracle has released a new Java security update to address multiple vulnerabilities, including one exploited during a recently disclosed attack that can allow eavesdropping on encrypted communications. Identified as CVE-2011-3389, that vulnerability nearly led to Firefox developers banning Java from the browser. Mozilla officially announced on Tuesday that blocking Java is off the table for now, especially since Oracle released a fix for the vulnerability. 'We will not be blocking vulnerable versions of Java at this time, though we will continue to monitor for incidents of this vulnerability being exploited in the wild,' the browser maker said."
Link to Original Source
Comment: Responsibility goes both ways (Score 1) 218
by imemyself (#37704012) Attached to: Dutch ISP Files Police Complaint Against Spamhaus
Yes, ISP's need to be responsible and take action against spammers, and yes, ISP's who continually fail to do so on a significant scale over a long period of time are fair game to block, but in this particularly instance it sounds like Spamhaus's actions may have been abusive and rather arrogant. I use Spamhaus's blocklist myself, but organizations like Spamhaus and Cisco SenderBase need to take some responsibility to ensure that they are not unduly effecting legitimate businesses and networks. Taking large-scale blanket actions that effect many legitimate sites undermines the anti-spam industry as a whole, because it makes it more difficult for people to rely on anti-spam products/services.
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Comment: Finally (Score 1) 63
by laddiebuck (#46425763) Attached to: Samsung Galaxy Glass Patent Plans To Turn Fingers Into a Keyboard
I think this is one of those technologies, like ebooks, or smartphones, that all geeks imagined in their heads growing up (at least, those who grew up before ebooks and virtual reality goggles with keyboards, etc.) - so I'm glad it's finally here! None of the ingredients are revolutionary, it just needs to happen.
Comment: Re:There was a mockup in the late 60s. (Score 1) 353
Except the Germans' problem throughout the war was not technology (they had models more advanced than British planes at different points) but production. The British were able to consistently out-produce them in fighters and trained pilots. There were close runs for the British (nearly a shortage of fighter pilots during the heaviest part of the Battle of Britain) but the German losses in men and materiel in proportion to their production were consistently higher throughout the war, and the difference only kept increasing in Britain's favour.
Comment: Re:tl;dr (Score 2) 712
by laddiebuck (#46363567) Attached to: Are Bankers Paid Too Much? Are Technology CEOs?
I used to think like that until somebody's comment put it into perspective. The average worker's screw-up can cost the company X dollars. The average CEO's screw-up can cost the company a thousand times that, can tank the company. I find it reasonable that people be paid to do their jobs without mistake in proportion with the responsibility they bear - paying for risk rather than achievement. However, I also think that by this standard, military officers and commanders should be much much more highly paid.
Comment: Re:This doesn't mean they're not loners. (Score 1) 158
by laddiebuck (#46253619) Attached to: Computer Geeks As Loners? Data Says Otherwise
IDK, maybe it's just that I work at a mature company, but all but 1-2 of the tech geeks I know are happily married. Just comparing the marriages of my technical vs ops-type coworkers it's clear that the technical ones have an edge. That's data; for the money, my speculative opinion is that geeks select pretty hard on their relationships, and work hard to make them perfect and take joy in every little thing, as with so many other things in life. It fits with their personality. Second, they don't tend to have mid-life crises as their life satisfaction tends to go only upward from about their mid-twenties. And finally, many of them value stability and what's working great over chasing some unrealizable ideal. And you know what else? The extroverted geeks tend to have great single lives before their relationship. The only thing is that the single life for introverted geeks kind of sucks, because they never develop a rich enough social life.
Comment: Re:why (Score 1) 117
by laddiebuck (#44547589) Attached to: Elementary OS 0.2 "Luna" Released
My company mandated use of the installed OS on our macbooks, so I've had to run OS X instead of Linux these last 2-3 years. No terminal program I've tried other than xterm seems to be able to support double-click to select, right-click to extend, middle-click to paste. Most support the first and third only. This is so basic if you've used an xterm any amount of time. Focus follows mouse is not supported by most tools either. If you install xterm/xquartz, the fonts are crappy on retina displays, and x didn't play well with spaces. You also can't reserve an area of the screen (I used to reserve the bottom 100-200 pixels on my linux desktop and extend only my xterm there so I could keep an eye on logs and processes while running a browser). Finally, there is no window switching, only app switching, and window switching in between app windows. All told the OS X desktop is a mess, especially if you've ever really productively used an xterm.
These things are daily annoyances, and I hate them so much. Even Windows (well, I haven't used 7) used to be better. For some reason though, only Linux desktops get all of these things right -- effortlessly. The crap they don't get right is bells and whistles I never ever use and just get in my way. Linux on the desktop has been complete and effortless for me since around 2007 - previously I recall wifi problems and such, but since then it's been fine. Everything else has blown massively.
Comment: Re:poor implementation has little to do with AT&am (Score 2) 380
Sure, you're modded as insightful because we love to think of all federal government initiatives as security theatre. But this article cites no actual statistics to the contrary. Its entire premise seems to be that child abduction is rare, and law enforcement often can't get an alert out within three hours, therefore "probably" the system is useless. Seriously, it cites no actual numbers as to the effectiveness of the system, and uses the word "probably" and pure rhetoric (i.e. bullshit) a lot. If the same article was changed around so that the author appeared to be a law enforcement spokesman and the conclusions were just reversed, we'd all be picking it apart as bullshit.
Everyone already knew this system was being rolled out for an extremely rare type of crime. Society decided (yes, it did, that's why the media hype launched this in the first place) that the crime was bad enough that no matter how rare, we wanted a system to help mitigate it. Yes, society can be emotional like that, but that is no reason in itself to condemn the system. I want to see actual numbers, not bullshit opinion pieces.
Comment: Re:Good thread with an Airbus pilot and some exper (Score 1) 449
by laddiebuck (#36274368) Attached to: Flight 447 'Black Box' Decoded
This is probably a very stupid question, but I'd still be grateful if an expert could chime in.
It's not hard to detect big storms, either from land-based radar or aircraft-based radar. If we can do that, then why can't we just fly around them? Sure, it'll mean a long delay, but modern airliners are bound to have enough fuel to cope with it, and being late but safe is probably a good tradeoff for most people. After all, 50 years ago, flights were regularly delayed due to bad weather -- I mean by days -- so why can't we tolerate, say, a 6-hour delay in a transatlantic flight to evade a storm?
Comment: Re:Following Google to Stupidity (Score 1) 591
by laddiebuck (#36242386) Attached to: Mozilla Labs: the URL Bar Has To Go
Just as an anecdote: I'm really touchy about interfaces and them staying exactly the same so I can keep productive (that's mostly why I use GNU screen all the time), and I thought I'd hate the removal of the status bar, but it's actually fine. When I need to check a link URL and hover over it, my eyes automatically pop to the lower left-hand corner of the browser and the URL is there. I never cared about the progress bar, and I just put my addon buttons at the top, to the right of the URL bar. (The first row in my browser is menu items, URL bar, and addon buttons; the next row are bookmark bar icons/folders).
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Comment: Re:After your personal info... (Score 5, Informative) 171
by pyrbrand (#37417804) Attached to: Microsoft Previews Compiler-as-a-Service Software
No, you're not getting it right, this is a service as in a process always running on your computer, not as in a cloud based compiler. The point is your program can dynamically call the compiler with additional source code to be compiled so your program can modify itself even though it's in a relatively static language like C#.
Comment: Re:Nokia is dead (Score 1) 212
by pyrbrand (#35275864) Attached to: First Alpha of Qt For Android Released
Every organization that has ever partnered with microsoft has lost, big time
I don't know, Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, Lenovo and a large number of other companies have done quite well over the last 30 years selling hardware for MS software.
(standard disclaimer: as my profile states, I work for MS, but not on anything related to phones)
by pyrbrand (#33181968) Attached to: DRM-Free Game Suffers 90% Piracy, Offers Amnesty
Here in reality-land, what would have been is irrelevant. What matters is how statistics like this will effect developer and publisher behavior. The answer is exactly what the grand parent poster said - they'll begin abandoning the PC as a platform except in specialized cases where they can induce onerous or clever DRM like storing content on servers and come up with other mechanisms that require authentication.
You can't expect people who make, sell, advertise, distribute games for a living to sit back and say "Oh, 90% of our users are pirating our game, I bet they wouldn't have bought the game anyway if they couldn't have gotten it for free," even if that were the obvious logical conclusion to come to (which it really isn't). They're going to say "Oh shit, 90% of our users are pirating our game, let's stop that and hope even a couple percent of them end up buying it and that will give us 10, 20, 30% greater sales," even if it's not necessarily possible to prevent a most of the piracy.
Comment: Re:Dear Microsoft (Score 4, Informative) 497
by pyrbrand (#32586586) Attached to: Miscreants Exploit Google-Outed Windows XP Zero-Day
You mean like the one mentioned in the article? 'The next day, it [Microsoft] posted a "Fix it" tool that automatically unregisters the HCP protocol handler, a move Microsoft said "would help block known attack vectors before a security update is available."'
As far as pushing this to users automatically, people get angry when you break shit without asking them.
Comment: Re:Servers (Score 1) 262
by pyrbrand (#32265850) Attached to: Microsoft Warns of Windows 7 Graphics Flaw
For most server uses you're right, it doesn't make sense to use Aero, which is why it isn't turned on by default. However, aside from running a terminal server for your users to connect to (for example with a nightly build of an app you're building for testers to use), a lot of devs use WS as their desktop OS for development. This was even more common with WS2k3 as early versions of WS2k8 made it hard to do, but they've added back in optional "desktop services" to make it possible to do again. Think about it, if you're hosting a local dev version of the site you're developing it makes things much easier than running a second box. That way your staging server can run only builds checked in to source control and each dev runs their own version with their local changes. There were also some cool virtual machine technologies that came only with WS2k8 before Windows 7 came out. Still are probably.
Comment: Re:IE9 on SVG Test Suite (Score 1) 152
by pyrbrand (#31641088) Attached to: Microsoft Adopts SVG For Internet Explorer 9
A skeptic, that is to say, anyone who can recall Microsoft's behavior over the past 20 years, might wonder if Microsoft ran the official SVG test suite on all competing browsers to find areas where they failed. They then built a second test where they know the others will fail.
You mean like Hickson did with Acid3? Whatever set of tests you're using, if they're incomplete (and they always will be), they will be biased in terms of coverage. Some test suites like Acid3 are meant as a bludgeon to wag the dog of a competitor or certain organization, some are designed to ensure that features you care about are supported in they way you believe they should be, and others are just QA guys doing their best to make sure their product works. In any event, whichever set of tests you code to, you will have the highest passing rate on those tests, it doesn't need to be malicious.
Comment: Re:Why not wireless? (Score 1) 608
by pyrbrand (#31193196) Attached to: Suggestions For a Coax-To-Ethernet Solution?
Because wireless is slow and unreliable, especially in a big house? Because you've got interference at 2.4Ghz (microwaves, wireless phones and toys, lots of neighbors, other signals etc)? There are a lot of scenarios that even with good signal don't work so well over wireless - media streaming, file backup, gaming if the connection is even a little wonky. In an ideal scenario where you're getting about ~50mbps (and I don't really see even 802.11n getting these speeds in my 2BR apt) on wireless, you're still 20x slower than 1gbps, which can still be frustratingly slow to copy files over.
Comment: Re:I blame the IE 'mentality' (Score 5, Informative) 406
by pyrbrand (#30814692) Attached to: France Tells Its Citizens To Abandon IE, Others Disagree
Actually, any add on can be enabled for only a specific set of pages. For instance, to restrict the use of Flash in IE8, to go Tools->Manage Add-Ons then under the Adobe published by section, double click the "Shockwave Flash Object" (I don't know why Adobe can't just call it Flash), then under the text field titled "You have approved this add-on to run on the following websites:", click the button "Remove all sites". Now you'll get a gold bar on every site that uses flash in which you can allow the site to run flash or not. Not quite as nice as Flashblock, but still pretty good.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42905 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am using springframework HibernateTemplate to query a single table. Using debug settings I have captured the query that Hibernate is generating, run it in Toad, and gotten 75 distinct rows. However in my application I get a collection with 75 duplicate records and nothing else.
The mapping is as simple as it gets:
<class name="com.p.e.d.s.PmaSummary" <!-- hiding info -->
table="V_PMA_SUMMARY" schema="ECREDIT">
<cache usage="read-only" />
<id column="member_id" name="memberId">
<generator class="assigned" />
<property name="weekEnding" column="week_ending" />
<property name="actualInvoice" column="actual_invoice" />
<property name="ftrAdjustments" column="ftr_adjustments" />
<property name="edcLseAdjustments" column="edc_lse_adjustments" />
<property name="blidAdjustments" column="blid_adjustments" />
<property name="pmaMiscAdjustments" column="pma_misc_adjustments" />
<property name="pmaEarlyPayments" column="pma_early_payments" />
<property name="adjInv" column="adj_inv" />
<property name="adjInvExcEarlyPayment" column="adj_inv_exc_early_payment" />
<property name="initialPma" column="initial_pma" />
<property name="threeWeekPma" column="three_week_pma" />
<property name="pmaOverride" column="pma_override" />
<property name="pmaOverride_type" column="pma_override_type" />
<property name="pmaOverride_reason" column="pma_override_reason" />
And this generated query works correctly in Toad:
select this_.member_id as member1_45_0_,
this_.week_ending as week2_45_0_,
this_.actual_invoice as actual3_45_0_,
this_.ftr_adjustments as ftr4_45_0_,
this_.edc_lse_adjustments as edc5_45_0_,
this_.blid_adjustments as blid6_45_0_,
this_.pma_misc_adjustments as pma7_45_0_,
this_.pma_early_payments as pma8_45_0_,
this_.adj_inv as adj9_45_0_,
this_.adj_inv_exc_early_payment as adj10_45_0_,
this_.initial_pma as initial11_45_0_,
this_.three_week_pma as three12_45_0_,
this_.pma_override as pma13_45_0_,
this_.pma_override_type as pma14_45_0_,
this_.pma_override_reason as pma15_45_0_
from ecredit.v_pma_summary this_
where this_.member_id = 10003
order by this_.week_ending desc;
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I discovered the issue: this table has a composite key. Changing from the single property to two properties in a composite-key resolved the issue. – Neil Hornbeck May 31 '12 at 12:21
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2 Answers
Why not add DISTINCT to your HQL query?
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The id definition in your mapping file is not correct. With <ìd> you define a single column as the primary key.
In the select you select all rows for one member_id and order them by week_ending. So I guess there can be many columns with different week_ending for the same member_id. So your primary key probably has two or more columns, member_id and week_ending and perhaps sth. else.
You have to use <composite-id> instead <id>, sth. like this
<key-property name="memberId" column="member_id" type="..." />
<key-property name="weekEnding" column="week_ending" type="..." />
<!--- perhaps more key-properties -->
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42906 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm experiencing the following:
Foo myFoo = new Foo(); // Init a Foo, right?
myFoo.bar = 5; // property assigned
Debug.Log(myFoo.bar); // Properly traces the value 5 or whatever to the console
Debug.Log(myFoo); // Traces "null" to the console..... WTF?!?!?!?
This is happening using C# in MonoDevelop in conjunction with Unity 3.5. In this case, Foo is subclassing Object, and to my knowledge, isn't dynamic. Is there some nuance of C# I'm missing here, because this is extremely weird behavior, and I have never seen it in ActionScript 3 or Objective-C. It's odd to me that the runtime is able to access/assign a property of a variable that simultaneously traces "null", without even throwing a NullException or some kind of error. Any ideas on why this might be occurring would be a huge help. Thanks in advance.
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Where to you get the Debug.Log method you use? System.Diagnostics.Debug has no such method. Maybe it is mono specific? Also - I tried this using Debug.WriteLine() and it works as expected, outputting the type name of Foo a and 5 for the property. This was on .Net not Mono so I'm guessing the behaviour comes down to framework in some way - it isn't c# at least. – David Hall Jul 9 '12 at 16:08
We need the Foo class to answer this question, at least I do, to explain what is actually going on. You do understand that Debug.Log(myFoo); convert the Foo class to a string right? So at most it would print out System.Object you should also post the link to the documentation for Debug.Log otherwise we cannot help you. – Ramhound Jul 9 '12 at 16:08
Debug.Log is part of Unity's framework: docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Debug.Log.html It's basically like Console.Writeline(); It takes an argument of type object and I'm assuming handles the rest internally. I've passed many object types to this function before, and it always traces out the type passed, unless it's primitive, in which case it traces the value itself. I'll try to post some code in a bit, it's a bit of a complicated set of classes, but the Foo in question is really just a simple data model. – p_atNextUp Jul 9 '12 at 16:14
Is there an override for the ToString() method of Object on class Foo? If so, is there a chance that implementation is doing something a bit out of the ordinary that would cause it to return null? – David W Jul 9 '12 at 18:45
Check if the ToString() is not returnin "null" for the Foo object. – MBen Jul 9 '12 at 23:12
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Are you subclassing System.Object, or UnityEngine.Object?
UnityEngine.Object is a special class used to represent Unity engine objects that are backed by native representations. You shouldn't derive from it.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42907 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I try to stream mp4-files from a http server to my iPhone with this code:
- (IBAction)streamMovie:(id)sender
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:trailerPath];
if ([self.movieController respondsToSelector:@selector(setAllowsAirPlay:)])
[self.movieController.moviePlayer setAllowsAirPlay:YES];
[self.movieController.moviePlayer setContentURL:url];
[self presentMoviePlayerViewControllerAnimated:self.movieController];
[self.movieController.moviePlayer play];
This works fine on the simulator, but it doesn't work at all on my iPhone device (3GS with iOS 5.1). The movie player only pops up and then disappears immediately. If I try again this log entry appears:
An instance 0x1c5a20 of class AVPlayerItem was deallocated while key value observers
stop here in the debugger. Here's the current observation info:
What am I doing wrong and why does this work on the simulator?
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1 Answer
up vote 0 down vote accepted
I finally found out that there was no problem with the device, but with the http server. It sent the wrong MIME type (text/html instead of video/mp4) and so the device could not interprete it correctly. So I just had to add the MIME type to the server and now it works like a charm
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42908 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm working a C# API that has a fairly complex order of virtual method calls that could be overridden in various levels of the type hierarchy. I'd like to be able to document the order of execution of these methods, and I am wondering if there's a way to do it without having to pepper the classes with Trace writes. Given that each of these classes has over 2k LOC, it would be a pretty monumental task to do by hand!
Let me try to give a quick example of a common method flow:
public class Base
protected void Init()
protected virtual void AfterInitInternal() { }
protected virtual void OnInit() { }
protected virtual void BeginInitInternal() { }
public class Derived : Base
protected sealed override void BeginInitInternal()
// Logic here
protected sealed override void AfterInitInternal()
// Logic here
protected virtual void BeginInit() { }
protected virtual void AfterInit() { }
public class Concrete : Derived
protected override void BeginInit() { /* Logic here */ }
protected override void OnInit() { /* Logic here */ }
protected override void AfterInit() { /* Logic here */ }
The Concrete implementation is created by the consumer of the API, and I want to be able to inform him/her of the order of all of these calls (and ideally the context too, but that's outside the scope of the question.
I don't necessarily need a UML sequence diagram, but that's about the closest analog I've found to what I'm looking for.
Ideally, I'd like it to tell the tool to look at the implementation of Base.Init() on Derived and emit something like:
1. Derived.BeginInit()
2. Base.OnInit()
3. Derived.AfterInit()
I've tried out the VS Sequence Diagram generator, but I can't seem to tell it to use Concrete but start at Base.Init(). I've also tried using the VS Code Map but it chokes on the complexity of the solution and generally errors out. Finally, I tried using NDepend, which comes close - it can tell me all of the calls, but not the order of them.
Is there anything else I could try, or should I just get started with pasting Trace.WriteLines everywhere?
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Take a look at the StackTrace class, it might offer what you need: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/… – Davio Dec 20 '12 at 14:02
That's interesting, but I don't think it would help since I'd still have to grab a trace for every virtual method. – Rob H Dec 20 '12 at 16:33
Might not save you from using trace statements, but perhaps you could employ something like Aspect Oriented Programming (for example, PostSharp) with which you can adorn the methods with reusable tracing/logging information and let you quickly modify it as desired in one place. EDIT: Maybe even combine it with Davio's suggestion of pulling a stack trace and crawling up the call stack. – Chris Sinclair Jan 20 '13 at 3:23
I've hacked in a solution based on Davio's suggestion, by basically adding a ton debug writes of StackFrame(0) and StackFrame(1) to dump the info about the current method and its caller. It got the job done but I still feel like there has to be a better way. I like PostSharp but would rather not have to decorate every method with an attribute. – Rob H Jan 22 '13 at 19:09
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2 Answers
Oh. This is good case for using Roslyn.
If you want to extract custom information from your source code, that is dependent on that source code, without having the source adapt to your reader; I would say this is a strong case for using Roslyn.
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You can consider intercepting calls to each method and can do whatever out of the box like logging, creating document etc.
You can see here how we can intercept calls of methods.
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Interesting idea. Unfortunately, the application is not using IOC and I don't think I could hack it in within a reasonable amount of time. – Rob H Jan 22 '13 at 18:52
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42909 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
Hi i am using VSTS2010 to compare two build using schema compare. today encounter an error while compairing "Text line should not be null" and suddenly got error "Microsoft Visual Studio has encountered a problem and needs to close." can somebody please help me to resolve this error. Thanks! in advanaced.
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1 Answer
up vote 0 down vote accepted
To resolve this issue need to install "DACProjectSystemSetup_enu.msi"
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42910 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have a stored procedure in SQL Server that inserts data into tables.
Any ideas on how to make it a SQL command in vb.net 2003 using datagrid?
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sql server enterprise manager is the one im using and vb.net 2003 with a 1.0 and 2.0 .net framework i think. – ivandinglasan Mar 15 '13 at 6:41
What is your app? Winforms? ASP.NET? WPF? Silverlight? Also: why aren't you just calling the stored procedure (seeing that it already exists....) – marc_s Mar 15 '13 at 7:08
VB.NET 2003 datagrid on a windows form. i dont know how to call a stored procedure on a sql in vb.net 2003 thats why im asking some ideas on how to – ivandinglasan Mar 15 '13 at 7:15
Do you want to create sql command for the store procedure? – Rajaprabhu Aravindasamy Mar 15 '13 at 7:28
@GLOIERTECH. yes sir that was really what i want to do – ivandinglasan Mar 15 '13 at 7:31
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Try this out.,
sqlConnection conn = new sqlConnection("Connection String");
sqlCommand command = new sqlCommand("Functionname", conn);
command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42911 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I've had some difficulty trying to obtain a working Ada compiler.
I had been attempting to install avr-ada on a Windows system. I've asked questions and been provided some good suggestions, but not quite there yet.
I've since tried to install and use GNAT on a Mint Linux system, but I keep getting stuck. I've downloaded and installed gcc-4.8.0.
Installed ok.
I then want to build the GNAT Ada compiler, but the manual is not exactly useful.
Every time I try to find installation instruction for GNAT, I find nothing of immediate use.
For example the details I have found state:
"Building the Ada compiler has special requirements, see below" But do not appear to have any content for how do build the Ada compiler anywhere.
Any ideas?
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what flavour of linux are you using ? – NWS Apr 22 '13 at 11:07
I'm using Mint. – Sean Apr 22 '13 at 11:28
I've not tried gcc4.8.0 yet; 4.7.2 may be smoother. However ... you say you installed gcc4.8.0 - do you mean from packages or built from source? If you built from source, that implies an (older) C++ compiler pre-installed. Likewise, building Gnat from source implies an older Gnat pre-installed. Can you clarify what you have? – Brian Drummond Apr 22 '13 at 11:41
As this has been closed, I recommend taking the question to comp.lang.ada. – Brian Drummond Apr 22 '13 at 13:17
This is a perfectly reasonable question about "software tools commonly used by [Ada] programmers", #3 in the FAQ, and should be reopened. – Simon Wright Apr 22 '13 at 16:19
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2 Answers
You could try your hand at my Slackware guide.
Just install VirtualBox on your Windows box and give Slackware a whirl in a VM. Actually if you don't want/need all the AdaCore stuff, Slackware comes with FSF GNAT out of the box. You don't really have to do anyting except call gnatmake to build your stuff.
But honestly, it's not that complicated to get GNAT GPL and the AdaCore projects up and running on Slackware.
For Debian (if you don't want to use the default Debian Ada packages) you could try the makefile done by Kim Rostgaard Christensen.
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As I understand it, Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian - so you should be able to install the package gnat; it'll probably be GCC 4.6.
I'm not sure whether you need 4.8.0? If so, or of course if you can't install gnat, you'll need to build it (or to wait until it reaches Debian/Ubuntu/Mint, which could be a while). GCC 4.6 (with Ada support) should be OK for this, or you could install AdaCore's Libre version. I know that GNAT GPL 2012 will build GCC 4.8.0 on Mac OS X; I wrote up building GCC from SVN using GNAT GPL 2011 here, and building GCC 4.8.0 here.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42912 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
Hey all, This is my first question here!
Might it be because my servlets are mapped to the root?
if so, what are the alternatives?
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How are you generating 400s? – johnstok Oct 27 '08 at 13:48
I'm forcing it by passing bogus parameters. Using Spring MVC, in my controller I do this when bad parameters are passed: if (!SUPPORTED_BY_PARAMS.contains(cmd.getBy())) { response.sendError(HttpServletResponse.SC_BAD_REQUEST,"Unsupported search by type: " + cmd.getBy()); return null; } – Mike Desjardins Oct 27 '08 at 13:55
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42913 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
programm write current process id in file with function getpid() exemple 1100, but wenn command top run, i becomme process id 1101!!!!! why
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Are you using fork() or similar calls in your program? Can we see your code? – Shrey Jul 5 '10 at 15:48
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2 Answers
There are other, similar IDs that top can display, e.g., the thread ID or the process group ID.
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top display always old id von getpid()+1, why!!! – farka Jul 5 '10 at 13:31
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It is not at all possible. Both the getpid function output and the id displayed by top will be same. I hope you are confusing something.
Can you please briefly expain, how you are doing all these ?
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42914 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
Suppose I have a python function that takes two arguments, but I want the second arg to be optional, with the default being whatever was passed as the first argument. So, I want to do something like this:
def myfunc(arg1, arg2=arg1):
print (arg1, arg2)
Except that doesn't work. The only workaround I can think of is this:
def myfunc(arg1, arg2=None):
if arg2 is None:
arg2 = arg1
print (arg1, arg2)
Is there a better way to do this?
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I'm just rethinking this, it might be possible to achieve with a decorator. It's going to be unclear what it does at first glance so probably a bad idea, but it's an idea. – marcog Jan 1 '11 at 19:39
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3 Answers
up vote 9 down vote accepted
As @Ignacio says, you can't do this. In your latter example, you might have a situation where None is a valid value for arg2. If this is the case, you can use a sentinel value:
sentinel = object()
def myfunc(arg1, arg2=sentinel):
if arg2 is sentinel:
arg2 = arg1
print (arg1, arg2)
myfunc("foo") # Prints 'foo foo'
myfunc("foo", None) # Prints 'foo None'
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@martineau Thanks for the edit, nice spot! – marcog Jan 1 '11 at 20:39
No problem -- excellent answer, BTW. – martineau Jan 1 '11 at 20:52
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The second way is fine in my opinion: it is exactly clear what you do, and for all those who will come after you and read the code. While there is a slight overhead in documenting the default behavior, the use of 'None' or any other to make your function generate a default value is very common. Putting logic inside the function calls would certainly not be commendable in my opinion, it could become very complex very soon. So just leave it in the function body, where all the code is.
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Not really. The other argument names don't exist until the function is actually entered.
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But you can tidy it up slightly by changing the if clause in the workaround to: arg2 = arg2 or arg1 – Michael Dunn Jan 1 '11 at 19:23
@Michael That will fail if arg2 is 0, False or an empty sequence. – marcog Jan 1 '11 at 19:27
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42915 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
How to get pid from xid (X window identifier). How to get list of xids for pid?
(Assuming all applications run with DISPLAY=:0, without network transparency being in use)
Expecing something like:
1. Dig in /proc/$pid/fd/ to track connection to X server
2. Follow that connection, dig in /proc/pidof X/fd
3. Dig inside X as it should know how to map connections to it to windows.
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In general: Not at all. The reason is that the X-Window system is/supports inherently network connection (even if you dont use it). The only viable way I could think of, is your expected internal digging - which can be different from x-server to x-server. – flolo Apr 4 '11 at 20:04
X server is Xorg. I want solution than works in non-networked case. Isn't it obvious that it is possible for any gived system? – Vi. Apr 4 '11 at 21:38
The "obvious" solution will involve ugly plumbing and duct tape since this isn't the way X was designed to work. – Noufal Ibrahim Apr 5 '11 at 1:09
1. How to do it? 2. How to make it less ugly? May be there's some convenient X extension for this? – Vi. Apr 5 '11 at 11:35
I think it's highly unlikely that there is an X extension since it's designed from the bottom up to be network transparent and not tie up a "process" to an "X resource". – Noufal Ibrahim Apr 5 '11 at 13:53
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You could use xprop -id <windowid> _NET_WM_PID to get the PID property of the window in question. You should know the window id of the window and not all applications set the _NET_WM_PID atom.
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Few applications set pid properly, the applicatin in question (xbmc) does not. – Vi. Apr 4 '11 at 17:28
Yup. But it is the only way I know that could work. – Noufal Ibrahim Apr 4 '11 at 17:32
How to find it out myself? How to track connection to X server, then xid's of that connection? – Vi. Apr 4 '11 at 19:34
You can get the id using xwininfo. I'm not sure about programmatically. – Noufal Ibrahim Apr 5 '11 at 1:08
@Noufal Ibrahim, I think it will work only if program voluntarily declares it's PID to X server. I need solution to actually find out PID. – Vi. Apr 5 '11 at 11:37
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42916 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
Possible Duplicate:
What is the best way to remove a table row with jQuery?
If I have table with 3 rows using tr tag, how do I remove the first row (index 0) with either jquery or some other javascript?
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+1 for asking for a non-jQuery approach. – gilly3 Apr 28 '11 at 16:40
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marked as duplicate by Jeff Atwood Apr 30 '11 at 5:45
4 Answers
This would remove the 3rd row in a table.
$("table tr:eq(2)").remove();
Also, don't forget to use <thead> and <tbody> in your <table>. It makes things more accessible and helps if you want to use a plug-in for sorting later down the road.
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However, like @Gregg said, take a look at official docs
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The jQuery docs are a great resource for this kind of thing...
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Here's the "some other javascript" approach, which is itself very simple:
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Of interest: developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/HTMLTableElement – user1385191 Apr 28 '11 at 18:11
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42917 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I develop sites in MAMP on my local network so I've decided to setup port-forwarding to open up my external network and allow HTTP traffic to go directly to my localhost.
Everything is working fine and I can access my MAMP folder using my static IP but,
All my WordPress installs are using http://localhost as the prefix and the images/css/js aren't working when accessing the site outside the local network.
Is there anyway I can tell MAMP to redirect ALL localhost traffic to my static IP? I was modifying the vhosts file but to no avail.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
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Change the Site URL in your WordPress admin to http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx instead of http://localhost? – Dan Grossman Aug 2 '11 at 18:05
Yeah I did that, but I have 20+ sites in there and it won't work for images/posts that are already uploaded unless I go into the database table and do a search and replace. – kinsey Aug 2 '11 at 18:16
Why would you have hardcoded links to http://localhost in the database? – Dan Grossman Aug 2 '11 at 18:17
The sites were all developed using localhost as the SITE url so when you upload an image in a post/page wordpress uses that URL when it makes its absolute URLS. – kinsey Aug 2 '11 at 18:21
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1 Answer
I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but I've had the same issue and have successfully used this plugin to migrate sites from localhost to the production domain. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/.
Note: I've never had any issues, but please backup your db first. Better safe than sorry.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42918 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I want to transfer some data from one ASP.NET (WebForms) application to another, edit: where the first application redirects to the second. The two applications run in a load-balanced environment, so don't necessarily execute on the same server machine. We are talking about an XML blob in the size range a few hundred to maybe a thousand bytes, so it's a bit long for encoding and tacking it into the URL query-string. The user must also not be able to muck with this data (it's not security-critical currently, but exposing it to the user still seems like a bad idea).
Any suggestions on how to do it?
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7 Answers
I don't know all the details of your situation, but there are a few ways you could do this.
1. You could insert the XML blob into a database from one site and retrieve it from the database from the other site.
2. You could post your XML blob from one application to a receiver page in the other application which would then read the XML from the request.
3. You could create a webservice in the second application with a method to receive the XML blob from the fist application.
4. You could write the XML to file in one application and read it from file in the second application.
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#4 is definitely out because of the load balancing as well as usage (way too high risk of race conditions). – Michael Kjörling Mar 9 '12 at 13:22
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Just a quick idea off the top of my head...
If the data is entirely specific to the current user's session, and the two sites are running on the same domain.
1. Generate a key for the client - something that is going to be reasonably unique, for instance something like md5(some guid + some header from the user's browser)
2. Store the information in a key value store/database table, with the generated key from 1 as the key.
3. Set the key as a cookie to the client.
This way you avoid ever sending the data to the client, and the 'key' should be random enough that it will be very hard to guess. If you also store the header and the GUID that you use to generate/salt the hash, you can then validate the key from the user's cookie against the headers sent in the request and deny access if all the details don't match up. This also has the benefit that you can store as much data as you can realistically cope with on the server side.
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You will probably want to look into either or .NET Web Sevices or WCF (Windows Communication Foundation).
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Store it in an encrypted cookie, You'll only add 1Kb to each request/response.
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OP says 'The user must also not be able to muck with this data'. Sticking it in a cookie would allow access to the data using Firebug etc. – mdm Mar 9 '12 at 13:32
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Maybe like a SSO or something like that.
In a database, a table with those columns:
Guid (Guid.NewGuid())
(maybe other columns like the user id...for security log)
The first webapp send the Guid through the URL. The second retrieve the Content in the database.
The date can be used to validate the data: you can only access to the content within X seconds.
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Should be fairly easy using cross site requests.
The first application should just return a page containing a form with the Action parameter pointing to the other application's url. The page should also contain a small javascript to postback the form as soon as the page is loaded. The body of the page contains the data you want to pass between servers.
This way you are using client's browser to do the job for you. Because page's body can be much longer than uri/cookie, this approach should work for you.
Note, that this is completely legal and at least few passive authentication protocols rely on such possibility.
Edit: The integrity of the data is achieved with cryptography. The data can be signed (the simplest approach) or encrypted+signed (which not only prevents users from modyfing the data but also from seeing the content).
Also note that if you don't have to involve client browser, you can use any communication protocol to pass the data directly between servers (TCP, HTTP).
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How would you stop a malicious user from seeing the data, if it is sent to the browser? – mdm Mar 9 '12 at 13:34
You can encrypt it or even sign it to validate at the receiver side. – Wiktor Zychla Mar 9 '12 at 14:22
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up vote 0 down vote accepted
Thanks to all who responded! In talking this over with some other people at the office, in the end we decided that, since the data is actually made available by yet another web application, both of the applications that make use of the data will simply make a call to the third to get the data. The downside to that approach is the small amount of time it takes to make that call twice; the upside is that it virtually ensures that the two applications always have up-to-date data, and even a naïve implementation makes it very difficult for the end user to do anything with the data.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42919 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
On the Graph API documentation, the following is in brackets next to the News Feed endpoint:
this is an outdated view, does not reflect the News Feed on facebook.com
This is a fairly critical method in any app using the Graph API, so what are we supposed to use? Is there a way to obtain a more accurate version of the News Feed with a different API?
I've noticed some differences between what is shown on the website and what is shown through the API but I assumed most of it was down to individual user permissions. Either way this issue is non-trivial and is starting to make regret choosing the Graph API over, say, FQL.
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You can use FQL over the Graph API - where in the documentation is that line? The User documentation's description of the Home connection doesn't have that caveat: developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/#home – Igy Mar 21 '12 at 15:23
At graph.facebook.com scroll down to where it lists the main endpoints with links to each one. It says it in brackets next to "News Feed". – Jack Newcombe Mar 21 '12 at 16:42
Ah, i see now, never noticed that note before :/ – Igy Mar 21 '12 at 16:44
Still no answer to this? Crazy.. – Jack Newcombe Apr 3 '12 at 16:37
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You can use FQL to fetch the news feed. See the documentation under https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fql/stream/
But it seems that the results doesn't differ from the results via the graph api.
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I guess, but that would kind of defeat the point of making the change ... – Jack Newcombe Apr 22 '12 at 11:01
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42940 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
My house is currently in ruins and am building it. While doing so, I wanted to design a home network. My main objectives are surfing and HD streaming.
The house is one-level, 100 sq/m (about 300 sq/ft), and one of the rooms is a safety room with Reinforced concrete walls.
About a year ago, when I started planning, I thought about putting Cat 6 STP cables in the walls and create network points in the rooms.
1. Should I use STP or FTP? I heard that STP is a problem regarding connectors and stuff. Is it really beneficial? Will it work OK if I transfer the wire together with the telephone line?
2. Should I maybe go with WLan and count on 802.11n to enable me to stream HD across the house? is 802.11n that good?
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Wired network is more stable than wireless network.Cat 6 STP cables is enough for home users. – John Feb 23 '10 at 8:23
STP is enough? STP is thicker than FTP AFAIK – Faruz Feb 23 '10 at 8:30
Have you considered HomePlug too? The 200mbps one for HD streaming. – o.k.w Feb 23 '10 at 8:47
Yep, considered it as well. Heard rumors it doesn't work properly if the entire house is not sitting on the same electric phase – Faruz Feb 23 '10 at 8:49
No harm 'borrowing' a couple and give them a try. No cabling and all those hassle required. Installation is piece of cake too. – o.k.w Feb 23 '10 at 8:51
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up vote 3 down vote accepted
I'd start by installing some empty conduit, with pull strings in each run. Then, if you need a cable in the future, then you can pull it in.
When the walls are down is the cheapest time to install cables, so it makes sense to take advantage of it, even if you end up using wireless. 3 or 4 runs of fire rated CAT6 STP to each room would give you the most flexibility for the future.
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About point 2 I would definitely provide both wired and wi-fi access. Cable is great if you'll need a full speed connection in the future. Wi-fi is great if you have mobile devices such as game consoles or smart phones!
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42941 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I need to recover my data from my Memory Stick Pro Duo. It is not detectable by anything, not my PC, not my PSP, nor camera, nothing. But i need the data. It is very important. I have tried all recovery software but none of them function as it is not detectable. I dont even have enough budget to sent to a recovery lab. Is there any way I can do this.
Appreciation in Advance
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Are you using the same card reader? – KronoS Nov 10 '10 at 16:43
I tried to read it through three different things, my PSP, camera, card reader – Starx Nov 12 '10 at 6:13
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Make sure the contacts on the memory card are clean and not damaged.
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I am not sure what you exactly mean by Contacts on the Memory Card can you explain a bit – Starx Nov 10 '10 at 6:09
At one end of the memory card (the one with the cutout on the corner) you should see some electrical contacts, Gold in colour. They'll be slightly recessed. If there is any dirt or grease on these contacts, then they will not make a good contact with your card reader. Use something like isopropyl alcohol and a SOFT toothbrush, always brushing towards the edge of the card. If you can't get access to the alcohol, get a piece of stiff paper, fold it once and then use the crease to firmly but gently rub the contacts. Don't go hard enough to tear or damage the paper. – Tog Nov 10 '10 at 8:05
I tried it, didn't work. – Starx Nov 12 '10 at 6:09
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42942 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
If I were to get a MSDN Operating Systems license, would that also mean I would have access to download the Windows 7 ISO, along with Windows Vista, and XP? Can anyone with access to MSDN show us all what kind of privileged it grants you?
I'm asking because I need a Windows 7 License myself, I want to get Ultimate, and I will soon. But I also help a lot of friends with their computers, and I find myself in need of access to different versions of windows install media. Would getting an MSDN subscription offer me that benefit? Could I download the XP, Vista, or 7 ISO files if I needed to and just use their Serial Number to re-install their OS for them?
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up vote 5 down vote accepted
Just to be clear: MSDN is not licensed for you to let all your friends install using the keys you would get, but yes, you have access to a great range of ISO's to re-install using their keys.
You would have access to virtually every OS, every version, going back to DOS, except for ones (95/98/ME) excluded by a settlement over Microsoft's virtual machine (Java settlement).
Also, although the activations never expire, technically, you are supposed to renew your subscription yearly to keep using the software.
This is not MSDN, but TechNet. This is VERY similar to MSDN, except that MSDN has virtually every language under the sun. There may be some other difference that I am not aware of, but based on the sample screenshots, I suspect that you will be well-served by TechNet alone. One other benefit other than it is only about $325 ($250 renewal), so much cheaper than MSDN, is that you also get two Microsoft Support cases yearly. So you can call them for support at no cost twice (regularly $260 per call, so worth it for this alone).
These are sample screenshots of the download pages, which are very similar for MSDN. Note the all editions for the OS, and Office. This is one of my greatest tools for learning.
enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here
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Tell me what you want MSDN for, because you might be better off with the cheaper TechNet, which may still have everything you are looking for. – KCotreau Jul 21 '11 at 11:48
I know you did...I was just making it clear to ANYONE, who reads the answer. – KCotreau Jul 21 '11 at 11:51
There are no restrictions on the installs, and as I mentioned. they do not die. To legally continue using them, you are supposed to renew yearly, that is a major difference though. – KCotreau Jul 21 '11 at 11:52
You are indeed renting it, but depending on what you do with it, it can still be worth it. At least with the option I just gave you, you save about 50%, get the two cases, and still get what you want (I think). – KCotreau Jul 21 '11 at 12:03
I figured that would work for you. ONe last thing: I said $325 because that is what it costs from retailers. It is $349 from Microsoft directly, but you get immediate access. – KCotreau Jul 21 '11 at 12:06
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42943 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
One evening I turned on my computer, and all the Aero effects of the desktop had simply gone away. I am pretty sure some auto-updates installed when I turned the PC off the night before.
Any idea why this happened, and how I can get Aero to come back? I should note that the Windows Color and Appearence option for Aero under my desktop settings are disabled, so I can not simply click it on again.
Some research indicated that iTunes / Quicktime were the culprits, but upgrading them did not solve the problem.
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Update title "of" should be "off." – Jonathan Sampson Jul 15 '09 at 18:20
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You can further customise your Aero settings this way:
1. Rich click My Computer and select Properties (Control Panel > System)
2. Select Advanced System Settings
3. Open the Performance Settings dialog.
4. Check "Enable transparent glass" to enable Aero
I prefer to sue Aero but turn some components off (such as text shadows and thumbnails) if I feel I don't need them, to speed Vista up a little.
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Some applications will disable Aero before running. Typically, they will re-enable it once the app is closed, but any unexpected issue could detail that flow.
Enable Aero
1. Right click your desktop
2. Personalize
3. Windows Color and Appearance
4. "Open classic appearance properties..."
5. Windows Aero
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I should note that this option is not "Active". It will not click the Aero controls. – Doug Jul 15 '09 at 18:31
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a few things come to mind
-is it turned off in your display settings -are you running an app that temporarily disables it because its not supported
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42944 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
Is there any way to do this?
To be clear, I need the information from a calendar on an Exchange server to actually list itself as a calendar on a gmail account so that it can be synced from gmail to a phone; this means that sharing the calendar isn't going to work, as the exchange account would still be the owner of the calendar.
I am open to using server or client-side installations, plugins, anything.
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@user1999298: Did the Sync2 solution work for you? I am facing the same problem. – Neel Mehta Mar 25 '13 at 1:51
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up vote 0 down vote accepted
I've used Google sync in the past. You install it locally on the desktop and it syncs from Outlook to GCalendar. Unfortunately it has been discontinued and is no longer available.
There are some third-party apps (like Sync2) that are out there but I have not used them. There doesn't seem to be a great free option right now with Google sync going away.
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Have a look at this http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2716936 I use it to sync my Outlook (non-exchange) calendar with Gmail which then syncs with my iPhone.
I’ve not tested it with an Exchange calendar but see no reason as to why it won’t work for you.
Is this something you were thinking of?
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It sounds from what you're saying that the calendar's owner is the Google account, and you are just syncing it to Outlook to display it. I need to have the Google account be the owner of what would essentially be a rolling duplicate of the Exchange calendar. Isn't it insane the ridiculous hoops these companies make their customers jump through in the name of 'competition'? – Shabiha Mar 19 '13 at 18:47
Actually mine is the other way round, I sync changes up to Gcalendar from Outlook. – Ben Lavender Mar 19 '13 at 18:51
With the same software? I am not so savvy on the behind-the-scenes protocol with Enterprise suites like Outlook or Gapps, so maybe I have a confused idea of where the data is actually stored. That brings me to a second concern, however, namely that the service you've linked has been disconnected by Google to try and bruteforce a little market share away from Microsoft. – Shabiha Mar 19 '13 at 19:03
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I've discovered a third-party program that handles this, it is called iCal4OL, available at http://ical.gutentag.ch/index.html
All I can say is, I'm tired of having to jump through hoops because the companies that are supposed to be meeting consumer demand are too big to worry about pissing off customers and instead can focus on anti-competitive platform wars.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42945 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am analyzing TS packets with wireshark.
I need to analyze video streams for checking scrambled bit.
But when I open TS file with wireshark, it displays both audio and video stream.
So it is hardly to find which packets are correctly I want to see.
Is there any filter option to display only Video Stream packets?
(removing Audio stream only is the best)
Thanks in advanced :D
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42946 | HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, LOOKUP return incorrect values in Excel
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Article ID: 181201 - View products that this article applies to.
This article was previously published under Q181201
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Although the Microsoft Excel HLOOKUP, VLOOKUP, and LOOKUP worksheet functions do not return an error value (for example "#N/A"), the returned value is incorrect. This behavior may occur even when the exact lookup value is found in the lookup table.
This behavior occurs when either of the following conditions is true:
• The range specified for the "table_array" argument (LOOKUP) or the range specified for the "lookup_vector" argument (VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP) is not sorted in ascending order.
• Number formatting is applied to the range that is hiding the underlying values.
To resolve this behavior, sort the lookup table in ascending order or use the range_lookup argument to specify that the lookup table is unsorted. Or, if you have applied special number formatting to the cells, remove it. To do this, the use following appropriate method.
Note The range_lookup argument is available only for HLOOKUP and VLOOKUP.
Method 1: Sorting the Lookup table in Ascending order
To sort the table, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell range specified for the table_array argument or the Lookup_vector argument.
2. On the Data menu, click Sort.
3. Make sure the left column in the selected range is selected in the Sort By list and make sure that Ascending is selected. Click OK.
Method 2: Using the Range_Lookup argument
If you are using HLOOKUP or VLOOKUP, enter FALSE for the range_lookup argument. This is the fourth and last argument.
For example, if you are looking for "apple" in a table that occupies cells $A$2:$C$50 and you want to return the value from the third column (column C) of the table, the function would be the following:
Note The LOOKUP function does not support the range_lookup argument. If the lookup_vector cannot be sorted, use the INDEX and MATCH worksheet functions to replace the LOOKUP function. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
181212 Performing a Lookup with unsorted data in Excel
Method 3: Removing cell number formats
To remove specific number formats that may affect the displayed value, follow these steps:
1. Select the cell range specified for the table_array argument or the lookup_vector argument.
2. Click Cells on the Format menu, and then click the Number tab.
3. In the Category box, click General. Then click OK.
4. Edit your lookup formula or lookup table.
Lookup_vector is the second argument of the LOOKUP function, as in the following:
Lookup_vector is the first row of the table_array (second) argument of the HLOOKUP function as in the following:
Lookup_vector is the first column of the table_array (second) argument of the VLOOKUP function as in the following:
Article ID: 181201 - Last Review: January 22, 2007 - Revision: 5.3
• Microsoft Office Excel 2003
• Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
kbfunctions kbprb KB181201
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How to: Restore a Database Master Key
This topic describes how to restore a database master key from backups.
To restore a database master key
1. In SQL Server Management Studio, connect to the database to which you wish to restore the database master key.
2. Copy the backed-up key to a local NTFS directory. The directory should be protected with highly restrictive ACLs.
3. In Query Editor, execute the following Transact-SQL command: RESTORE MASTER KEY FROM FILE = '<complete path and filename>' DECRYPTION BY PASSWORD = '<password1>' ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = '<password2>' ; GO
Where password1 is the password that was used to encrypt the key on the backup medium, and password2 is the password with which to encrypt a copy of the key in the database.
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MultiPoint Server Planning Considerations Glossary
associate a station
To specify which monitor is used with which station and peripheral devices, such as a keyboard and mouse. For direct video connected stations, this is done by pressing a specified key on the station’s keyboard when prompted to do so. For USB zero client connected stations, this typically happens automatically.
bus-powered hub
A hub that draws all of its power from the computer’s USB interface. Bus-powered hubs do not need separate power connections. However, many devices do not work with this type of hub because they require more power than this type of hub provides.
direct-video-connected station
A MultiPoint Server station that consists of a monitor that is directly connected to a video output on the server, and at a minimum, it includes a keyboard and mouse that are connected to the server through a USB hub.
domain user account
A user account that is hosted on a domain computer. Domain user accounts can be accessed from any computer that is connected to the domain, and they are not tied to any particular computer.
downstream hub
A hub that is connected to a station hub to add more available ports for station devices. A downstream hub must not have a keyboard attached to it.
externally powered hub
Also known as a self-powered hub, this hub takes its power from an external power supply unit; therefore, it can provide full power (up to 500 mA) to every port. Many hubs can operate as bus-powered or externally-powered hubs.
HID consumer control device
A Human Interface Device (HID) is a computer device that interacts directly with humans. It may take input from or deliver output to humans. Examples are keyboard, mouse, trackball, touchpad, pointing stick, graphics table, joystick, fingerprint scanner, gamepad, webcam, headset, and driving simulator devices. A HID consumer control device is a particular class of HID devices that includes audio volume controls and multimedia and browser control keys.
intermediate hub
A hub that is between a root hub on the server and a station hub. Intermediate hubs are typically used to increase the number of available ports for stations hubs or to extend the distance of the stations from the computer.
local user account
A user account on a specific computer. A local user account is available only on the computer where the account is defined.
maintenance mode
One of the two MultiPoint Server modes. When the system is in maintenance mode, no stations are available for use. Instead, all of the monitors are treated as a single extended desktop for the console session of the computer system. Maintenance mode is typically used to install, update, or configure software, which cannot be done when the computer is in normal mode. See also: normal mode.
multifunction hub
See USB zero client.
MultiPoint Server system
A collection of hardware and software that consists of one computer that is running MultiPoint Server and at least one MultiPoint Server station.
For more information about system layout options, see MultiPoint Server Site Planning
normal mode
One of the two MultiPoint Server modes. Typically, the MultiPoint Server system is in normal mode. When in normal mode, the MultiPoint Server stations behave as if each station is a separate computer that is running the Windows operating system, and multiple users can use the system at the same time. See also: maintenance mode.
A section of space on a physical disk that functions as if it is a separate disk.
primary station
The station that is the first to start up when MultiPoint Server is started. The primary station can be used by an administrator to access startup menus and settings. When it is not being used by the administrator, it can be used as a normal station (it does not have to be reserved exclusively for administration). The primary station’s monitor must always be connected directly to a video output on the computer that is running MultiPoint Server. See also: station.
RDP-over-LAN-connected station
A station that is a thin client, traditional desktop, or laptop computer that connects to MultiPoint Server by using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) through the local area network (LAN).
root hub
A USB hub that is built-in to the host controller on a computer’s motherboard.
split screen
A station where a single monitor can be used to display two independent user desktops. Two sets of hubs, keyboards, and mice are associated with a single monitor. One set is associated with the left side of the monitor, and the other set is associated with the right side of the monitor.
standard station
In contrast to the primary station, which can be used by an administrator to access startup menus, standard stations will not display startup menus, and they can only be used after MultiPoint Server has completed the startup process. See also: station.
User endpoint for connecting to the computer running MultiPoint Server. Three station types are supported: direct-video-connected, USB-zero-client-connected, and RDP-over-LAN-connected stations. For more information about stations, see MultiPoint Server Stations.
station hub
A USB hub that has been associated with a monitor to create a MultiPoint Server station. It connects peripheral USB devices to MultiPoint Server. See also: USB zero client and USB hub.
USB hub
A generic multiport USB expansion hub that complies with the universal serial bus (USB) 2.0 or later specifications. Such hubs typically have several USB ports, which allows multiple USB devices to be connected to a single USB port on the computer. USB hubs are typically separate devices that can be externally powered or bus-powered. Some other devices, such as some keyboards and video monitors, may incorporate a USB hub into their design. See also: USB zero client.
USB over Ethernet zero client
A USB zero client that connects to the computer through a LAN connection rather than a USB port. This client appears to the server as a USB device even through the data is sent through the Ethernet connection.
USB zero client
An expansion hub that connects to the computer through a USB port and enables the connection of a variety of non-USB devices to the hub. USB zero clients are produced by specific hardware manufacturers, and they require the installation of a device-specific driver. USB zero clients support connecting a video monitor (through VGA, DVI, and so on), and peripherals (through USB, sometimes PS/2, and analog audio). The USB zero client can be externally powered or bus-powered. See also, USB hubs.
USB zero client connected station
A MultiPoint Server station that consists of (as a minimum) a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, which are connected to the server through a USB zero client.
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How to: Create a SQL Server Agent Job (Transact-SQL)
This topic describes how to use stored procedures to create a Microsoft SQL Server Agent job.
To create a SQL Server Agent job
1. Execute sp_add_job to create a job.
2. Execute sp_add_jobstep to create one or more job steps.
3. Execute sp_add_schedule to create a schedule.
4. Execute sp_attach_schedule to attach a schedule to the job.
5. Execute sp_add_jobserver to set the server for the job.
Local jobs are cached by the local SQL Server Agent. Therefore, any modifications implicitly force SQL Server Agent to re-cache the job. Because SQL Server Agent does not cache the job until sp_add_jobserver is called, it is more efficient to call sp_add_jobserver last.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42957 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
As opposed to this question: Squeezing scientific paper to fit within page limits, I would like to find as many ways to make a document become longer without adding any real text.
The motivation for this is that for example a mathematical thesis is usually very thin and it might not look good. The "rules" are following:
• The document should still "look good" (I mean, triple line-spacing or \textwidth=0.3\paperwitdh are not the options).
• The typography should be correct in the final document.
I would like the ideas to be accompanied by a package name or a code snippet that allows them.
I know that the question might be vague and allows lots of "stupid" solutions. But I hope that everybody feels what they would use and what they would not.
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@tohecz The goodness of a mathematics thesis is normally inversely proportional to the number of pages. A "thin" thesis generally is a good thing if it covered the subject adequately. – Yiannis Lazarides May 3 '12 at 10:32
Full ACK to what @YiannisLazarides says: Maths is the only subject where it is a special mark of honor to submit a thesis with less than 10 pages consisting of a single theorem and proof. – Stephan Lehmke May 3 '12 at 10:37
@YiannisLazarides -- You make an excellent observation. However, I believe, the intent of the OP's posting is orthogonal to your point. I see it, rather, as a tongue-firmly-in-cheek way of aiding reviewers in spotting thinly (and even not-so-thinly) disguised attempts to make a paper that's thin on substance look like there's more to it than there is to it. As such, the uses of this sort-of guide may lie more outside the field of mathematics. – Mico May 3 '12 at 10:38
I don't know how precisely to achieve this, but use \raggedbottom and some penalty tweaks to push TeX into "always" ensuring page breaks between, and not within, paragraphs. – Brent.Longborough May 3 '12 at 10:49
@Mico Good point:) Although reviewers should read the thesis and not judge it by its thickness or typography. – Yiannis Lazarides May 3 '12 at 11:08
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up vote 16 down vote accepted
These are some additional ideas, assuming that you do not need to abide by a standard layout.
1. Use something like the tufte-book class (it has a very wide right margin, you can make it a bit wider as well) and it still looks good.
2. Have full page epigraphs to separate chapters from other text and possible full page pictures. (Tufte does that at the beginning of his books).
3. Index almost any word you can think of.
4. KILL justification. All the document must be typeset ragged right.
5. Adjust lists and all vertical spacing.
6. Increase the interword spacing.
7. Increase the spacing after stops.
8. Have all sectioning at larger sized fonts.
9. Section the document down to paragraph (and modify) the sectioning command to start on a new line rather than as a block.
10. Use toc levels 7
11. Input chapter 3 again as the chapter before last and if anyone notices blame it on the typographical devil or the TeX engine.
12. If you have any computer code, include it as an appendix
13. Have a colophon explaining the use of LaTeX to typeset the thesis and import the source and the log as a listing.
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+1 just for number 11 (though I personally wouldn't try it) – ienissei May 3 '12 at 12:30
Thanks for the seriously meant ones! I especially like 2,3,5,8,9,12. On the other hand, especially 10 is really rude, and 6,7 will make the document un-readable if you modify by "more than nearly nothing". – tohecz May 3 '12 at 12:54
@tohecz I am sorry if I offended you, nothing was meant to be rude, but rather to provide a bit of a lighter moment. – Yiannis Lazarides May 3 '12 at 13:09
I'm not offended, it was just an opinion. I can imagine using most of them at some occasion, but not #10 (or not to "make it longer", it might still be useful e.g. for dictionaries/reference books) – tohecz May 3 '12 at 13:12
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Not yet mentioned has been the role of choosing the "right" font:
• Choose a wide, but still aesthetically pleasant font (CM is pretty narrow). In my experience this can extend the number of pages by up to 20 percent. Take a look at The LaTeX Font Catalogue.
• Do not use microtype, as its better spacing often reduces the number of pages (around five to ten percent).
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+1 for a font change, I did not think about that at all! – tohecz May 3 '12 at 13:36
You can abuse microtype, actually: \usepackage[expansion=false,tracking=all,letterspace=30]{microtype} ;-) – Robert May 5 '12 at 1:00
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Some additional ideas:
• Replace inline lists of thoughts -- especially those in which each item contains only a handful of words -- with bulleted and/or numbered lists.
• Use nested itemize environments to further break down lists of any length into sub-lists.
• This also applies to enumerate environments.
• Increase the left- and right-hand indents of "bulleted" and numbered lists as well as the offset between the "bullet"/number and the hanging paragraph.
• Increase the indentation of the first lines of each paragraph, e.g., with
\setlength\parindent{2.5em} % you don't want your deviousness to be too obvious...
and also increase the spacing between paragraphs, e.g., with
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My ideas so far are:
1. Make the document one-sided and not two-sided (default for report, need to add [oneside] to \documentclass for book). I you have to be two-sided, then make all the part and chapter titles on the right-hand page (by using [openright] option to the document class).
2. Use 12pt base font size (done by \documentclass[12pt])
3. Typeset \chapters' titles on a seperate page (like \part is typeset in multi-part documents). This can be done e.g. by the following snippet added by the end of document header (a package titlesec can be used for further changes of the chapter title.)
4. Add "inspirational quotes" / "epigraphs" to the chapters, see “Inspirational” quote at start of chapter
5. Add "unnecessary lists and information", like Index, List of notations, Glossary, List of figures / tables, Colophon, Dedication etc.
6. Use booktabs for tables (everybody should do that, no matter how long you want your document to be, but it makes the tables a bit higher).
7. Set some linespacing, e.g. by putting \linespread{1.2} into your preamble.
8. Make floating objects (figures etc.) boxed. Print the captions in a "nicer" way with a larger font, make the captions narrower (so that they occupy more lines). Prefer [p]age placement of floats (even thought it does not look good IMHO).
9. Modify the page geometry (package geometry). The lines should have 66 character in mean, which is pretty narrow on standard papers (a4, letter). If you add headers to every page, it does not look that bad if you make the page shorter (less high), package fancyhdr provides a good tools for modifying headers and footers.
10. Since the thickness of the final document is the issue, the document can be printed on a thicker paper (e.g. 120g/m^2 as opposed to standard 80g/m^2).
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Nice list! Regarding your first bullet point: Did you mean to write [oneside] for book document classes? – Mico May 3 '12 at 13:37
@Mico (facepalm) thanks! – tohecz May 3 '12 at 13:40
If [oneside] is not allowed by style guide, always open part, chapter, section,... on an even (or always odd) numbered page, which will add a blank page before at least some of them. – Stephen May 3 '12 at 15:59
@Stephen Actually, my thesis is two-sided and I have it exactly that way! Anyways thanks, I forgot to include that. – tohecz May 3 '12 at 16:45
Footnotes might be another idea: instead of a short "(comment)", use a footnote, which will result in some blank vertical space, a footnote rule, and the footnotemark and footnotetext (few words) will take up another complete line. And, of course, print footnotes in normal size instead of footnotesize, which is too small for good readability anyway. ;-) Using continuously numbered footnotes instead of footnotes-per-page will result in two-digit-footnotenumbers, which will add some additional characters. – Stephen May 6 '12 at 17:40
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42963 | Dean: McCain's "New Appreciation For Diplomacy Has No Credibility"
DNC Chairman Howard Dean's response to McCain's speech:
John McCain's empty rhetoric today can't change the fact that he has steadfastly stood with President Bush from day one and is now talking about keeping our troops in Iraq for 100 years. His new appreciation for diplomacy has no credibility after he mimicked President Bush's misleading case for a unilateral war of choice when it mattered most. Why should the American people now trust John McCain to offer anything more than four more years of President Bush's reckless economic policies and failed foreign policy?
Dean has attacked John McCain almost daily while he waits for his party to settle on a nominee. |
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42971 | Tolkien Gateway
Mallorn 30
Mallorn 30
EditorJohn Ellison and Patricia Reynolds
Cover artistPauline Baynes
PublisherThe Tolkien Society
PrinterNew Bradwell Reprographics
ReleasedSeptember 1993
FormatA4 stapled paperback
Preceded byMallorn 29
Followed byMallorn 31
Mallorn 30 is the thirtieth issue of the The Tolkien Society's annual journal Mallorn, published in September 1993.
[edit] Contents
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[edit] See also
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42972 | Tolkien Gateway
The Departure of Boromir
The Two Towers chapters
Book III
1. The Departure of Boromir
2. The Riders of Rohan
3. The Uruk-hai
4. Treebeard
5. The White Rider
6. The King of the Golden Hall
7. Helm's Deep
8. The Road to Isengard
9. Flotsam and Jetsam
10. The Voice of Saruman
11. The Palantír
Book IV
1. The Taming of Sméagol
2. The Passage of the Marshes
3. The Black Gate is Closed
4. Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
5. The Window on the West
6. The Forbidden Pool
7. Journey to the Cross-Roads
8. The Stairs of Cirith Ungol
9. Shelob's Lair
10. The Choices of Master Samwise
The Departure of Boromir is the first chapter of the third book in The Two Towers.
The camp having been attacked by Uruk-hai in The Fellowship of the Ring, Aragorn finds Boromir mortally wounded. Before Boromir dies, he tells Aragorn that the Orcs have carried off the other Hobbits. The remaining members of the party (Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli) search through the bodies of dead Orcs and find many weapons, as well as the blades of Merry and Pippin. Because they do not have time to bury him or build a cairn, they put Boromir's body on a raft and set it out to sail, Legolas and Aragorn singing a beautiful Lament for Boromir, taking the voices of three of the winds.
Aragorn tells Gimli and Legolas that he thinks Frodo and Sam have gone alone to Mordor and that they themselves should follow the Orcs and not Frodo. So saying, these adventurers continues on their journey, travelling in search of their missing companions. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42979 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
What big popular amusement parks are there in the Tokyo area? I am looking for anything with fun rides, a bit of history if possible and nice surroundings. If the locality is close to other interesting spots (museums, sights, shopping) it is even better.
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I think your question is a little bit too general and open-ended. Could you be a bit more specific about what you are looking for? At least, the geographical region you are interested in? – mindcorrosive Dec 1 '11 at 20:32
Actually it will be one of the parameters that decide where we will go. We will probably travel southwest from tokyo but with enough good reasons we may just as well head for hokkaido. Should I post one question per metropolitan area? – froderik Dec 1 '11 at 20:35
That would probably be too much. Then list the areas you are interested in inside the question. That will help, I guess. – mindcorrosive Dec 1 '11 at 20:40
'Japan'...isn't the name of a HUGE amusement park?! o.O – Ankur Banerjee Dec 2 '11 at 0:37
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up vote 10 down vote accepted
Here's a site with reviews of many amusement parks in Japan, that can probably give you more information than is possible here.
The biggest one is probably Tokyo Disneyland. However, most amusements parks in Japan seem to be relatively small (at least the two I visited were) and cram lots of attractions into very little space - sometimes literally intertwining different rides. Yokohama Cosmo World is an example for that (yes, that's the entire park):
enter image description here
If you're an amusement park connaisseur, I'd say you should also visit Hanayashiki, Japan's oldest one.
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Fuji-Q Highland is also rather excellent, wooden rollercoasters and more.
Update - I went again last month. It's absolutely fantastic and strongly recommended, though only go on a good day as they're very safety-conscious and everything pretty much shuts down on the first sign of rain. Eejainaika is a particular highlight (an absolutely terrifying 4D rollercoaster).
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42993 | main index
Topical Tropes
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TV Tropes Org
Black Box
"You don't really know how powerstones work. You've created a whole city that relies on an energy source you do not understand. 'Magic!' you say. 'It's magic!' Oh, how clever. And then when the magic fails, you simply say, 'It must have been more magic!'"
Yawgmoth, The Thran
In engineering terminology, a "black box" is a device with one or more inputs (cake ingredients, an excerpt of text in Mandarin, iron ore), one or more outputs (cake, the same text translated into Frisian, a battle golem), and internal processes that are either:
1. irrelevant.
2. unknown and/or unknowable.
Such technology falls into the hands of some organization, usually the military or a commercial business. The original creator is dead (or is an alien or from a long-dead civilization or otherwise can't be reached), but said technology is really convenient. The organization's analysts went over the thing, and while most of it makes sense, there are these elements, either program or device, that they cannot comprehend at all. Removing them causes the entire thing to simply not function (or triggers a more active response). The organization may be able to reverse-engineer copies, or lesser versions, but they don't understand how it actually works.
So, since the financial bottom line or military advantage is so important, they go along with it anyways.
....yes, of course, the technology has a bizarre effect that nobody could have predicted - you really need to keep track of those inputs and outputs! Usually it's in the form of acquiring sentience or a bizarre weapon, or only being able to be used by people of the show's target demographic. (It's common in Humongous Mecha series.)
This is surprisingly common in Real Life, particularly in programming, where the programmer is the only one who really understands how what they've built works (and sometimes, not even themnote ). Especially in high-level languages, where the programmer can for example tell the computer to replace all occurrences of "cake" with "apple" in a text, and doesn't have to worry about how the system does it - s/he gets a changed text back and that's that.
Compare Scavenger World, where everything is similar to a Black Box not by conspiracy but by The End of the World as We Know It.
See also In Working Order. Sister Trope to Disposable Superhero Maker. Compare Missing Steps Plan.
Not to be confused with 'Black box' flight recorders
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Anime and Manga
• In .hack// CCCorp treats The World as the game it appears to be, but those who can find the so-called "Creator's Rooms" can discern some of the original designer's true intent.
• And the game keeps sucking up player's, programmer's, and administrator's minds; even after they've rewritten it twice. Even so, that's much safer than the alpha version. Many were terrified of even playtesting it, particularly after its creator died playtesting it. Actually, Harald didn't die, but his mind was absorbed into the program completely.
• The core code of The World is explicitly referred to as a "Black Box" in several of the novels.
• There are also occasions where the game circumvents or thwarts the administrators' attempts to fix issues, such as banning certain players, as well as spawn vagrant AIs.
• Not helping things is that the thing was designed as an AI incubator by using the player's mind as a large sampling of intelligent thought.
• The development of the Evangelions in Neon Genesis Evangelion is very much along the lines of this trope, although the source of the Black Box is not earthly.
• The S2 engine is a particularly fitting example. American attempts to reverse engineer the device result in a massive disaster - the test engine vanishes, along with the entire research facility and all other objects in a 50-mile radius.
• Also, the Lance of Longinus. We have no idea what it is, but dang does it tear Angels up. The replicas are decidedly less effective.
• The plants in Trigun can do pretty much anything depending on how you power them, but nobody's really sure how they run anymore. (The manga actually calls them "humanity's ultimate black box".)
• The flying machines in Simoun have two black boxes: the "Helical motor" (according to the sub) and the "Simoun Gem". Trying to find out how these things work apparently drives you mad for a little while.
• The SDF-1 in Super Dimension Fortress Macross is riddled with black boxes.
• Black Boxes are a dime a dozen in The Big O, ranging from nigh-indestructible giant robots to androids to underground tunnel networks. The last episode reveals that the plane of existence is one big Black Box. The only comprehensible objects in the series are tomatoes, and those are a type of mysterious lost technology.
• The Nanomachines powering the Otomes in Mai-Otome. Frankly, what kind of perverted scientist thought it would be a good idea to have them break down upon any contact with male DNA, thus requiring exclusively female virgins to operate it under the shaky hope they aren't depowered?
• One that would be too threatened by the notion of wives who are stronger than them, most likely.
• It's all but stated outright that the Otome were based on the Hime, the "natural" magical girls from Mai-HiME. So it's a Black Box replicating magic. Its a damn miracle it works at all.
• The Clow Cards in the first arc of Cardcaptor Sakura. The cards are sentient, though most are astonishingly specialized, and their creator is dead but returns anyway in the form of his reincarnation in the second arc..
• Zoids, anyone? The Ultimate X zoids are shown to have a "black box" that other zoids do not.
• GaoGaiGar mentions this. In one flashback, they actually discuss a strange interface on Galeon, an alien mecha lion, and refer to it as a Black Box. Once they figure out how to activate it, it contains designs for half the Applied Phlebotinum in the show.
• In the Nausicaa manga, the Crypts of Shuwa are full of Black Boxes—most notably the God Warrior. More mundanely, nobody has the technology to build new airship engines any more, so when an airship is downed, there's a scramble to salvage the irreplaceable engines.
• Full Metal Panic!! has a bunch of them, collectively called 'Black Technology', created by the mysterious 'Whispered'. Many are simply extrapolations of existing technologies, which are mass-produced and change the world drastically - Whispered are explicitly NOT useless. Others, however, are perfect examples of the trope - Foremost among them is the 'Lambda Driver', a true Black Box which enables users to warp the laws of physics through sheer determination.
• In The Second Raid it's mentioned that the Arbelest is optimised for the first person who used it (Sousuke) and as the designer died since then that means it can't be reset for another user. As Sousuke hates the unreliability of the weapon and is also undergoing a Heroic BSOD this causes major problems.
• The FMP manga Arbalest won't work for anyone other than Sousuke because if anyone else tries to pilot it the AI just constantly asks for Sousuke, and no matter how many times the reset or reprogram the thing it still will only work for Sousuke.
• Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu used this to humorous effect with the Bonta-kun class Powered Armor — it has a voice filter that renders all spoken speech as "Fumoffu!" to anyone listening. It causes the armor to shut down if disabled, and no one — not even Sousuke, who designed the thing — knows why.
• Humans don't seem to figure out how to replicate Ganmen during the timeskip of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The Guraparls that form the backbone of the Earth military were reverse-engineered from Gurren Lagann, but they don't seem to have figured out much about Spiral energy or how to reverse-engineer the "generator" that lets a Ganmen use it. This means that forces initially superior to the Ganmen they replaced wind up looking like anemic kittens once the hot blood Goes To 11... Million...Though it also has to do with the ganmen's purpose of fighting anti-spirals.
• This is explicitly because Rossiu believes the Ganmen to be inferior and a reminder of Lord Genome's reign and so he had them destroyed rather than any lack of ability on the part of the humans.
• The Reveal of Outlaw Star. The eponymous Cool Ship and Melfina were created based on the unknown data (the black box) that Gwen Khan could not translate from an advanced ancient civilization which is implied to have created all of the ancient ruins of the galaxy. Only Melfina can open the door to the Galatic Leyline itself, and grant the people that go there their ultimate desire.
• For a while the Caster Gun employed by main character Gene Starwind was a black box of lost knowledge. Caster guns are essentially antique pistols that fire unique shells with a wide variety of effects that can even counteract the magical attacks of Tao Masters. Nobody knows whether they are lost technology or, as later confirmed, magic that has been encapsulated within the shells.
• The GN drives in Gundam00. GN Drive technology can be mass produced in months (reversed engineered by The Federation from the GN-X drive model), but true GN Drives, the ones which emit green "pure" particles used by Celestial Being's Gundams, are equipped with a "Topological Defect" Blanket, which can only be manufactured around Jupiter with a total production time of six years. Somehow harnessing the power of topological defects (a mathematical solution involving differential equations) allows the drive to funnel energy back into itself, allowing for unlimited operation time.
• Additionally, Celestial Being's true GN Drives have a literal black box which no-one could figure out, which turns out to contain the data for the Gundams' Trans-Am Function and the Twin-Drive System.
• Darker than Black has alien technology and powers coming from the "Gate" — among other things, tech that allows for Laser-Guided Amnesia, glowing flowers whose seeds halt the development of Contractor powers, and crystalline plants whose pollen make bees produce an intoxicating drug. Possibly inspired by Roadside Picnic (see below) — at least, it can be interpreted as a homage to and discussion of its setup.
• This is a main plot point in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. The Haydonites provide humans with shadow technology which greatly aids them in fighting Invid. But the technological information supplied by Haydonites is incomplete, so even though the shadow devices were built by humans themselves, they still have flaws which Haydonites exploit when they attack humans.
• In the American release of Voltron (which combined the separate series Go Lion and Dairugger XV), it's established that the Vehicle Voltron was built as an imitation of the original Lion Voltron built by the late King Alfor of Arus. Since the original Voltron is semi-mystical in nature and the magic was not copyable, the duplicate can only stay unified in giant robot form for five minutes at a time.
• Used in Mahoromatic. Mahoro was built using incompletely-understood Imported Alien Phlebotinum, including the power source. Which leads to the Death Clock - as the power source cannot be refueled or recharged by Earthly technology. It CAN be recharged by SAINT - they just don't get around to doing it in time, focusing on fixing the horribly-botched job on Minawa first.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Despite going around creating Magical Girls, Kyuubey doesn't entirely understand how magic works.
• A scientist in Yozakura Quartet equates the workings of youkai and supernatural powers to Black Box technology. He makes the comparison that just as we don't understand how magic works, most people don't understand how a computer turns on apart from pushing the "on" button.
• In Knights Of Sidonia the Kabizashi blades, which are the only weapons that can kill Gauna. No one knows for sure how they work, and no one knows how to make more of them.
• The first three THUNDER Agents were all recipients of black boxes. As their origin shows, their devices were found amid the rubble of the lab of a famous inventor, who had been killed by minions of the Warlord. The Warlord's mooks had looted the place, but missed a few items. Several early stories were about the agents discovering drawbacks to their new powers.
• Captain America's shield is essentially a Black Box in design; made of an unknown alloy of Vibranium, other metals and a mysterious bonding agent- which the creator doesn't know about, having fallen asleep during its production- which results in a shield that has properties unlike anything else in existence. Some say that agent was American Rightousness (as opposed to American self-righteousness), explaining why it seems to act as almost an Empathic Weapon to Cap.
• Captain America is a Black Box. The only scientist who knew how to produce the Super Soldier Serum was assassinated, leaving No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup after exactly one test subject was treated with it: Steve Rogers. Trying to replicate the success of the project spawned Nuke, Deadpool, Wolverine, Fantomex and at least ten others.
• In Ultimate Marvel and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the serum itself was quickly replicated, but an army of Captain Americas is still impossible because the recipient is the key factor; In Ultimate, it only works on subjects with superhuman willpower, keeping the successes at a minimum. In the MCU, it grants Personality Powers, meaning unless the government is willing to stick needles in a card-carrying saint(who would thus never perform deniable operations), all they would get is more Red Skulls.
• One attempt to recreate the success of Captain America failed because the serum is only part of the process. Without the "Vita-Ray" treatment, the recipient's body couldn't safely take in the serum.
• The night before Steve Rogers received the treatment, a General who disapproved of Steve Rogers' perceived weakness as a candidate had a more aggressive soldier treated with only the serum, not the Vita-rays. The treatment drove the subject insane, and after being taken down he was put into cold storage. He was woken up in the "present" day and had his insanity cured by A.I.M. Stronger, Faster, and far more aggressive than Captain America, he was brainwashed into believing Steve Rogers had stolen his mantle, and tried to get revenge on Cap as Protocide, .
• Sonic the Hedgehog's NICOLE. It came down from the SKY, and not even their technical expert Rotor knows how it works. He did use the system to beef up his firewalls, to Eggman's extreme annoyance:
Eggman: "I HATE that Rotor! I hack and I hack, and I hack, and do I find anything? Do I get past his firewalls? NO! Not only is his defense system too good...
The Firewall: *is doing a raspberry at him*
Eggman: It's downright RUDE!
• The guidance system abroad the Russian communication satellite in Space Cowboys is so archaic that no one except the original creator understands it.
• Something of a subversion, since the technology isn't too advanced or hidden, it is simply not known to the current generation of astronauts due to its extreme obsolescence. "It's pre-microprocessor! It's pre-EVERYTHING!"
• The Machine in Contact is both this and Imported Alien Phlebotinum, as humans are given plans for a Machine, but not an explanation how it works.
• When it is activated the chair for the occupant drops straight through in a matter of seconds, while 18 hours passes for the occupant, causing onlookers to think that it didn't work.
• They know how it works (well, how to work it at least), what they don't know is what it does.
• In Sneakers the whole plot revolves around a black box device which is able to decrypt any western encryption (not the russian encryption-methods, however).
• Deconstructed in Galaxy Quest. The starship in a Star Trek type TV show has a superweapon called Omega-13; the aliens who became obsessed with the show built an exact duplicate of it in their reproduction of the Cool Ship. There's only one problem — nobody knows what it does, because the series was cancelled in the middle of a two-parter that would have shown it in action. Tim Allen's character (the William Shatner Expy) asks a fan if he knows what it does, and he says that the popular theory is that it destroys all matter in the universe in 13 seconds, but he thinks it lets you go 13 seconds back in time. Turns out his theory is the right one.
• In Captain America: The First Avenger, when the Red Skull finds the glowing blue Tesseract (implied to be the all-powerful cosmic cube of marvel comics) he uses it as an energy source for his tanks and weapons. Until his supposed death when the cube sustained damage from Captain America's shield and began to warp reality itself, he only saw it as an unlimited power source. Ditto for the scientists on the American side, who attempted to harvest the minuscule yet overwhelming bits of energy powering the guns (blasting a hole in one of the research facilities when they tried to discover its properties). What will happen to the cube now that it is in U.S. hands after Red Skull's death, only time (and the Avengers movie) will tell.
• It only got more Black Box-y in The Avengers, when the Tesseract starts opening wormholes to other areas in the galaxy on its own, because Loki has figured out how to operate it remotely. The government can't even stop him from doing this, despite years of study.
• Tony Stark's ability to miniaturize the arc reactor is what drives Stane mad in the latter half of Iron man, since Tony didn't exactly leave any blueprints of it in the terrorist's base and none of Stane's Scientists can duplicate it (leading to Stane's memetic line about Tony building stuff in a cave with scraps).
• The arc reactor becomes less of a Black Box in Iron Man 2 when Vanko manages to build one. His doesn't work quite like Stark's, though, and it's unclear whether the important bits actually work differently (so it's still a black box, just a smaller one) or whether it's just irrelevant design choices.
• In The Thran, the whole Thran Empire relies on powerstones as their source of energy, but even the engineers who work on them don't exactly know how they work.
• The Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic, as well as The Game of the Movie S.T.A.L.K.E.R (but oddly enough, not the movie) have a Danger Zone full of Black Box alien artifacts as the catalyst for the plot.
• In Discworld the Devices discovered by dwarfs are ancient Black Boxes with assorted functions, including power sources and recording devices. The magical supercomputer Hex is also a Black Box; it's added so many peripheral devices to itself that even its original designer, Ponder Stibbons, is no longer sure exactly how it works. (Did we mention that he is also Organic Technology. He uses ants instead of electrons.)
• A particularly good example is Hex's teddy bear- a simple cuddly toy, yet when taken away from Hex, Hex refuses to operate.
• With the error message +++Mine! Wahhhhhhh!+++
• In His Dark Materials, the subtle knife certainly fits the bill. It is an ancient weapon that can cut through anything, including the fabric between dimensions. However, it has the unfortunate effect of creating a soul-eating monster every time it is used, and eventually weakening the equilibrium of the universe. The alethiometer also qualifies, though it has no negative effects.
• From John Ringo:
• The Legacy of the Aldenata series features a number of examples of the Black Box. The alien Posleen (or "people of the ships" in their language) are similar to the Covenant in Halo in that they use technology they understand poorly if at all. A perfect example of this is one of their commanders staring in confusion at a computer helpfully informing him "Incoming ballistic projectiles. Impact in 10 seconds. Five.... etc" The views of their society in the initial books of the series are vague for the most part but imply that they only really use the systems that kill things or are almost entirely automated. A literal black box used by the humans in the same series appears in the form of the AID which is a black memory plastic box about the size of a pack of cigarettes with an extremely potent AI embedded in it. They act as a Universal Translator as well, but are provided by another species and the humans haven't a clue how they really work or how to make them. This turns out to be a serious problem for a number of reasons
• There is also the small black box from his and Travis S. Taylor's Into the Looking Glass books, a device about the size of a pack of cards does "interesting" things with spacetime. It was given to them by the friendly aliens at the end of the first book, who had found it on some other planet and had no idea what it was for. Although they did warn that one should NOT apply a "significant voltage" to it. Hooking up a double-A battery leaves a 10-mile crater. A car battery destroys the (deliberately uninhabited and unimportant) planet. Three-phase current erases the solar system. They eventually figure out how to turn it into a warp drive and use it to power the ASS Vorpal Blade. Turns out hooking it up to a car battery was using it wrong.
• In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time there are the ter'angreal (magical items), the secret of whose making has been lost for three thousand years. The Aes Sedai keep plenty of ter'angreal around for use as black boxes without understanding how they work, and many more items where they don't even know what they do.
• Being subverted in the more recent books as Elayne and Egwene begin discovering how to make them again.
• In Frederik Pohl's Heechee Saga, the entire plot of the first few books revolves around highly advanced alien space ships, though they do eventually manage to decipher the instruction manuals.
• One big one is that after you set the targeting crystal, that no human understands, which glows various colours and auto-locks by AI, anyone who has changed those settings after launch has disappeared.
• The hero eventually finds out why.
• Parodied in The Galaxy Game (by Phil Janes) where a scientist trying to master FTL for a trip to the stars finds three small boxes each printed with the words "Inertialess Device" in his kitchen cupboard one day. We later find out they were put there by bored Energy Beings who pit civilisations against each other for sport.
• In David Brin's Uplift series, all of the alien species in Galactic civilization are happy to use technology they don't understand and can't repair, so long as it comes with the blessing of the Great Library passed down by their revered ancestors and somebody, somewhere, knows how to repair or replace it. The exception is Humanity, who know darn well that relying on such tech will make them economically dependent on other species. They try to use their own (comparatively very primitive) tech while struggling to learn how alien devices work. Occasionally, Humans even benefit from Rock Beats Laser. But even Earthclan has to rely on Black Box technology for certain things — i.e. reality shields, psi shields, hyperspace, and the Library itself.
• This is a major feature in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels. Everyone uses a certain kind of stardrive, but only the makers know how they work, and fiddling leads to an enormous explosion. The most powerful weapons are barely-understood gifts from Sufficiently Advanced Aliens or future humans who will sent the blueprints back in time.
Judging by one character's vauge discription of the internal conditions in a stardrive in "Weather", the Conjoiners kept the stardrive technoloy Black Box so that the 'retarded' (everyone else) wouldn't try and weaponise it. And also because of the whole disembodied-brain thing...
• The O/BEC processors in Blind Lake. Created by accident due to the use of self-rewriting code, not even the scientists who operate them are quite certain how they do what they do. There are only two in existence; all attempts to make a third by replicating the conditions that lead to the first two have failed.
• This exact phrase is used to describe the Highway in William Gibson's short story "Hinterlands". Astronauts go in and come out, sometimes bringing back pieces of alien civilisation with them. The "jump" only happens when the astronaut is alone and they all, invariably, come back either dead or catatonic. Sometimes the jump doesn't happen at all...
• In The League of Peoples Verse, the Technocracy has pretty much no idea about how most of its own technology works, as the majority of it was just handed to humanity by Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
• In Atlas Shrugged the remains of John Galt's motor were found in an abandoned motor factory. Dagny Taggart's new purpose in life (for the next few chapters at least) is to find a scientist to reverse engineer the motor and put it to use on her railroad.
• It's a particularly interesting case, as Galt realized that the unbelievable stupidity of Starnes heirs were the symptoms of a cultural decline. He could thus safely walk off and leave the prototype and the plans right there in the lab without fear that they would be stolen, as no mind capable of understanding how valuable they were, let alone making use of them, would ever work there again. A notable subversion of Low Culture, High Tech.
• Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist. The main MacGuffin in the story is known as the Black Box.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's universe there is the Shipstone; a battery that comes in sizes from a lifetime miniature system for a flashlight, to a large battery that can power a house, to a possibly colossal one that powers space ships. The black box-ness of it comes because the inventor never patented it, since that would require that he publish the schematics. he just started a company and started manufacturing them under lots of secrecy. Attempts at dismantling and reverse engineering a shipstone usually resulted in a big kaboom.
• The Robert A. Heinlein/Spider Robinson novel Variable Star has a living black box in the form of Relativists. These are men and women who can coax a ship's engines to accelerate to relativistic speed apparently by Comtemplating Their Navels. The Relativists think up a number of poetic descriptions of what they do all day to keep the engines going, but in the end they admit that even they aren't really sure how they're doing it.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
• The starship Heart of Gold features the infinite improbability drive that enables improbability manipulation up to a point where the ship exists everywhere at once and can drop out anywhere instantly - universe wide teleportation. The hitch is that nobody knows how the improbability drive really works, some smartass janitor just figured out one day that all he needed to know was how improbable it was for that drive to come into existance and voila, instant Black Box.
• The starship Bistromath works on a similar principle. In restaurants math works differently than anywhere else in the universe. This is why you can never correctly guess what the bill will be, what a proper tip is, how much each person at the table should owe, etc. Nobody knows why this is, or how it works, but that doesn't stop them from building a spaceship modeled on a small Italian Bistro to take advantage of this fact and break several laws of physics.
• The Belt of Deltora from Emily Rodda's Deltora Quest is technically a Black Box, with the belt part itself the box and the gems the internal mechanisms. It can be assumed that no one knows exactly how it works; indeed, how it works is irrelevant. All anyone knows is that the Belt is "greater than the sum of its parts" and removing one of the pieces (i.e., one of the gems) would stop it functioning.
• In Animorphs, the kids are given the power to morph by touching the Blue Box by the alien Elfangor right before he is eaten alive by Visser Three. Later, David shows up with the same blue box and it is used to give him morphing power even though no one present has any idea how the technology works. This happens later again when the Auxiliary Animorphs are created, and yet AGAIN when the Yeerks steal the blue box and use the morphing power to create their own solidiers with the morphing ability.
• In Ian Irvine's Well of Echoes series, the clankers draw energy from nodes. No-one knows why it works, but their are some illegal books that speculate on these topics.
• This becomes a major problem when nodes start to fail, because the humans depend upon clankers to fend off the lyrinx that have been killing the human race.
• The Machine of Death is a device that takes a person's blood sample and predicts how that person will die. It's cheap to use and possible to duplicate, but no one knows how it works.
• Redshirts has the Box, a microwaved shaped device that if given a sample of any xenobiological problem, will go 'ding' and provide the solution when dramatically appropriate. Truly unusual due to the fact that even the writer for the show doesn't know where it came from, since it never appears in any scene that is filmed. It just appears out of nowhere so that all the miraculous cures needed in the show are possible.
• In Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End, pretty much all engineering is done by putting together modular black boxes whose contents are unknown, except to the companies that manufacture them. This is done to protect copyrights and trade secrets. Plus, it's supposed to make things simpler. At one point, Robert Gu gets frustrated, and tries to open a black box under the hood of a car, using a cutting laser. The result is an explosion.
• This turns out to be the MacGuffin in the Desmond Bagley spy novel Running Blind. At one point the protagonist takes the mysterious piece of electronic equipment that he's supposed to be escorting (and that the KGB is trying to kill him over) to a scientist and asks what it is. After putting it on a testbed, he's completely stumped. Turns out that's the idea — the device was designed to tie up Soviet resources trying to work out what it is.
• In A Yellow Raft In Blue Water, one of Christine Taylor's jobs involved assembling black boxes together, which she did on two separate occasions, and during her pregnancy with Rayona, she imagined her unborn child being the little black box in her life, secretly recording everything that was going on in it.
• In You, all of Black Arts's games are based on the WAFFLE engine but no one at the company really understands how it works. The narration directly refers to it as a "black box" at one point.
Live Action TV
• Stargate SG-1 often adapts lesser versions of the technology the crew encounters from other planets. "It doesn't quite work like the original" is commonly stated. However, they're far more aware than most Black Box users of the potential for unexpected side effects.
• In fact, nearly every piece of technology they pick up is mentioned to be sent off to Area 51, either in the episode where it's introduced, or when they decide to use it again. This leads to situations that look like Forgotten Phlebotinum, until two or three years down the line where the device pops up again. Except for anything that comes with a trigger (Zat guns, anyone?) which is usually put into active service immediately. Which should come as a surprise to nobody, since military usage (including stuff that makes an Earth-Shattering Kaboom) is usually the first application mankind can think off for any given tech. Naquadria bombs, anyone?
• Which makes sense in a way, as acquiring weapons to defend Earth is the SGC's first mission.
• There are few ideas that are missing however. So they can take apart staff weapons but can't build them or speed up rate of fire but could find them by the buttload after a firefight right? Well, seeing as how that whole unlimited ammo for machine guns thing would be very useful in their fighters, why didn't they strap six or seven of the firing portion onto a rotating contraption and make an impromptu gatling weapon and mount one of those?
• It was mentioned in show, that kinetic weapons make better infantry weapons because staff weapons are self-cauterizing and less accurate. As for space weapons, they probably never actually captured a ship class staff weapon. The infantry ones they have are much less powerful the the F-302 railguns.
• While never utilized in the show, that idea is one of the first uses Humanity finds for all the extra Staff Weapons in the Fan-Fic series 'XSGCOM', among other things...
• This also extends to the spinoff/sequels Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, where the protagonists uncover treasure troves of Ancient and alien technology. Though they know how to operate the Ancient technology they find (most of the time), they don't know their exact inner workings.
• The Goa'uld, on the other hand, make very little effort to study the Ancient technology they use. They've based their empire on things like the Stargates and ring transporters, but they really have no idea how any of it works.
• Most Goa'uld are like this, but a few tech-savvy ones do try to make new tech. Clear examples are Anubis (although he's just reverse-engineering Ancient tech) and Ba'al (who understands the programming used by the gate system on a deep level and has messed around with gravity manipulation). In fact, it's the bigshot System Lords who usually don't bother with the tech stuff, but there are many underling Goa'uld who serve as their technical specialists. It's not that they don't know how Ancient-derived tech works, they just don't see the point in trying to improve it if it will upset the status quo.
• Babylon 5 has a variety of Black Boxes, mostly leftover First One technology:
• Nobody knows who built the first jumpgates or what principle they operate on, and every spacefaring race in the universe simply produces replicas thereof without understanding how they work.
• Shadow devices that allow for remote control of ships. Like Sheridan says, the younger races don't understand them and can't build them, but are sure willing to use them.
• The machine that transfers life force from one person to another, first featured in the first season episode Quality of Mercy and turning up again in a few later episodes.
• In the TV film Thirdspace, they find a large object adrift in Hyperspace, covered in Vorlon writing. Naturally, they stick a power cell onto it, which turns out not to have been their brightest idea ever.
• In the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, it's eventually revealed after the destruction of the Resurrection Hub that the "Significant Seven" Cylons don't understand how the resurrection process they use actually works, and so they can't reconstruct it after it's gone. Only the Final Five have the knowledge necessary to recreate the technology, since they designed it in the first place.
• The positronic brain that makes Data a Ridiculously Human Robot serves as his black box in Star Trek: The Next Generation. While Starfleet has a pretty good idea of how the rest of his body works, the technology that actually makes him sentient is a complete mystery to them, especially since the genius inventor who built him is dead. They're understandably reluctant to take Data apart to figure it out, since they don't know if they'd be able to put him back together afterwards, and after a particularly overzealous researcher took the issue to court, Data gained the legal right to refuse such a dismantling anyway. His own attempt to replicate the technology seemed to succeed when he built a "daughter", Lal, but her positronic brain became unstable and she only lived for a few weeks. Nobody's tried to build another one since.
• Also, the risk of creating another Lore (Data's dangerously flawed older brother) highlights the risks of building anything less than a flawless brain on the first attempt.
• Finch and his partner invoke this trope in Person of Interest when questioned by the CIA on how the Machine provides intel. Finch feels the Machine is too powerful for any person to have access, and so encrypts it so heavily even he will never be able to access it again.
Newspaper Comics
• The legacy server in Dilbert, which Dilbert was put in charge of. It's worth noting that Dilbert's immediate response upon seeing it was
Dilbert: Frack.
Tabletop RPG
• Justified in Cthulhu Tech. Since the Dimensional Engine runs on non-Euclidean mathematics, attempting to find out what goes on inside one will cause weak minds to break.
• The term non-Euclidean here is meant to be a hint of how complex and hard or impossible to understand this geometry is, rather than a strict description. According to one article, 4D geometry isn't Euclidean because there's an easy way for corners to mathematically become curves. We're familiar with geometry that works with respect to spheres, because trying to travel in a large enough square path will not result in getting to the original place. That's a standard example of non-Euclidean geometry. Imagine going to a realm where backtracking would also take you to a different place. Or traveling in distances that cannot be expressed only in real numbers, so imaginary numbers must also be used. See Alien Geometries.
• Mathematicians most likely have theory that works with these geometries as well. They seem to like inventing things that can cause madness in more grounded in reality people. Fortunately, most of these are kept out of public view.
• Anisotropic space? What's wrong with it?
• 4D geometry can be Euclidean. Can be not. It's not a case of dimensions - Minkowski space(time) can be easily represented for 2D instead of 4D as in special relativity. Actually we are sure since special relativity has been <del>proved</del> <ins>not disproved</ins> that our space is not Euclidean. Set Theory did drive people insane.
• "In the center of every ANIMa creche lies a scavenged piece of an alien's brain. It's possible that this is the only thing that an ANIMa requires to function, and that the rest of the machine is there to inspire more confidence on the part of the pilots." - Bliss Stage: Ignition Stage rulebook
• In the Eberron campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, black box magic was used to develop the warforged through schemas, which are essentially magical blueprints conveniently left behind by an ancient giant civilization. It turns out (in the Secrets of Xen'drik supplement) that it was an attempt by an ancient extradimensional race to escape to our world from the realm of dreams by creating artificial bodies, though this doesn't explain why modern warforged are fully sentient and appear to have souls.
• Syrneth artifacts in the 7th Sea RPG setting are an intentional use of this trope. Syrneth technology doesn't just do whatever is convenient; the results of humans tinkering with it can have effects ranging from miraculous to horrendous, and sometimes no effect at all.
• Syrneth artifacts also run the gamut in regards to the complexity of their function. The Pirate Nations sourcebook includes several that players can purchase. They include a completely functional cybernetic hand and a marble that, once tapped, will always roll back to the position it was last tapped, showcasing how bizarre some of the effects can be.
• As a borderline Scavenger World, Warhammer 40,000's Imperium of Man has some examples of this. A great deal of technological knowledge has been lost over the millennia, and as a result many of the devices lovingly-maintained by the rituals of the Adeptus Mechanicus are irreplaceable ancient relics. One example would be the Standard Template Construct systems, self-contained manufacturing programs that can produce anything from medicine to battle tanks to knives - they're some of the most valuable treasures in the galaxy, and the Imperium eagerly uses them whenever one is discovered, but nobody has any clue how they function and certainly isn't going to risk cracking one open to find out.
• What the ST Cs actually are depends on the author, although they may just use the same name for different systems. The most common is that it was a massive database on how to build anything given basic tools and resources without any real mechanical or scientific skill, but the last working system was lost millenia before the founding of the Imperium. The print-outs of a few plans that remain are the most valuable things in the galaxy as a result.
• A nonhuman example would be the Blackstone Fortresses of the Gothic Sector, a sextet of ancient space stations left behind by an extinct alien race. The AdMech were able to patch into the stations' power systems and hook up their own weapons and life-support, but nobody was sure of the things' function... until Abaddon the Despoiler showed up with some artifacts of his own and fully activated the Blackstone Fortresses, deploying guns that tore holes in space-time and could make suns go nova.
• The Space Marines' implants cannot be duplicated since the source material needed to create more of them, the Primarchs, are dead, lost, fallen to Chaos, or are otherwise in no condition for harvesting. Even worse, the God Emperor of Mankind is the only person alive(ish) who knows how to create more Primarchs, and he's been trapped in living death for 10,000 years. If a Marine falls in battle, retrieving his implant is his comrades' top priority, since each lost implant means one less Space Marine ready to fight against the enemies of humanity. (Once again this depends on the writer. Currently they can make the implants using something called a Gene Seed which develops in each Marine. If a Marine dies without producing at least one then that is a great lost to the Chapter as it will be decades before they can make it up.))
• To humans, Tau technology is this: they simply cannot fathom how their technology works without first placating the "machine spirits" (which may actually exist, Depending on the Writer) with incense and rituals. They don't get how ork stuff works either (for that matter, neither do the orks), though they just figure the orks shout and whack their machine spirits into submission.
• Mad Science in Deadlands is a prominent example. A Mad Scientist may create fantastic devices that surpass anything "regular" science is able to produce, but it's impossible to mass-produce Mad Science gizmoes - they just don't work. Throughout the centuries, Mad Science gains or loses popularity, depending on the shifting popular opinion. Mad Science is partly magical, the ideas for it coming from Manitous, malevolent spirits serving the setting's Big Bads. It is part of a master plot to (eventually) bring about Ghost Rock bombs, nuclear weapons capable of warping or killing spirits of living things, and to transform the entire Earth into a terror-filled wasteland.
• Wonders in Genius The Transgression work in a similar way to Deadlands: Geniuses can build devices that delicately bend the laws of physics, usually with a crackpot theory given legitimacy by the light of Inspiration. For many years, various Geniuses have tried to find out the secrets behind Inspiration, with little success.
• And don't even think about having a regular scientist examine it. That does not end well.
• It also adds some serious Fridge Horror for anyone who is scientifically inclined. Imagine being a scientist or engineer (the most common people who become Geniuses), someone who dedicated their career to discovering the truth and pushing technology forward and creating something that can bend the laws of reality... but you can never show anyone, can never prove anything and you will never know how it works.
• Subverted in Exalted. Many of the great and wondrous artifacts can be understood... it's just that most of the great designers would have been among the Solar Exalted, who were murdered and had their Exaltations sealed away so they couldn't reincarnate. It doesn't help that the Solars specifically designed many artifacts to only function for Solars... because they never imagined there would be a time when they weren't around.
• In theory, any Celestial Exalt (or Terrestrial of sufficient age and experience) could bring themselves to understand the complex workings of Solar artifice. The problem is that reaching that level of excellence is much harder for non-Solars, they can't achieve nearly the same level of speed, and besides they've been a bit distracted since then.
• Well, now that the Solar Exalted are back, they can begin reverse engineering all of the old First Age tech... as can their corrupted cousins, the Abyssal Exalted and Infernal Exalted, whose bosses have other ideas about what to do with all of that technology.
• To a degree, Exaltations themselves are black boxes, to the point where the guy who made the Celestial-tier shards probably can't make any morenote . The main alterations made have been the result of insane supergods launching curses fuelled by the power of their own deaths (the Great Curse), the random action of a zone of infinite probability (the breaking of the Lunar castes), flipping a switch that may have been there all along (Abyssals), and using an intact Solar shard as the battery pack for a web of Yozi Essence (Infernals). Alchemicals can only be made by demiurges channelling the Design of Autochthon and have no idea how to make more when not channelling. About the only Exalts it's easy to make are Dragon-Bloods, and that's because all you need is two other Dragon-Bloods, one male and one female. Or not even that, since anyone with a Dragon-Blood ancestor can Exalt as a Dragon-Blood as long as they haven't Exalted as anything else, though it's less likely.
• A fair bit of Lost Technology in BattleTech is considered black-box level of complexity, usable by the Inner Sphere but completely beyond their understanding in regards to how it worked. This includes things like Drop Ship and Jumpship construction technology (described as fully automated and unable to be built), human myomer implantation (with horrific results if it fails for reasons unknown), and faster-than-light 'secret transmission' technology, which sends faxes across the stars. As the timeline has progressed, however, there have been some gains in the understanding of such technology.
• Xenosaga: KOS-MOS is an android built by Kevin Winnicot, but when she goes berserk and murders hims she has to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, the only way Kevin's successors are capable of creating another KOS-MOS is to simply repair and (attempt to) reprogram the same prototype unit that killed him because he took the plans for her to his grave. As a result, the current KOS-MOS is treated like a faulty handgrenade which her development team is loathe to admit they have zero control over if push comes to shove. She's laden with black box parts and programs, each with unknown functions, which come online at seemingly random intervals (like her Gnosis-obliterating X-Buster ability), often to shocking effect. Series protagonist (and KOS-MOS co-creator) Shion is only able to figure most of them out enough to rebuild KOS-MOS a second time after gaining access to Kevin's original plans via a time paradox.
• Also, a great deal of the series's technology is the product of one man, Joachim Mizrahi. After he died on Militia during the Federation's invasion, a great amount of effort has been poured into piecing his prototypes back together, as well as reassembling his codex of knowledge: the Y-Data. Efforts to recreate his work from scratch by his rival Dr. Sellers amount to impressive, but fatally flawed knock-offs.
• Xenogears has Gears, the giant mecha of the game. Gears are obtained both through construction and excavation, but it's never elaborated to exactly what ratio most Gears are are comprised of irreproducible black boxes, copyable black boxes, and commonly understood technology. The primary Gear of the game, Weltall, is comprised almost entirely of black boxes, which, much like KOS-MOS, are stunningly powerful and come online at seemingly random intervals. According to the Perfect Works Book, most of the black boxes are either Ether amplifiers, or components used in its transformation between Weltall and Weltal-Id-. Eventually, Weltall is transformed into the titular Xenogears, becoming a 100% Organic Technology black box, in addition to being the most powerful Gear in the game.
• In the Mega Man X game series, the sentient robot X is copied imperfectly, resulting in the Maverick uprisings.
• The documentation for the original SNES game outright stated that there were some systems that Dr. Cain just didn't understand and therefore didn't reproduce. He even called them "Black Boxes". It's unknown if these parts were part of X's ethical training, or his various weapon systems (his ability is repeatedly described as "limitless", and no one understands why). Later games revealed that Zero has similar black boxes, mostly likely stolen by Wily.
• But in the Mega Man Zero series, Ciel, as a young kid, manages to reproduce X perfectly. Unfortunately said perfect reproduction showed why Dr. Light had X put into ethic training sleep for at least 30 years.
• And then you can't call it a perfect reproduction. Yes, it looked like X, it had an arm cannon, a variable weapons system (though he only used three moves), and a set of armor... but it's much weaker than X in many ways and in fact is quite comparable with the clone body Zero is in. That said, Copy X is somewhere between 5 and 8 years old, meaning he lacks X's century+ of experience by this point.
• In Armored Core: Nexus, this comes back to bite the Corporations in the ass. One Corporation activates the robotic equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction to protect their territory. So, it promptly goes berserk and ends up killing the executives of that Corporation and most of the people who work for them. This happens again when Kisaragi, in the same game, activates a copy of Nine Ball and a myriad of suicide bots which, again, promptly go apeshit and kamikaze their way through the Corporations and nearly kill everyone. It also probably gets the protagonist killed.
• A rare example where the black box is in the alien's hands is in the Halo universe, where all of the super powerful technology used by the Covenant are just leftovers of another alien race called the Forerunners. Instead of even trying to discover the means of its operation, they take them to have divine powers and remember the Forerunners as gods. For this reason it has been established that they do not even use the technology very efficiently. By contrast, human attempts to analyse captured Covenant technology, as demonstrated in the Expanded Universe novels, result in drastic improvements. Cortana, for example, analyzes the tech and uses it against the Covenant by converting a plasma torpedo launcher on a ship they hijacked into a Wave Motion Gun by simply recalibrating its programming. This turned out to be not so beneficial when the rogue Covenant AI on that ship managed to send the information about the improvements out to other ships in the area.
• The inability of the Covenant to use their technology is made very obvious in the manual with the Halo 2 collector's edition, where the Covenant hierarchy themselves state they have no way of recharging plasma weapons in the field, and all Covenant troops are trained to throw away a depleted weapon and take a charged one off their dead comrades.
• In the Mass Effect series, the Citadel and mass relays are thought to be built by the Protheans. Humans and other races use them, though their inner workings and construction are poorly understood, and any attempt to understand them is regarded as an exercise in futility. It turns out that a race of Abusive Precursors, the Reapers, were the real builders of these wonders, and the Protheans were just barely figuring out the technology themselves when they were wiped out.
• Worse than that, the mass relays and Citadel are a huge trap set by the Reapers meant to alert them when sentient life is ready for another round of reaping. Just before they begin their invasion, they disable the entire relay network so that all star systems are isolated from each other, and ripe for the picking.
• Matriarch Aethyta very much dislikes the black box nature of the relays and once proposed trying to study relays more intimately, maybe even building one. As she puts it, the other Matriarchs "laughed the blue off my ass."
• The design of their conventional FTL system is much the same, being almost entirely reverse-engineered from the Protheans. This means that they have no idea how to disengage certain safety protocols that prevent ships from being flown into planets or other vessels at relativistic velocities. While this is generally a good thing, it prevents the military from using this tactic against the Reapers.
• The third game kicks this Up to Eleven with the Crucible, a light flung into the future so many times that barely anyone who tried to build it understood what it was or what it did. Not even the Protheans were sure how it even operated, and they nearly finished the damn thing before the Reapers completed their invasion. It's hammered home numerous times through the game that it could do damn near anything because while there are easily understandable blueprints for it, there's no data on how to use it or what it does. At one point Commander Shepard likens the situation to a child playing with his father's gun.
• Much of the Tiberian story arc of Command & Conquer revolves around recovery, possession and use of the Tacitus - a black-box type artifact misplaced by the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
• Not only that, but the in game resource "Tiberium" which acts as the catalyst for the entire series is an alien terraforming plant that will shape earth to become like their planet. In their attempts to study the plant both sides find ways to turn it into a weapon.
• In Sins of a Solar Empire, the Advent field Phase Inhibitors stolen from the TEC, who use Phase Inhibitors captured from the Vasari. . . who also don't know how Phase Inhibitors work, and simply field copies of ones that they found.
• The Metroid Prime subseries involves the use of Phazon, a blue gooey substance that turns its users Nigh Invulnerable and greatly amplifies their weapon strength. It also corrupts its users into willing slaves of the host planet Phaaze, but thems the breaks!
• The PED suit from Metroid Prime 3 contains a "black box" that allows the user to boost their power with Phazon, though how the corruption is contained is not explicitly stated. Samus's black box breaks early in the game.
• Samus's suit has tons of hidden properties the Chozo didn't have time to tell her. Fortunately the suit is smart enough to do that for them. Not only that, but the suit is actually capable of using non-Chozo technology to upgrade itself when Samus acquires it, which gets really strange when she picks up Luminoth, Space Pirate and human technology (though human power suits are most likely based off Chozo power suits anyway).
• In Prime, Space Pirate documents specifically make mention of their utter bafflement by many of the suit's functions. They have also been attempting to reverse-engineer aspects of her suit, such as the morph ball. In that particular example, their tests with a live pilot produced unfavorable results.
• Played with in Homeworld, whose Historical and Technical Briefing describes the discovery of a large amount of Lost Technology in the wreck of an ancient spacecraft, including something eventually identified as "a solid-state hyperspace induction module". It's implied that much of their limited understanding of how it actually works was gained from building a couple of scaled-down copies and fitting them to small spacecraft, pressing the 'on' button and watching to see what happened.
• Then it turned out that said module is actually a 10,000-year old Progenitor Far Jumper; only three of them exist in the whole galaxy. One of these are in the posession of the Bentusi and it's the basis of all hyperdrives in the galaxy, save the Kushan ones. It is also said that no matter how much they study them, they can't figure out why the reverse-engineered versions are much slower than the originals even though they know how to make other ships tag along by "riding the quantum wavefront". In fact, combining the three Far Jumpers will break the laws of physics (black holes disable hyperdrives yet the Trinity still works flawlessly).
• In Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, no one knows how the power source of the airships works.
• Epitaphs in Infinite Space. They're more-or-less useless one-foot-square rust-red and slime-green cubes, but if you can figure out what they do, you get rewarded with the power to alter the universe.
• In the Touhou Expanded Universe, there's a character named Rinnosuke. Rinnosuke has the power to immediately identify the function of any device he sees. This does not mean that he knows how to use it. (He sometimes gets strange results too, like identifying a Nintendo Gameboy as a "World Controlling Device," but that's a different trope.)
• The Metal Max series has this in spades. Aside from the world having been wrecked so badly no one even remembers what several machines DO, let alone how to build them (tanks among them - although The Disassembler seems to know his way around them, but he's insane and only disassembles them, hence the name), there's the androids Scarlet and Alpha in Metal Saga, whom nobody knows how to fix (hence why if Alpha gets KOed, she can't be revived, and why Scarlet dies after you defeat her - she's been going without repairs since the Great War that wiped the planet, and her regeneration is pretty much at its limit, she even comments on it being the case). The genetically engineered dogs in Metal Saga may also count, as they are very clearly far more intelligent than they appear, bordering on being smarter than quite a few humans.
• Dwarf Fortress, reportedly, is one. Not only is Toady One very protective of the source code behind his masterwork, but his software development skills are almost entirely self-taught. The handful of people who have been entrusted with backup copies of it have attested that the code is almost impenetrable to mere mortals.
• Really, this can apply to just about anything a player creates in the game. Fortresses can get so elaborate that critical functions are simply forgotten or change completely as they are built upon; this especially applies to Succession Games, since players tend to not use the in-game labelling function. Many a fortress has run into fun because the guy running it forgets which lever opens the door to the mess hall and which one activates the fortress' lava-based self-destruct. A truly stand-out example has to be where one Let's Play ended up creating a fortress so convoluted that one room ended up becoming its own Pocket Dimension.
• The superweapons of the Naval Ops series, especially in Warship Gunner 2, are considered to be Black Boxes by the people fighting against them. In WG 2, they run off a Black Box "Engine" strapped into oversized conventional ships (for a given value of conventional).
• Played with through the gates of the X Universe. While operation is terribly easy — push a spaceship in one gate, and it'll pop out the other gate in the pair a few seconds later, no matter how far away — no one in the central interstellar trade system understands anything but the lies-to-children version of how they work. While there are a few scientists capable of repairing damaged gates, no one even thinks about trying replication or reconfiguration, and the irregular outages or changes in the system caused by meddling precursors is treated like mystery or even legend where it's not just a natural risk of the gates. The species that actually made the system in the first place not only consider it outside of the range of understanding of the normal races, they think it's impossible for a species to understand without getting a few points higher on the Kardashev scale. Then the Terran humans get involved, and not only get the theory down and create a new gate on their own, but also create a Jumpdrive that's a separate Black Box to everyone else in the setting.
• Deadliar from Hellsinker previous nickname was Blackbox in true spirit of this this trope since noone had any idea how he operated and produced the results he did.
• The Demon Summoning Program in the Shin Megami Tensei series is a monstruously powerful piece of software capable of bringing forth demons into the physical world. However, when analyzed in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, the technicians are baffled by the dozens of Black Boxes in its code, and its use is only authorized in the eve of extreme duress. Across the series, a handful of people have been seen to develop some variation upon Akemi Nakajima's original program, but it bears mentioning that aside from Nakajima himself and STEVEN, most of these are inhuman entities using and distributing it for their own purposes. Even those two eventually Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence, Nakajima as Izanagi and STEVEN as The Dragon for the Goddess of Tokyo.
• In Dishonored, whale oil is an incredibly efficient source of fuel, but no one really knows why this is the case. When Emily was asked how whale oil works during her lessons, she responded that it's a trick question, since nobody knows the answer. The Heart claims that the whales are actually supernatural beings.
• In a flashback arc of Gnoph, a scientist criticizes the military for creating a breed of Super Soldier pretty much by accident and then using them despite not really understanding how or why they work. Sure enough, things soon Go Horribly Wrong.
Dr. Westman: Gotta love that military mentality: "Ah don' know why ut works, but they sure do kill!" Idiots.
• According to Word of God, the Beam swords in Exterminatus Now are Lost Technology from a long-gone empire, and are not comparable to any other technology (modern or otherwise) in the setting (so the dark Machine God cannot possess them). This goes a way towards explaining why the Forgemaster who builds them is ignorant and suspicious of modern plumbing.
• Some government agents in Real Life Comics once confiscated an interplanetary ship Tony made. They opened up the reactor and found . . . jam.
• Nobody Scores! had an arc where the main characters ended up getting their hands on a literal black box — things went in, and other things came out. It was when it started producing multiple copies of the severed head of Shia LaBoeuf (who was still alive) that they started trying to get rid of it...
• In Gunnerkrigg Court, Anja and Donald Donlan created a computer that runs on magic, which even they don't fully understand the workings of. They're the only ones who use it—the rest of the Court distrusts it precisely because it's a Black Box.
• Diego's Super Prototype robots (which also appear to run on a combination of magic and technology) are also black boxes. They have no visible power source, nor means of moving their limbs. They are golems made by a master mechanician who wrote their "OS" in what under a magnifying glass turns out to be a small book worth of runes. Modern robots are black boxes even while self-documenting. When asked to print their operating code, one produced a 3D image of some complex structure made of runes, with density requiring a microscope to read, without any sort of map legend, and neither derived from nor designed to be compatible with, any human languages, natural or programming (they are robot-built).
• The Star core in Mushroom Go, nobody on the ship has any idea how it works.
• An early Goats storyline involves such a machine - you put kittens in, and pop tarts come out; nobody knows what happens to the kittens. Later it's revealed that the machine is a stolen alien spaceship engine, which is powered by the good feelings created when the kitten is placed in a loving home. But it's still a Black Box, because even the aliens don't know where the pop tarts come from.
• In Westward, Escherspace — a form of Faster-Than-Light Travel — appears to be a Black Box. Publicly, the government claims that "only a few scientists" know how it works; in reality, it's strongly hinted that only the mysterious alien Phobos may be capable of understanding it, and he must personally work the controls when the webcomic's eponymous Cool Starship makes an interstellar jump.
• In Spacetrawler, it's implied that the eponymous spacetrawlers (which the entire galaxy relies on to enable faster-than-light travel and matter synthesis from space debris) are so complicated that only the technopath Eebs can understand and construct them. It's eventually revealed that their construction is less complicated than implied, but the details are so horrific that it's no surprise that the builders insist on keeping them secret.
• During the "Star Trek" parody arc of Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger Omnibus described the devices running the essential functions on the "Glorious Undertaking" as "black box" devices. Turns out they were cosmic entity tech secretly installed by "Cue" to limit the number of exploding Federation vessels.
• Weaponized in User Friendly. Cid, a Cool Old Guy, was looking at old military software and found an old device that he made, programmed, and maintained. He remembers that it's primary purpose was to give him job security.
Web Original
• Most of the super-advanced technology in the Orion's Arm universe is at least partly powered by transapientech. This is by definition designed by beings orders of magnitude smarter than ordinary folks. This is something of a subversion in that the inner workings are completely known, and probably published somewhere on the net, but the people using them can't understand them, since their brains aren't complex enough. It's sort of like trying to teach a small child nuclear physics in depth.
• Almost anything in custody of the SCP Foundation. SC Ps classified as "Euclid" are always this (it's the designation for "we don't know what it's doing or why"), while SC Ps classified as "Safe" or "Keter" are only usually this.
• SCP-914 is a more literal Black Box than most.
Western Animation
• Ben 10's Omnitrix. Not from earth. Seemingly simple to use on the surface... But it has secrets, hidden abilities, glitches, and occasionally, a mind of its own.
• Eventually they meet its creator, who doesn't seem to understand what he's built either.
• He fully understands it's inner workings, it's just that he's very reluctant about revealing them to other people.
• In ThunderCats (2011), young Catfolk prince Lion-O is a Collector of the Strange, namely "technology." He purchases a piece of what he suspects is technology from a Friend in the Black Market, and spends quite a bit of time puzzling over it and diagramming it, but only realizes its function when he sees a Lizard use one to blow up a wall during The Siege on his kingdom of Thundera. Finally understanding the device's interface as a Sticky Bomb, he grabs some others to join the fight against the Lizards, saving his father Claudus and brother Tygra by using the bombs to blow up some of the Lizards' Walking Tanks.
Real Life
• In WW II, at a time when electronics were evolving rapidly (e.g. microwave/RADAR technology), the British assembled electronic parts into random yet convincing circuits, then shot and otherwise mangled them, then let their bombers carry them. If one of them was downed, the Germans would go through the wreckage, find the remains and then spend valuable time and manpower to try to figure out what this secret device was supposed to do.
• On Doctor Who, one of the companions, Kamelion, was, behind the scenes, an actual, animatronic robot. Unfortunately, the person who had designed it and who knew the control codes died after the episode where it first appeared, so the character mostly had to stay in the background.
• The Jargon File and its dead-tree twin, The New Hacker's Dictionary, is rife with terms describing programming Black Boxes, most notably Black Magic.
• The most memorable of which is the "Magic / More Magic" switch. The only wire soldered to the switch goes directly to the case of a server. There is electrically no way it can affect anything on the server (except for EXTREMELY bizarre capacitance effects), and yet switching to "Magic" causes the server to die.
• It could also be due to a difference in electric potential between the ground and the case.
• Genetic algorithms (computer programs that emulate neo-Darwinian synthesis) can produce hardware that no human could design. For example, an array of logic gates that sets its output high when it hears "go" and low when it hears "stop". Inside the circuit, 5 of the 37 gates are not even connected to the rest, yet the device stops working when their power is disconnected! An order of magnitude weirder than the magic switch. Other examples include a research team accidentally reinventing the radio receiver while trying to evolve an oscillator, and very unusually shaped antennas that can be held in the palm of the hand and transmit signals from satellites to the surface of the earth. More about the magical stop go circuit here.
• To make this an even stronger example, genetic algorithms just make random changes and go with what's best. They don't understand it either. It's a black box even to the designer.
• Black Box programming is a very important concept in real life. For example, all APIs (which allow developers to connect to things like Facebook or Google Maps) are black boxes; generally, the only details developers have are usage instructions and a description of what it does, since someone writing, say, a GPS application doesn't need to know anything about how Google Maps works.
• In this case, this is actually considered a good thing: abstraction means compatibility. If your software is designed without using any knowledge of how the black box part works, it will (at least in theory) be possible to swap that library out for an updated or improved version later on. So long as somebody knows how it works, it's just a matter of trusting one's fellow engineers. In contrast, the moment you have to know how each variant of something really works instead of just one set of common operations, a task that should be trivial turns into a nightmare. Remember those DOS games and their sound setup programs?
• In object-oriented programming, objects are supposed to be black boxes, often having public and private groups of variables and functions. The "client" only need to know what the functions do and what should be put in the variables, and not anything about the inner workings. Similarly, template libraries and built-in functions in many programming languages (like C++'s STL) are Black Boxes. The documentation on C++'s sort() function, for example, doesn't tell you what kind of sorting algorithm is used, because it doesn't really matter (although one can deduce that it's probably a quicksort implementation from what they say about its running time).
• And if someone else wants the class to do something else, the chances are they'll write another class that extends and/or calls the old one, rather than trying to rewrite the existing source code.
• Large amounts of real world software source code is an absolute abomination of incomprehensible abbreviations, architectures which haven't evolved and grown so much as become cancerous, baffling hacks and plain old carelessness and stupidity or even just plain old lack of programming know-how. Such software will gain Black Box status pretty soon after the original developers move on.
• Fun fact: Masi Oka (yes, Hiro from Heroes) still has to do occasional effects work for his former employer, ILM, because nobody else knows how to use his software.
• This isn't unusual. Truly understanding non-trivial code written by someone else without documentation is considered the mark of a master programmer. It's said engineers don't retire, they just become consultants and come back to fix their old things when they break.
• Particularly this is true of cryptographic algorithms. You put plain text and encryption key in, and you get back line noise. Put line noise and decryption key in, and you get back plain text. Unfortunately so few people actually understand the algorithms and code that, even in open source software, bugs can lurk for a long time.
• More humorous example, in an attempt to cut government costs, California decided to fire a large chunk of government workers, then redo the pay rates for everyone left. Well, phase one went off fine, but come phase two they realized that every single person that knew enough about the payroll software to implement the changes was fired in phase one.
• Older electronic (and most especially military) technologies may well have been designed by people who are dead, coded in languages which no-one ever hears of nowadays, use electronic standards long since obsoleted and built by companies that dissolved or got eaten by other companies some time ago. Black Boxhood arrives quite naturally for such devices, which could conceivably include missile guidance systems or nuclear warhead triggers which are still quite useable today.
• COBOL used to be a very common language for developing business software in. Though superseded by modern languages like Java or Visual Basic, old working software was not replaced. The pool of skilled COBOL engineers is rapidly dwindling simply because they are retiring and in due course upgrade and maintenance engineers will simply not exist anymore.
• It seems that the original programming of Microsoft Excel might be a black box, since after the principal programmer quit, the project virtually stopped. Luckily he came back.
• Many psychiatric drugs work via mechanisms that are either unknown or only loosely understood. The laborious (sometimes decades long) process of searching for side effects and other quirks irons out many of the Black Box problems that plague fiction.
• On that subject, some (if not most) chemical reactions in general have mechanisms which are only vaguely understood at best.
• Real Life is rife with stories of a programmer being fired for whatever reason, only for his ex-boss to realize nobody knows how to maintain the server.
• Due to the "digital rights" controversy, certain laws have been put into effect that require black boxes to remain black boxes, making it illegal even to try to crack into them. For example, it's now illegal to write programs to get past certain types of encoding on music, DVD's, and electronic books. If you have even a slight understanding of the way technology progresses, you'll probably see this move as either "stupid" or "scary", possibly both.
• If you've followed the results, "laughable" "doomed" and "legally unenforceable" are more likely.
• Especially when the concept of an "illegal number" is thrown around. The people responsible for Blu-Ray's encryption were trying to get people to stop distributing a 128-bit number on the internet because it was the encryption key.
• Older Than Radio: During the early 18th century, Antonio Stradivari hand-crafted several wooden violins that, compared to other violins before or since, produce the highest-quality sound. Many violin manufacturers have, for centuries, attempted to not only replicate the sound of the Stradivarius, but have even labeled violins as "Stradivarius" as a marketing ploy. Unfortunately, when Stradivari died, the technology and skill required to produce a violin of such caliber died with him. Scientists continually do research on the Stradivarius sound and technologies to replicate that sound, and original Stradivarius violins remain to be the most valuable musical instruments in the world.
• The "Stradivarius" label on violin is not there for marketing reasons. It's actually a model of violin - Antonio Stradivari's instruments had very specific proportions (also being slightly larger than ones made by competing crafters). If you see a violin labeled "Stradivari", it means that its proportions and size match those of an original Stradivari instrument.
• It has been speculated that the sound quality is due to the wood available at the time. He built them around the little ice age, and wood at that time was particularly thin and brittle due to the odd weather patterns, making them irreproduceable. On the other hand, other violin makers of the time were unable to reproduce it either.
• There's also evidence that Stradivari violins aren't that great in the first place.
• Damascus steel. The precise technique through which blacksmiths of medieval Damascus produced their wares has been lost and no one since around 1750 has been able to duplicate the original exactly, although many have claimed to have done so.
• The philosophy of instrumentalism boils down to "the only important thing about any theory is whether it's usable, i.e. predicts a result of given experiment". Hunting for explanations is but a pointless infinite regression. This means that "light is truly made of particles" and "light is truly made of waves" are fancy statements that delusionally bind real events to imaginary constructs while "wave model correctly and in convenient form predicts diffraction/interference effects" or "particle model correctly and in convenient form predicts absorption/emission effects" states everything that really matters in this issue. From this point of view anything is a Black Box, the only difference is that we already know how to dismantle some blackboxes to several smaller blackboxes and what buttons to push.
• Arguably the universe itself is a black box since we don't (yet) have a complete physical theory of the universe. Also, while we do have two theories that work fine in their respective arenas (General Relativity: big and heavy stuff, Quantum Mechanics: small and light stuff), they are contradictory and become completely incomprehensible when used together.
• There's also an older theory called classical Newtonian mechanics, which works for medium-size and medium-mass stuff. It was specifically created to avert this trope and describe a Universe governed by simple, understandable laws; it failed at that. However, it works nicely for 90% of the stuff we encounter in our lives, and that's why it, and not GR or quantum is taught at schools.
• The plans for the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo Project are stored in a format that isn't readable by any computer currently in use. Since there are a few leftover rockets, that could potentially be fueled up and fired, they have become black boxes. When the new designs for the Orion spacecraft (not the nuclear-bomb one, the newer one) were in the works, the ability to look at the old Saturn design and learn from them was denied the engineers, who had to waste potentially years starting from scratch. Since then, to avoid this trope, a project was initiated to attempt to retrieve the data and transfer it onto a more modern storage medium, but it's so underfunded that it's not currently active.
• Although some of that is true, there are other significant factors involved - for instance, not being allowed to use asbestos anymore even though we know how. It's not purely a case of "no longer able to read the plans."
• This is an urban myth. The Saturn V plans are stored on microfilm. While readers are not nearly as commonplace as they were at the time of the rocket's conception, they're still readily available.
• Though microfilms do exist, several key parts were destroyed due to Cold War policies on classified materials. The Orion engineers also had access to the engines from one of the original (IXX, I think) F1 engines taken from the rocket currently displayed at the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
• The engineers also have to look in junkyards for intact components from the old program in order to try to figure out how they work.
• Nikola Tesla, thanks to a heady mixture of personal eccentricities, outlandish claims, and industrial FUD both during and after his time, has a reputation for this sort of thing rivaled only by fiction. All his well-documented inventions work from explicable, if clever, principles of engineering — but poorly documented claims abound of death rays, earthquake generators, and yet stranger things unreproducible by modern science.
• The fact his documented ideas tended to get stolen (usually by Edison) might have something to do with it.
• SR-71 Blackbird recon plane: Due to ongoing modifications to their respective airframes each Blackbird had its own set of blueprints. Thus, each Blackbird was unique, although they do looked identical. The original molds or dies used in the manufacturing of the planes were ordered destroyed by then Secretary of Defense McNamara (Cold War policies again) so it would be nearly imposible to make new Blackbirds or even spare parts (In fact other airframes had to be cannibalized to keep the fleet airworthy), although a lot of planes survive to this day so reverse engineering could be feasible.
• The human body itself is quite the black box. With the exception of your occasional doctor or biologist, everyone uses theirs without the slightest hint of how the lot of it works. The brain in particular is quite the mystery, for if it was simple enough we could easily understand it, we would be unable to do exactly that.
• While there is still debate on the subject, nobody knows for sure why a bicycle stays upright when you ride it. It just does. Numerous theories have been put forth with some of them holding water. See this Cracked article.
• The same article also lists several other questions that even modern science can't answer: why we sleep, how many planets are in the Solar System, why ice is slippery, how to beat Solitaire, how many animal species exist, what is the length of the US (or any) coastline, how does gravity work. A lot of these questions that we just either never ask or accept a universally-known explanation, which is actually false.
• Some of these are somewhat trivial, while others are more interesting. How many planets are in the Solar System depends on one's definition of planet - it isn't the result of lack of knowledge but rather of definition, and if we mean a -real- planet, not a minor one, the answer is pretty clear at 8 - while it is possible we will find a far flung planet in the solar system, it would be pretty remote (there certainly isn't a planet anywhere nearby, and the vulcanoids are not hiding a planet), and this is simply mistaking science for something else (nothing is ever proven in science, after all). The length of any coastline depends on your level of precision. And while we don't know exactly -why- ice is slippery in the sense of not knowing what causes it, we are pretty sure we know the cause of the low friction - a thin layer of water on the surface. On the other hand, we really don't know why we sleep, how gravity works, how many species there are (though like the planets one, this is more of a lack of total knowledge than a lack of theory, which is a very different thing), why bicycles stay upright (sort of... we do know some of this, at least the obvious bits, but there are clearly more factors at work)... it's a bit awkward that the article mixes two things (knowledge questions vs theory questions), as there are lots of knowledge questions unknown to science.
• There was a fad for "miracle cure" machines at the beginning of the twentieth century that were actually called Black Box machines. You just set a few controls, turned it on, and whatever quack therapy that model was based on would cure the illness. The reason they were intentionally kept as black boxes was the controls did nothing to its function, and most in fact had no working parts.
• Any self-taught coder will make these whenever they program... well anything. How bad it is depends on the degree of "self-taughtedness".
• This situation tends to happen whenever a nation receives exported military equipment from another nation's military (planes, tanks, ships etc.) and something sours political relations between them. A sudden change in government, or an embargo due to some unsavory incident can effectively turn a chunk of a nation's military into a black box. No longer getting the support in terms of maintenance to keep them in service or upgrades to keep them relevant, the material in question rapidly becomes warehoused for fear of damaging it beyond repair or obsolete. Solutions are varied, ranging from reverse-engineering, putting in locally-made upgrades, producing their own replacements or getting a replacement from another friendly nation. Examples include the F-14's Iran received before the Shah was overthrown and various helicopter models China received just before the Tienanmen Square incident.
• For a very common (and far more mundane) example, many, if not most, things that people use day-to-day are effectively black boxes. There is an oft-quoted analogy about how the ability to drive a car does not equate an ability to design and build a car, or even to fix one. For a fun thinking exercise, see if you can actually explain the workings of a microwave oven, or a computer, or a cell phone, or any other number of things you use daily.
• Once you give up, go here.
• In biology, the occasional black box arises in the form of a living organism. For example, of the twenty or so species of beaked whale known to science, about three are well documented. The rest are very poorly understood, some of which we haven't even seen living specimens of yet. Where they live, how they breed, what they eat, how deep they dive, none of these are known. We know that they exist because we have dead bodies (for a while, one species was known only by a jawbone), but how they exist is largely a mystery.
• For much of the Cold War, nuclear weapons were black boxes, either entirely or to the people working with them. All nukes were designed by multiple people, but sometimes these teams worked loosely with each other in isolation, the effect being that no one person knew how a particular nuclear weapon worked. This method of security eventually fell out of favor as some of the bombs produced by these teams were abject failures; to the extent that at one point in US history, nearly all the warheads carried by US submarines were duds due to their faulty safety systems. In the other case of nuclear black boxes, teams designing ICB Ms and bomb cases were given the bare minimum of information needed to design a delivery system.
• Several of the computer rankings that make up the Bowl Championship Series formula in college football are proprietary. Accordingly, no one exactly knows why they would rank the teams in the way they do, and major bowl bids (and millions of dollars) can hinge on the result.
Box TropesBody In A Bread Box
Bio-AugmentationApplied PhlebotinumBlind Jump
Black BloodAdded Alliterative AppealBlackout Basement
BFGAdministrivia/Images Without a SourceBlack Eyes of Evil
Binary SunsWe Are Not Alone IndexBlack Comedy
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Forums: Index > Ministry of Love > School-Survival
Note: This topic has been unedited for 2110 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over. Do not add to unless it really needs a response.
I realized my article School-Survival has been taken down. It was taken down yesterday, in fact. I wasn't able to work on it because I was banned from the internet by my Nazis parents. Could you please show mercy, oh mighty admins, and bring it back? Or, at least give me a copy of the Wiki code, as I was planning on using it elsewhere as well.
-- Darthmat RIP (talk to me) 00:37, Jun 3
It's restored, enjoy! Spang talk 02:40, 03 Jun 2008
Mordillo but the code on a user page of mine, so it's all good. :) -- Darthmat RIP (talk to me) 00:16, Jun 4
Only after deleting it again first! Feel free to move it back when it's more or less finished. Spang talk 21:45, 04 Jun 2008
Yeah, it was an expired WIP tag it was, and I realized later on that I've done evil, again. I apologize for my sins and wish to be publicly spanked. ~Jewriken.GIF 09:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
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For those without comedic tastes, the so-called experts at Wikipedia have an article about Interweb-§p3@k.
Research shows that 99.9% of people who type in Interweb-§p3@k are fat-handed, slack-jawed idiots.
“AOL is teh ghey!”
~ Oscar Wilde on AOL
Internet-Speak, more commonly represented as Interweb-§p3@k by followers of Al Gore (the inventor of the Interweb), is a written language developed as a joint project between AOL and Microsoft. The project started because Microsoft realized that the only thing more secure than encryption was to create a new language. It the only usable form of communication on the Internet, and one of the official languages of Angola.
A typical “Chat Speak” conversation.
“ ROFL LMAO!!! brb”
~ 12 year old on Chat Speak
Internet-speak (or Chat Speak), most commonly practiced by the species 'teenager', is more than a form of reproduction. For some, it is a way of life. It reflects their ability to slowly drill into their victims' heads and cause unimaginable pain.
The longer chat speak has been around, the more it has evolved and formed into a revolution of illiterate lingo spoken by most teenagers. Don't think its more commonly used by those who generally have writing difficulties through no fault of their own, no. these illiterate barbarians of todays writing world do it intentionally just to piss the rest of the world off. In this way, chatspeak is similar to many other rituals 'teenagers' practice.
Unfortunately, due to a rising number of OAPs, teenagers and their language are dying out. These grannies compete with teenagers for attention and batter them with handbags mercilessly. A special trust has been set up for the protection of teenagers where they can live peacefully in a granny-free environment called Sheffield.
Here they can roam free in their Burberry attire and terrorise the rest of the population of this pretty town happily, their activities unhindered by old ladies.
Before delving into the much more complicated and severely illogical language of Internet-speak slang, remember to observe these helpful tips.
• Misspell, abbreviate and substitute words with numbers to try to save time as often as possible, even if you must stop and spend time figuring out how to shorten the amount of time you spend typing. "Do u no how 2 spel lik a freek?" is a perfect example. Gramatically the sentence makes no sense but you are to assume the addressee of the sentence will instantly decipher and appreciate your more confusing version of talking.
• Never, ever spell things correctly. Failure to comply to this rule could lead to being branded a huge square as well as being blocked by 95% of your contact list.
• When you can remember to, double the last letter of all your greetings and salutations (like heyy and byee). By so extending your greeting, so you lessen the time for which you have to actually engage in prose with the alternatively-intelligent second party.
• When you don't know what to say, say things like "lol", "lmao", "rofl", and so on.
• If you feel you aren't contributing enough to the conversation, say things like "lol", "lmao", "rofl", and so on.
• When you find something amusing, say things like "lol", "lmao", "rofl", and so on.
• Expression to the negative can be substituted with suitably confused interjections: "huh?", "wtf?" and various smilies should suffice. Note that question marks are not often understood by such proletariat conversation partners, and may exacerbate further their already-profound confusion.
• Do weird things with dashes, slashes, gizmos and Mormons in sorry attempts to recreate emotional faces. These include things like -.- ^_^ and #~+@??. These so-called "emoticons" are often used in place of real words, for when vocabulary fails these otherwise quite loquatious people.
This is a list of both complete and abbreviated Internet slang.
Guide to Internet-Speak
Many interweb-speaking users will revert to short acronyms in a manner only otherwise used by programmers who wish to purposely obfuscate their code with meaningless variable names. The main reason for such proliferous use of shorthand is to avoid embarrassment on the part of the receiver, who would thus be spared the full force of these lurid acronyms if they did not already know their meaning.
Thus we list them here for you in all their grossly offensive glory.
The Pope and a nun using internet-speak.
2 - Two
4 - Short for 42 for lazy people
8 - Turned buttocks
42 - 40 + 2 or 21 × 2 or 44 - 2 or 23 ÷ 2 or 6 × 6 + 6, considered to be an evil number
1337 - Uncool, pronounced "one three three seven".
31337 - Very uncool, pronounced "very one three three seven".
ABC - Always Been Crippled
AFAIK - Accept Fellatio; And I Kneel
AFK - Aohn Fitzgerald Kennedy
AOL - An Online Legend
ASL - I want to have sex with you (corruption of "'Ay, Sexy Lady!")
BBQ - Beans Be Quick
BF - Bernard Finster
BFF - Boring Fake Friend
BRB - Begone, Rotten Bastard
BTW - Boating is the Way
CYA - Choose Your Ass (used for group anal cybersex)
DIAF - Do It Again Fucker
Fav - Feeling a vibrator (traditionally not typed in all capital letters)
FOAD - Fucker of All Dude(tte)s
G2G - Got two (2) Goats
GF - Goat Fanny
GTFO - Goats Trample Farmers 'Orses.
Hgu - Hugs for ppl (people)
IANAL - I Anal (literal, as a description of sexual preference)
IMHO - In My Ho (offered as an explanation of not responding to IMs*)
IMO - Invisible Makes Out
JK - John Kerry
KISS - Keep It Sophisticated, Slimeball
LMAO - Leave it to Mao (Tse Tung)
LOL - Leather Or Lace?
LULZ - Licking You, Licking Zucchini
MSN - My Stupid Neighbor
n00b - (A title of great respect)
newb - (A title for long-time users)
newbie - (A title for very, very, very long-time users, as well as administrators)
Nubian princess - A variation of the insult newbie
Nuff - Some guy
OETS - One Eyed Trout Slap, often paralleled to mushroom stamp
OLO - Oh, Like Oats?
OMG - Ouch, My Groin
OMFG - Ouch, My Fellating Girlfriend
OMGWTF - Obviously My Gratitude We'll Tastefully Forgo
OMGWTFWJDBBQ - Hola, Martinique! Greg is Waiting To Find out Why Julie Didn't Bake Breaded Quail (uncommon)
PEBKAC - Pirates Exist Between Kansas and California
Pwn3d - To win in an unconventional way
Pwned - Toilet activities
Q00u - Upside-downness
And you probably thought they memorized theses things!?
ROFL - Reach out for Lube
ROFLMAO - Really Onto Feeling and Licking Mao Zedong
ROTFL - Receiving of The Fine Lovin' (* as above)
ROTFLMAO - Really Onto Touching, Feeling, and Licking Mao Zedong
RTFM - Repeat the First Message
STFU - Superior Tank Force Ultron
TTYL - Extreme bastardization of titilating. As in: "This conversation is far too titilating. I must terminate it now."
U - Uranium
Ur - Urinal rings (traditionally not capitalized)
w/e - With Eggs
WHOAMG - Why Hate Orange and Musty Grapes?
W00T - Want Oranges Or Tangerines?
WTF - World Trade Farmhouses (Expression of disbelief)
WWJD - Waffles with Jelly Donuts (standard reply to "What did you have for breakfast?")
XD - Extreme Donkeys
XFD - Extremely Freakish Ducks
YMMV - Yonder Mitten - Mare Vitrium (An ancient and occult summoning call for calling forth freemasons)
ZB - Zany Balls (or ZombieBaron for those using IRC)
ZIG - Zestfully Invigorating Gown (Often used during cybersex, as in the phrase "Take off every ZIG.")
ZOMG - (A derogatory term used to describe Black People)
See also
VTE The cornerstones of the Internets
Internet | Internets | World Wide Web
Languages Perl | PHP | Java | JavaScript | Internet-speak
Consortiums W3C
Personal tools |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42996 | Light Yagami
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
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m (Reverted edit(s) of Mdavis7298 (talk) to last version by Frosty)
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Hmm.. first of all I apologize myself for disabusing wikipedia.. I really hope I won't get IP-banned because of what I'm about to do now..
'''[[But..]]''' everything written above this is a complete lie, someone must have made it up!
At some point it says: [["And his corpse was then raped by Ryuk"]]; None of that is true!
Also there have been used words such as: Whore, slut, etc. In the Relationships tab..
Some kind of retard wrote all of this, but none of it is true!
Who ever did this, I'll [[find you]].. and I'll write you in my [[death note]]!
==See Also==
==See Also==
*[[L Lawliet]]
*[[L Lawliet]]
Revision as of 02:28, July 14, 2012
“Damn those crazy Japanese and their intellectual teenagers with god complexes!”
“Copy cat!”
~ Dexter on Light Yagami
“Bitch, you shut your fucking mouth when men are talking.”
~ Light on Misa, while talking to L
“I'll take a potato chip......and EAT IT!”
~ Light Yagami on Potato Chips
“How do you spell "Misa Amane"?”
~ Light Yagami on Writing in the Desu Note
“From one murderer to another, I'll see you in hell!”
~ Light Yagami on Dexter
“Jeez, how long do I have to put up with this bastard before he dies!?”
~ Misa Amane on spoiling the end of the series
“Let there be light.”
~ God on Light Yagami
“Light? As in the ceiling light above my head?”
~ You on when you first watched Death Note
Light Yagami, also known as Kira, is the main guy in the anime/manga series Death Note. He is your typical everyday pseudo-Japanese high school student; smashingly good looks, nice hair, intelligence that surpasses all those around him, complete with a tacky dark alter ego. You could mistake him for Yami Bakura from the Yu-Gi-Oh series. Light's favorite method of killing is to write "gets sent to sleep with the fishes". And, though he never killed people using his hands, his preferred weapon was the spork. Jeez, what a loser.
Basic Background
Hitler Raito
Light doing his impression of Adolf Hitler. That or regretting that he killed L after missing those foot massages.
Light is Justice. He becomes bored with normal everyday life upon finding a notebook that kills anyone who's name is written in it, he decides to take the role of God and rid the world of criminals. Curiously forgetting that by killing said criminals he becomes a criminal himself. After finding notebook that kills stuff on his super sweet sixteen, Light became Justice. Deciding to use the notebook as a phone book, he killed everyone he knew. Luckily the only person he knew was Barney the Purple Dinosaur and Micheal Jackson but no one cared about him, her, it (whatever). He also took a potato chip... and ATE IT! This pissed everyone off and Samuel L Jackson had had it with this motherfucker eating all the motherfuckin' chips on the motherfuckin' plane. So he threw him off the plane. Light is also a charismatic and intelligent Japanese high school student with an ego that is far larger than that of Adolf Hitler, Commodus, Oscar Wilde, Vegeta, Seto Kaiba and William Shatner combined. Many people believe that he's gay just because of his similarity to Zac Efron and Justin Bieber.
Kira's last name was "Im-a-gay" spelt backwards, which is a cheap laugh, but considering how much of a bastard Light was, he deserves this childish taunt. Light embraced a darker side which put his intellectual/womanizer/charismatic/potato chips to shame. Secretly, he is the beyond god-like being known as Morgan Freeman or Kira. As Morgan Freeman, Light wears a white suit and writes the names of criminals, superior and opposing anime characters as was the case with the untimely death of Kamina, and/or people he just plain doesn't like into the Death Note, forcing them to watch 2 girls 1 cup, killing them in less then forty seconds. While deep in thought about homosexuality (see below), Kira is able to make his hair and eyes glow a bright red color, marking him as a possible Naruto cosplayer. Whilst there is no well-understood reason why he glows in such a manner, the reason behind his glowing eyes either means that:
1) The animators screwed up... again.
2) He has the "contact lenses of death" a Death God's eyes that he paid fifty bucks for on ebay
3) He is a member of the Uchiha Clan. That would give a logical explanation of how the Uchiha Clan were all killed in forty seconds.
4) Ate a potato chip. With his left hand.
Brief Overview
Light sharingan
You are weak brother, you don't have enough hate...
Light's life was somewhat boring, but his life was changed by the Death Note. He wrote down a few names, met his future rival, the awesome candy loving druggie genius L, teamed up to locate the second Kira; the exceedingly sexy and hot Goth princess and mindless buffoon, Misa Amane, teamed up with Misa and endured her typical fan-girlish crush, endured the fear that L was suspicious of her and him all along, gave up ownership of the Death Note to avoid suspicion and release Misa from L's custody, teamed up with the weirdo detective and engaged in many wonderful adventures which included sparring sessions, heart-felt conversations, foot-massages, and many moments with a distinct yaoi BFF subtext.
After Light regained his memories and possession of the Death Note, Light forced Misa's soul reaper stalker with wings Micheal Jackson Shinigami, Rem, to kill Batman L and his butler-friend Alfred Watari. Following suit, both were killed off after excessive viewing of the Bleach anime without breaks. After L died horribly, almost everyone dropped the series apart from the yaoi fangirls. And we all know what happenes to any series when there's nothing but the yaoi fangirls to appease to. With the dreaded letter L and Watari out of his way, Light continued his quest to becoming God and the number one anime character. (Silly Light, you can't top Guts.) However, Light later encounters new threats to his plan to become God in the form of two more letters of the alphabet, N and M.
N was Near; the son of Albert Einstein and M was Mello, the son of Willy Wonka. Light also had to endure the actions of Death Note's most popular character, Matt. Light had it all however. He had the trust of all those around him, Misa and another whore that worshiped the ground he walked on, a stalker and worshiper with a pen that was "truly mightier than the sword", Teru Mikami, and thousands of devoted Kira followers, including RL yaoi fangirls. Little did Light know that by killing L, he would drive half of the audience away from the show, so most of his efforts for actual popularity were useless. From there he took a moment to change clothes and dry hump his rival's grave, just to give the audience a hint that something went wrong in decision making by letting someone as batshit as Light to win the JUSTICE themed battle between him and L. He couldn't decide if his name is Raito or Light or Kira or God and yet he won the Battle Royale? Bullshit.
The Epic Conclusion
Light moments before dying of the horrible realization of what his name spelt backwards is.
Despite all that, Light eventually was revealed to be Kira thanks to the combined efforts of Near and his generic investigation squad, the Japanese police force and Mello and Matt. After having to endure a giant lecture on how he was captured, Light finally went bat shit insane and laughed out loud like a maniacal freak. He then tried to kill Near, but was stopped by Pedo Bear, who finally overcame his stupidity and mind-fucked the egotistical weirdo multiple times with a gun. Light rofled on the floor and begged Mikami to write down the names of Himself and Pedo Bear. Mikami however was Meditating and obviously couldn't do anything, especially since Near had the PANTS.
As Light ran away with super-human speed, Ryuk revealed to him that Yagami spelled backwards was Imagay (I'm a gay!). Then Ryuk wrote Light's name in his Death Note. Insecure of his sexuality, and being obviously gay, Light died in great shock over the horrific fact of his name and his corpse was then raped by Ryuk (a scene not shown in the anime) and traded it for a couple of apples. He regretted that he had cheated himself of his hot L-filled yaoi destiny. Which was fortunate for L and for his horde of non-yaoi digging fangirls and Ku Klux Klan worshipers.
L: Although Light hated his guts, he also really respected L and admired his great intelligence (even though L never considered Light as his real friend in return). Light said that L's best quality was his "outstanding foot massages". He really liked them. Light regrets having not gotten a full-body massage from L before he died. At first fangirls mistook L for a queer due to his odd name. However, all speculation on L's sexuality dropped the minute he confessed to Light that his name was named after the L in Samuel L. Jackson's name. Soul, brother.
Misa: Misa never really meant much to Light. Despite the fact she was a really hot Goth princess who offered herself to him in both the nude and underwear, Light was always more interested in using her to find out the names and faces of his enemies. Many think that Light and Misa did the deed off-screen countless of times, but that would imply that Light is actually straight, when we all know he had the hots for L.
Takada: Takada never really meant much to Light neither. She is a whore who killed Mello and was the reason why Matt died. Not that anyone really cared for either, but she still was useless. Light also found her to be as he oh-so-fondly loved to say, "refined". Of course, Light did away with her as soon as she was of no further use. Besides, we already had one useless but hot air headed bimbo, no need for another one in this show. God, think of the expensive painkiller bills just once, Japan.
His Family: Boring, besides his high-pitched sister who can't do quadratic equations, who's also a suspected lesbian. They're also probably all deaf, as they never seem to notice or hear Light shouting "Damn you L!" or "I will be the god of this new world!" or "I will take this potato chip and crush L with it!" or "Mwahahahahaha!" etc in his room. Either his room was well sound proofed or his family was made up of a bunch of morons. Possibly the latter option is the truth. Moving on.
Near: Light hated Near's guts as well. Although most believe that this was because Near was the one to eventually uncover him as Kira, the true reason was because Light found him to be "not entertaining enough." That and he didn't massage his feet as well as L. People hate him because L should have won against Light, not this albino freak who possibly played with Power Ranger dolls in his spare time, despite being much older than he looks.
Mello and Matt: Although Light never met either of them, Light knew these two to be the most formidable homosexual opponents he ever faced. The reason for this was because they threatened his position on the Death Note popularity polls. Even if such a long, hard poll did exist, Light would have never been more popular than either of them because the fan girls always loved the two fruits more. Mello also adored chocolate a bit too much and tried to molest Light's sister at one point.
Matsuda: Light received a couple of love letters from this guy. They were bullets, straight from his gun to his kneecaps. It was the best moment of the entire series.
See Also
Personal tools |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42997 | Talk:Samuel L. Vacuum
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Bloink1 solid
This article was nominated for deletion on January 14, 2009.
The result of the discussion was Motherfuckin' Keep.
edit Do not delete this page
For it shall be rewritten come September 15th. --Mr. Monkey Sockmonkey Pant-hoot here. 02:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
It totally has an {{idea}} tag on it. So it totally shan't be deleted. Totally. Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize writings formspring) 02:02 Sep 08, 2008
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42998 | Uncyclopedia:Check the history DAMMIT!
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
Revision as of 22:52, April 13, 2012 by Frosty (talk | contribs)
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Uncyclopedia, like all wikis keeps an extensive history of every page between its creation and the last edit. Every single version is stored on the database and can be re-stored very easily.
It is this very principal that allows reverting and rollback to take place. However if a page is vandalized over a long term (gradually vandalized by n00bs and anonymous users) it may appear totally irredeemable and either have a 30 day maintenance template slapped on it or be put on Votes for Deletion. Which takes me to this. Check the history DAMMIT!
edit VFD
If you come across a stupid article, a stub, cruft or any other article type that we at Uncyclopedia generally prefer to not have included in our statistics. STOP! before adding a VFD template and creating an entry, check the history! If you see a version of the page that is funny and well formatted it takes 5 seconds to restore it. If you can see that the article has at no point been funny, then knock yourself out, add it to VFD and the voting will take place.
edit Maintenance templates
By and large you can't simply vandalize a page into needing one of these. Redlinks for example appear as other articles are deleted and are actually inspiring. But as with VFD if you can see a problem with a page, check the history to find a better version. If all seems bad even in the history add your tag.
edit Before deletion
Although seemingly unrealistic if an admin could check the pages in either criteria before deletion a lot of innocent and vandalized articles could be saved!
edit So in summary
Checking the history if often the difference between seeing an ok article being huffed and it being saved. It's easy and only takes an extra minute of your time!
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/42999 | 101 reputation
bio website
visits member for 2 years, 1 month
seen Feb 13 at 11:01
Currently playing with:
• jmeter for load testing
Current specialisations:
• java technologies.
• Oracle, SQL Server.
• bits of scripting but can always be improved!
Older skill-sets include:
• Apple OpenStep, NeXTStep and the Objective-C language, for a number of years
• Still like C++ but I'm a little out-of-date now.
• C - even recently!
Keen to look at:
• getting back into iOS
• keen to look at scala
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43003 | Good As Gone
Simon Fisk Novels (Volume 1)
Douglas Corleone
Minotaur Books
Chapter 1
I was resting in the rear of a taxi heading north out of the city on our way to Charles de Gaulle when I first heard the sirens. I opened my eyes and watched the red needle on the speedometer drop steadily as the driver turned the wheel to the right. In the rearview I glimpsed a half-dozen white Peugeots topped with flashing light bars bearing down on us. As we pulled to the shoulder, two of the cruisers skidded to a halt diagonally just in front of us, two boxed us in on the side, and the remaining vehicles screamed to a stop at our tail. I instinctively inventoried myself though I knew I wasn’t carrying any contraband—nothing at all that would link me to the missing boy in Bordeaux.
The driver casually rolled down his window. One of the officers poked his head in, asked the driver in French where we were going.
L’aéroport,” the driver said.
The officer nodded, glanced at me, and switched to English, speaking to the driver as though I weren’t there.
“I require your passenger to step out of the vehicle,” he said. “Slowly, always showing me his hands.”
Two younger officers stood outside the window to my right, hands on their sidearms. In the rearview I noticed several other officers taking cover behind their open car doors, their weapons already drawn.
With a sigh I slid over to the driver’s side and gently opened the door. With my hands held out before me I stepped onto the road.
“Monsieur Fisk,” the officer said as he sized me up. The rank insignia on his uniform jacket indicated he was a lieutenant, formerly known as an inspector. “I would like for you to accompany us back to Paris.”
Cautiously, I lowered my hands.
“Sorry, Lieutenant. I have a plane to catch.”
“You may return with us voluntarily or involuntarily,” he said, “it makes no difference to me.”
“Am I under arrest?”
The lieutenant made a show of gazing over my left shoulder at his officers with their drawn SIG SP 2022s.
“Does it appear to you that you are free to leave?”
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking behind me. Instead I pictured the route back to National Police Headquarters. If memory served, we’d be heading to Ile de la Cité, which meant passing through several areas of heavy traffic. Assuming we wouldn’t be blaring sirens all the way, we should be moving slowly enough to facilitate an escape. Perhaps on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré near the Palais de l’Elysée, a short distance from the American embassy, and thus, safety.
“All right, then,” I said. “Let’s get on with it.”
The lieutenant, whose nameplate read DAVIGNON, escorted me to the last cruiser, patted me down, and opened the rear door. He didn’t cuff me, didn’t push me roughly into the car while pretending to protect my skull. He just motioned to the inside and permitted me to seat myself. Strange, I thought. But then, I’d never been arrested in Paris. Tokyo, yes. Beijing, sure. Moscow, Oslo, Budapest. Mexico City, more than once. But never Paris. Until now.
“What about my luggage?” I said.
Davignon smirked and slammed the door.
Maybe the French police weren’t so cordial after all.
No worries. Lieutenant Davignon had left me my hands, which were more than I needed. I’d planned to make do with only my feet. At the first congested intersection, I’d summon this morning’s croissants and espresso and decorate their backseat. All I needed from them was to open my door; the rest would be up to me.
Davignon, who looked to be in his midforties, sat up front in the passenger seat. The moment we pulled off the shoulder, he turned forty-five degrees and began talking at me.
“Simon Fisk,” he said in heavily accented English, “thirty-nine years old. Born: London, England, to Alden and Tatum Fisk. One sibling: a slightly older sister named Tuesday, who was actually born six minutes after midnight on a Wednesday morning. When you were five, your father, who possessed dual U.K. and U.S. citizenship, left London for Providence, Rhode Island, taking you with him and leaving your mother and sister behind. To my knowledge, you have not seen either of them since.”
I set my jaw and glared at him through the wire.
“If you’re attempting to get a rise out of me, Lieutenant, I suggest we stop off at the nearest pharmacy and pick up a bottle of Cialis. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.”
Davignon ignored me. “At seventeen you left home to attend American University in Washington D.C., where you majored in Justice and minored in Law and Society. While at university, you met Tasha Lynn Dunne of Richmond, Virginia, and soon fell head over heels in love, as the Americans say. Both of you graduated American with honors and married a year later in a sizable ceremony in Norfolk. Your father, Alden, wasn’t invited and didn’t attend. From there you moved back to the District of Columbia, where you began serious study and conditioning to become a United States Marshal. You submitted a flawless application, excelled in interviews, and were invited into Basic Training at FLETC in Glynco, Georgia. After seventeen and a half weeks of rigorous training, you were assigned to fugitive investigations in the D.C. field office, an assignment you yourself requested.”
I stared out the window at the unfamiliar landscape blowing by. Wherever we were making for, it wasn’t National Police Headquarters.
“After four months on the job,” Davignon continued, “you announced to your immediate supervisor that your wife, Tasha, was pregnant. Another six months after that, your daughter, Hailey, was born.”
"Enough,” I finally snapped, angry at the direction in which both the conversation and the vehicle were heading. “Where are you taking me?”
Davignon finally turned fully in his seat to face me. It was only then that I noticed just how heavy and tired his eyes looked, how his five o’clock shadow reflected an additional twelve hours or so.
“To a very private place,” he said. “Where you and I can have a long talk. And possibly come to some sort of an arrangement.”
Copyright © 2013 by Douglas Corleone |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43038 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
This may be a though one, but I'd like to have an online notepad. Which contains single text, nothing fancy. But I would like to edit it from my browser, from my phone, after entering a user/password.
I have tried using Google Docs, but my phone fails to render it. (Opera Mini)
Using a simple webstorage, and an FTP is simple, but my old Nokia phone with that browser is not really capable of doing something that complex.
Any website like this? Or an application? Or service?
share|improve this question
Does Pastebin work for you? – screener Dec 4 '11 at 11:34
The links would be really hard to remember. Something written in php would be more like it, if I could install it on my own webstorage. – Shiki Dec 4 '11 at 12:45
After logging in to your account, you get a list of all notes you've created. – screener Dec 4 '11 at 12:50
Uhm... if you downvote, please elaborate the reason. Or at least leave a comment/edit my question. :) – Shiki Dec 4 '11 at 16:24
add comment
closed as not constructive by Eight Days of Malaise, Barry Dec 10 '11 at 11:31
2 Answers
Evernote is a service that lets you keep lots of notes, all organised and tagged - and you can work in the browser, in a desktop app or in a mobile-app, which is free on Android.
share|improve this answer
add comment
Yahoo Notepad can be a good choice for you. If you find Yahoo Notepad useful, please share your experience here.
share|improve this answer
add comment
|
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43039 | Take the 2-minute tour ×
In the new version of Google Docs is it possible to view/compare revision differences as you used to be able to do to see the changes highlighted.
I know you can view previous versions but what I want is to see the individual changes highlighted by the user that made them.
share|improve this question
add comment
1 Answer
1. Open the document in Google Docs
2. Click the [File] menu item
3. Click the [See revision history] option
4. Check the box for the newest revision you want to compare.
5. Scroll down the list and check the box for the oldest revision you want to compare.
6. Click the [Compare checked] button to see the changes between the old and new revision entries you checked.
Added content will be block highlighted. Deleted content will have a line through it. Both will be in the color of the editor that made the changes.
Update: As discovered by DEFusion, old documents, which I had used to write the above process, are unaffected by the new "feature" (or deletion of a feature, apparently). I failed to actually create a new document to test the process. Indeed, new documents created in Google Docs do not provide a diff function. Only browsing between newer and older versions is currently possible.
So, unfortunately, it looks like for now no diff-ing is possible.
share|improve this answer
I don't see any check boxes, nor a [Compare checked] button. – ptomato Aug 18 '10 at 9:24
I literally opened docs.google.com and walked through a document when I wrote those. Can you please provide your operating system, browser and browser version so I can test against it? Also, can you provide a screenshot of what you see when you get to step 4? (Shift+[Print Screen} button on keyboard, paste to Paint or Seashore, save, then insert into the original question by clicking "edit" and using the image button) – Matt Aug 18 '10 at 16:36
@Matt Lutze: I have the same problem as ptomato; could this a browser difference? I'd like to know how to do this as well. – neilfein Aug 18 '10 at 16:54
This is how the old Google Docs handled revisions, the new Google Docs (ensure you're looking at a document created with the new Google Docs) simply has this menu when entering "See revision history": << Back to Editing << Older Newer >> [Drop down to pick revision to view] Revert to this one – DEfusion Aug 20 '10 at 13:56
Hmm, apparently the comment notification system on SE is temperamental too -- none of this discussion lit up the little envelope next to my name, so I didn't see it. Thanks for the clarification, I removed my downvote. – ptomato Aug 25 '10 at 9:30
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Your Answer
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43045 | Revision history of "FAQ When do I need to write a plug-in install handler?"
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43047 | Run any program as a service
In my last column, I introduced the Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Resource Kit's Srvany tool, which lets you run a program as an NT service, and I explained how to set up the utility. In this column, I explain how to use the tool.
Services such as DNS, DHCP, WINS, and Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) run regardless of whether someone is logged on because developers built the programs to do so. But modifying an application to run as a service is difficult if you can't access the application's source code. Srvany lets you run an application as a service whether or not you're logged on or have access to the application's source code. Srvany acts as a kind of envelope for almost any program (i.e., programs that don't require user input) to run in.
Keys to Success
As I explained in my last column, installing Srvany as a service is the first step to set up a program to run as a service. In the installation process, you must create a Registry key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. I used a fictitious application named notify.exe in my example, and I created a Registry key named HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Notify.
After you create a Registry key for the program you want to run, you need to tell the system to run the program. Open a Registry editor, and go to the Registry key you created. Within the key, create a value entry named Application as a REG_SZ string and enter the application's fully qualified pathname. For example, I'd enter D:\apps\notify\notify.exe for the Application value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Notify.
Some programs work only if you set the default directory to an arbitrary location. Thus, you need to know how to tell NT to point to such a location. In addition, some programs need NT to pass parameters to them. You need to know how to set up the Registry parameters. To solve both of these problems, you must create two additional Registry keys.
If you want Srvany to run an application in a particular default directory, create a value entry named AppDirectory as a REG_SZ string in Srvany's Registry key and put the directory name in that value entry. To specify a set of parameters to feed to the application, create a value entry called AppParameters as a REG_SZ string in Srvany's Registry key and put the parameters in that value entry. Most of these operations are case insensitive. However, if the program (e.g., notify.exe) requires parameters to be in a particular case, you must use the correct case when you enter those parameters in the AppParameters value entry. So, if notify.exe needed to work by default in the directory E:\files and required a parameter string such as -e -i -Aupdate, you'd have three value entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Notify: Application, which would contain the string D:\apps\notify\notify.exe; AppDirectory, which would contain E:\files; and AppParameters, which would contain -e -i -Aupdate.
Console or Network?
After you create the necessary Registry keys to let an application run as a service, you have an important decision to make. You must decide whether you want the service to interact with the console (i.e., use the local keyboard, screen, and mouse) or access network resources; NT won't easily let a service do both.
Start the Control Panel Services applet, find the newly installed service, click the service, and select Startup. The dialog box that opens lets you configure the service to start automatically, manually, or not at all (i.e., to disable the service). At the bottom of the dialog box, you must specify an account to associate the service with.
To make a service interactive, select the Allow Service to Interact with Desktop check box to let the service use the LocalSystem account. The program won't be able to access network resources. To let a service use network resources, associate the service with an account that has network privileges. The LocalSystem account is powerful, but only on the account's machine. In general, the LocalSystem account has no permissions on other machines.
Run with It
After you make the necessary Registry edits and Control Panel adjustments, your program is ready to run as a service. Remember that you can't make every application into a service, so you need to experiment to determine whether Srvany can make your favorite program run as a service. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43080 | Skip to navigation | Skip to content
Marine rubbish on the rise: report
ocean rubbish
Marine rubbish is a growing problem in the Asia-Pacific region (Source: Reuters)
The damage caused by marine rubbish and debris is costing the Asia-Pacific region more than a billion dollars each year, a new report has found.
The report, commissioned by the Marine Resource Conservation working group of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), found debris is increasing in the region's oceans, despite measures to control it.
Study author Professor Alistair McIlgorm of the National Marine Science Centre in Coffs Harbour says 6.4 million tonnes of debris reaches the world's oceans each year.
Of that ,80% is thought to come from land based sources, he says.
More than half of the rubbish is believed to be plastic, but McIlgrom says rubber, wood and sanitary products also add to the problem.
"Poor landfill practices are big contributors to marine debris, especially in Asia," says McIlgrom.
The report also tallied the economic costs of damage caused to the fishing and boat industries by marine rubbish in the Asia-Pacific region.
"Whether they have to untangle plastic from a ship propellers or totally replace an outboard - it's costing industries a lot," he says.
The report used a Japanese economic model, which estimates the damage caused by marine debris costs governments close to 0.3% of their GDP every year.
Conservative estimate
"That came to a total of US$1.265 billion across the 21 APEC economies," says McIlgrom. In Australia, clean up of marine rubbish is costing close to AU$6 million (US$6.5 million) each year.
But these figures are very conservative he says, and don't encompass the total impact of marine rubbish.
"There are lots of other costs, costs to wildlife, loss of tourism and lost capital development opportunities, like building a hotel or resort."
And the report doesn't include the clean-up bill, says McIlgrom.
"If you added the clean-up bill of all of APEC it would be a lot more."
He says what's really worrying is that the amount of marine debris in oceans is growing with the world's population.
"If you took the levels [of rubbish] in 1980 it was much less than it is today, basically we've got lazy with our use of plastics."
McIlgrom insists marine debris is an avoidable cost.
Prevention better than cure
The report recommends that governments focus more on preventing rubbish entering our waterways, instead of trying to control it once it gets there.
"For every 100 units of rubbish that enter the ocean, 15 % float on the surface, 15% collect in the water column near the shore and the rest sinks to the bottom of the deep ocean," says McIlgrom.
With most rubbish originating from land based sources, he says it makes more economic sense for governments to introduce preventative measures.
"Once debris enters the water and becomes diluted, it becomes much more expensive per unit of rubbish to pick up."
McIlgrom says governments should implement proper landfill practices, which would go a long way to reducing the amount of rubbish that ends up in our water ways.
He says recycling, especially of plastic "really needs attention and thought".
McIlgrom says, good strategy is to reimburse people who recycle plastic bottles, like in South Australia.
The report also recommends building nets at the end of estuaries, where rivers or streams meet the ocean, to catch any debris before it makes its way into open water.
Tags: conservation, oceans-and-reefs, marine-biology, marine-parks |
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Sunset Limited
America's finest crime writer returns to Louisiana with his Great creation, Detective Dave Robicheaux. When Dave Robicheaux discovers that Megan ... Show synopsis
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There is no mistaking the Vivaldi sound - what Professor Robbins Landon calls a "wiry, nervous sound, with that concentration of rhythmic designs ... Show synopsis
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43177 | Yuna Akashi Credits
Yuna Akashi is a anime/manga character in the Negima! franchise
OVA/Movies Containing Yuna Akashi
Movie Release Date
Mahō Sensei Negima: Anime Final Aug. 27, 2011
Manga Series Containing Yuna Akashi
Manga Book Count
Negima! 38
Negima!? Neo 7
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43187 | How does the negative look? It's kind of thin, isn't it?
Looking at what you uploaded, it seems there's lack of contrast but also lack of sufficient detail in the shadow area - indicative of rather severe under-exposure. If this is the case, what you can do is rather limited. I would still bump up the contrast quite a bit and see what you can get out of your negative.
If you want to dodge and burn, one area I would burn is the white shirt of the camera-man. It's quite distracting. I also agree the kid got to go but that's a little different discussion from what OP asked. I agree with the assessment though. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43188 | Some personal experience in hindsight; I owned one for two years before downsizing to its predecesor, the EOS1N:
It's heavy, very, very robust, easy to navigate (if you are used to Canon cameras), water and vapor sealed, has a 150,000 cycle high speed shutter, too many custom functions to be of sensible use at any one time, can (as can the 1N) chew through 36 exposures in 3 seconds (if you're not on cue as to what settings are where and when!) and will keep you focus of attention among the digital brigade simply because the 1V, when it was released, was the definitive camera for those who wanted the best and needed speed and refinement; nothing lacking there. The strongest point though is in the vast improvement to flash metering, something that was sorely lacking with earlier EOS bodies including the venerated 1N (discontinued 2000).
Good examples can be found readily but whatever you buy should be bench tested (Canon's own technies plug in a computer to download shutter cycles, drive information the number of actual exposures (as opposed to the number of rolls for the EOS 1N), flash and overall system metrics e.g. faults, custom function settings, shutter/aperture accuracy. This assumes the techies actually still have these analysers around.
The EOS 5 is a good and reliable performer — until that Achilles Heel, the mode selector dial, breaks. Mine did so twice, twice repaired, still holding, then the lens release button broke (another known weakness for the 5 and 3), that was repaired and still going, but now the back cover latch is broken; I retired the 5 four years ago, using it since 1993 to 2003: it faithfully captured all the scenes on Velvia that I committed to the Ilfochrome Classic process.
Your biggest gripe over time though might be the weight of the camera; it was too much for me (I have small hands and mild dystrophy) after just a handful of bushwalks (the 1N with PDBE1 is a little better). The EOS 3 is no substitute if you need speed, reliability and brute force; but the 1V is probably an overkill for pottering around the landscape, but the same too can be said of the 1N and legions of other workhorse cameras: if it rows your boat and you really want it, there's just one thing to do: bust the bank! |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43206 | How Do U Hide Your Number When U Are Trying to Call Somebody?
There are several different ways to hide your number when you are trying to call someone. You can contact your phone company to have your number blocked or you can connect your call through information, in order to make sure your number will not appear to your caller.
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What do u do to the person that called u a big fat lair? because somebody in my school that is a grade higher called me names that i just said and im trying not listen what they said
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The iPhone application that you are thinking of is called spoof app. The one application lets you spoof a number, change your voice or record a call. This sounds ... |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43209 | Do You Need An Image Consultant?
Page 2 of 3
image-conscious positions
Just about anybody and everybody who's a public figure, who deals a lot with people, who runs a business and must keep up appearances, who is famous, or who wants to rise in the ranks of a profession that is heavily image-conscious could employ the services of an image consultant.
A list of positions that rely on image consultants might include:
• politicians
• corporate executives
• television & movie actors
• real estate agents
• upper- and mid-level executives who want promotions
• athletes
• public relations workers
• salespeople & receptionists
• tourism service workers
• Desgagn suggests another occupation that often uses the services of image consultants: computer and tech workers.
"In those fields, people are often underdressed," she says. "They don't look professional, and so they don't promote their expertise and knowledge. They're in a holiday kind of mode, not in the mood to produce."
When you see a celebrity interviewed on your favorite talk show, don't think he or she is that naturally winsome. Destiny's Child, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pamela Anderson all have consultants. Hugh Grant and Paris Hilton most certainly hired consultants to turn around their tawdry pasts.
Even reputed mafia boss Vito Palazzolo of Sicily is known to have hired one. One would guess that even presidential candidates have a handful on standby.
time for an image evaluation
Not everyone needs an image makeover. If you work a cushy desk job in a laid back office where khakis and polos are tolerated, coming to work in designer threads and gesticulating like a car salesman won't help you much.
A consultant's service becomes valuable when you're moving up the corporate ladder and image becomes increasingly vital. You're making important contacts and meeting other business leaders. You're representing your entire company at events. You want to impress potential clients, partners and your superiors. It's at this point that you need one.
If you're changing careers, say from technical into law, where you'll be speaking in front of judges and juries, your concept of style could use a little polish. Image-intensive fields like entertainment, public relations and sales demand people with impeccable appearances. Consider a consultant if you're heading that way.
image consultant fees
The price depends on the package. A session with a consultant can run anywhere from $300 to $3,000 US. It can be as basic as being told what to wear and how to talk, or as involved as taking you shopping, recording you in action and analyzing your mannerisms.
Some consultants offer retainer services, in case you change professions, lose or gain weight, or if you just want a check-up to see how you're doing.
"Don't look at it as an extra cost," Desgagn suggests. "Look at it as an investment that you'll use the rest of your life. When we feel good about how we look, we can do anything."
Hiring an image consultant...
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43221 | Mustang Monday: The 1969 Mustang Boss 429
Riding the Shotgun
The 1969 Mustang Boss 429 John L. Matras
By: Natalie Sejnost on 11/25/2013
Looking back into 50 years of Mustang history, we came across a motor with a few alter egos. The 1969 Mustang Boss Boss 429's engine had many nicknames, a few of them being: The Blue Racer, The Semi-Hemi and The Blue Crescent. But only one seemed to stick, and, soon enough, the engine was dubbed “Shotgun.”
Today we've got a story from the October 1982 issue of Autoweek, in which John L. Matras tells us about how the 429 Mustang came to be.
Check out the high-resolution image below using the tool to zoom and scroll.
Ford Mustang at 50
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43241 | Language: Its Structure and Use / Edition 6
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Whatever you do and wherever you go, you use language to interact. This text explains what human language is and how it works, giving you a look into the multiple fascinating and surprising facets of this uniquely human trait. You'll find many opportunities to ask your own questions and explore the language in use all around you.
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From the Publisher
"Though some other texts have tried to catch up, none has wooed me away through 20 years and five editions. Finegan has kept his finger on the pulse of linguistic research and presented it in an accessible and lively form for students. The chapter apparatus stimulates critical thinking skills, posing real-world linguistic questions to orient the student to the material in the upcoming chapter."
"Clear explanations, excellent charts, excellent exercises— All sections are theoretically sophisticated yet approachable for beginning undergraduates."
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Product Details
• ISBN-13: 9780495900412
• Publisher: Cengage Learning
• Publication date: 1/27/2011
• Edition description: Older Edition
• Edition number: 6
• Pages: 592
• Sales rank: 249,391
Meet the Author
Edward Finegan (MA and PhD, Ohio University) specializes in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, and the history and structure of the English language. He served as chair of the Department of Linguistics at USC and currently serves as director of USC's Center for Excellence in Teaching. President of the International Association of Forensic Linguists, Finegan is editor of DICTIONARIES: THE JOURNAL OF THE DICTIONARY SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA and has been Liberal Arts Fellow in Law and Linguistics, Harvard University; Visiting Professor at University of Zurich; and Visiting Scholar at University of Helsinki. He also served as Director of American Language Institute/National Iranian Radio and Television [1975-1976 in peaceful times]. He is the recipient of many teaching awards and honors.
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Table of Contents
1. Languages and Linguistics. What Do You Think? How Many Languages Are There in the World? Does the United States Have an Official Language? What Is Human Language? Signs: Arbitrary and Non-arbitrary. Languages as Patterned Structures: Grammatical Competence. Speech as Patterned Language Use: Communicative Competence. Modes of Linguistic Communication. Do Only Humans Have Language? Can Chimpanzees Learn a Human Language? The Origin of Human Languages: Babel to Babble. What Is Linguistics? Computers and Linguistics. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. Part 1: LANGUAGE STRUCTURES. 2. Words and Their Parts: Lexicon and Morphology. What Do You Think? Introduction: Words Seem Tangible. What Does It Mean to Know a Word? Lexical Categories. Morphemes: Word Parts with Meaning or Function. How Are Morphemes Organized Within Words? How Does a Language Increase Its Vocabulary? What Types of Morphological Systems Do Languages Have? Variant Pronunciations of a Morpheme: Allomorphy. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 3. The Sounds of Languages: Phonetics. What Do You Think? Sounds and Spellings: Not the Same Thing. Phonetics: The Study of Sounds. Describing Consonant Sounds. Kinds of Consonant Sounds. Vowel Sounds. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 4. Sound Systems of Language: Phonology. What Do You Think? Introduction: Sounds in the Mind. Phonological Rules and Their Structure. Syllables and Syllable Structure. Stress. Syllables and Stress in Phonological Processes. Morphology and Phonology Interaction: Allomorphy. From Lexical Entries to Surface Realizations: What the Brain Knows. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 5. The Structure and Function of Phrases and Sentences: Syntax. What Do You Think? Introduction. Constituency. Major Constituents of Sentences: Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases. Phrase-Structure Expansions. Grammatical Relations: Subject, Direct Object, and Others. Surface Structures and Underlying Structures. Types of Syntactic Operations. Functions of Syntactic Operations. Recursion and Novel Sentences. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 6. The Study of Meaning: Semantics. What Do You Think? Introduction. Linguistic, Social, and Affective Meaning. Word, Sentence, and Utterance Meaning. Lexical Semantics. Function Words and Categories of Meaning. Semantic Roles and Sentence Meaning. Semantic Roles and Grammatical Relations. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 7. Language Universals and Language Typology. What Do You Think? Similarity and Diversity Across Languages. Phonological Universals. Syntactic and Morphological Universals. Types of Language Universals. Explanations for Language Universals. Language Universals, Universal Grammar, and Language Acquisition. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. Part 2: LANGUAGE USE. 8. Information Structure and Pragmatics. What Do You Think? Introduction: Encoding Information Structure. Categories of Information Structure. Information Structure: Intonation, Morphology, Syntax. The Relationship of Sentences to Discourse: Pragmatics. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 9. Speech Acts and Conversation. What Do You Think? Language in Use. Sentence Structure and the Function of Utterances. Speech Acts. The Cooperative Principle. Violations of the Cooperative Principle. Politeness. Speech Events. The Organization of Conversation. Cross-Cultural Communication. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 10. Language Variation Across Situations of Use: Registers and Styles. What Do You Think? Introduction. Language Varies Within a Speech Community. Speech Situations. Registers in Monolingual Societies. Similarities and Differences Between Spoken and Written Registers. Two Registers Compared. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 11. Language Variation Among Social Groups: Dialects. What Do You Think? Language or Dialect: Which Do You Speak? How Do Languages Diverge and Merge? National Varieties of English. Regional Varieties of American English. The Atlas of North American English. Ethnic Varieties of American English. Ethnic Varieties and Social Identification. Socioeconomic Status Varieties: English, French, and Spanish. The Language Varieties of Women and Men. Why Do Stigmatized Varieties Persist? Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. Part 3: LANGUAGE CHANGE, LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT, AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. 12. Language Change Over Time: Historical Linguistics. What Do You Think? Do Living Languages Always Change? Language Families and the Indo-European Family. How to Reconstruct the Linguistic Past. What Are the Language Families of the World? .Languages in Contact. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 13. Historical Development in English. What Do You Think? Old English: 700-1100. Companions of Angels: A Narrative in Old English. Middle English: 1100-1500. Where Men and Women Go All Naked: A Middle English Travel Fable. Modern English: 1500-Present. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. 14. Acquiring First and Second Languages. What Do You Think? Introduction. Acquiring a First Language. How Do Researchers Study Language Acquisition? Acquiring a Second Language. Summary. What Do You Think? REVISITED. Exercises. Other Resources. Glossary. Index. Index of Languages. Index of Internet Sites, Films, and Videos. Credits.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43293 | 1 Kings 14:1-7 (New International Version)
View In My Bible
Ahijah's Prophecy Against Jeroboam
1 At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill, 2 and Jeroboam said to his wife, "Go, disguise yourself, so you won't be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah1 the prophet is there--the one who told me I would be king over this people. 3 Take ten loaves of bread2 with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy." 4 So Jeroboam's wife did what he said and went to Ahijah's house in Shiloh. Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age. 5 But the LORD had told Ahijah, "Jeroboam's wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else." 6 So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense?3 I have been sent to you with bad news. 7 Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says:4 'I raised you up from among the people and made you a leader5 over my people Israel.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43301 | Figure 2.
Depletion of RNA pol II subunits does not suppress the growth defects of therat8-2mutant. Wild type, single and double mutants were spotted in YPD or YPD containing 1 mg/L doxycycline and incubated at the indicated temperatures for 4 days.
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William Morris Davis Summary
Everything you need to understand or teach William Morris Davis.
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William Morris Davis 1850-1934 American geoscientist whose career and scientific contributions spanned the disciplines of meteorology, geology, and physical geography. In the latter field Davis'... Read more
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Davis, William Morris (1850-1934) American geologist William Morris Davis was a geographer, meteorologist, and geologist who devised a relative method of determining the age of a river system. Davis&#... Read more
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Albert Bigelow Paine
crimson satin; deep collar and cuff ruffles of rich, limp lace; trunk hose of pink velvet, with big knee-knots of brocaded yellow ribbon; pearl-tinted silk stockings, clocked and daintily embroidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn kid, funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the pretty stockings; deep gauntlets of finest white heretic skin, from the factory of the Holy Inquisition, formerly part of the person of a lady of rank; rapier with sheath crusted with jewels and hanging from a broad baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires.
Clemens was able to write pretty steadily that summer in Nauheim and turned off a quantity of copy. He completed several short articles and stories, and began, or at least continued work on, two books—’Tom Sawyer Abroad’ and ’Those Extraordinary Twins’—the latter being the original form of ‘Pudd’nhead Wilson’. As early as August 4th he wrote to Hall that he had finished forty thousand words of the “Tom Sawyer” story, and that it was to be offered to some young people’s magazine, Harper’s Young People or St. Nicholas; but then he suddenly decided that his narrative method was altogether wrong. To Hall on the 10th he wrote:
I have dropped that novel I wrote you about because I saw a more effective way of using the main episode—to wit, by telling it through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer (still 15 years old) & their friend the freed slave Jim around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, & somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in that original episode & then nobody will suspect that a whole book has been written & the globe circumnavigated merely to get that episode in in an effective (& at the same time apparently unintentional) way. I have written 12,000 words of this new narrative, & find that the humor flows as easily as the adventures & surprises—so I shall go along and make a book of from 50,000 to 100,000 words.
It is a story for boys, of course, & I think it will interest any
boy between 8 years & 80.
When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas, wrote and offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for boys 50,000 words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other matter in my mind then.
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys, but will also strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.
Now, this story doesn’t need to be restricted to a child’s magazine
—it is proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a
syndicate. I don’t swear it, but I think so.
Proposed title—New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43347 | If These Walls Could Moan - Part 6
By: g horten winterborne
Page 1, This is adult fiction. This is a continuing short story about a man, his lover, and their adventurous explorations of delightful pleasures.
"The wooden chair is my favorite," I told her. "You look so sexy bound there helpless." My mouth was watering. I circled her like a wolf before devouring it's prey. "You're in for such a treat," I teased, lifted her bra, sucked on her nipple, and covered it back up. She smelled sweet and exotic. She wore darker make-up than usual. Her hair was straightened and came slightly over her shoulders. I loved thinking about what her perfect lips could do to me.
If These Walls Could Moan - Part Six
I teased her with my wondering hands a bit. Her body trembled, then, casually went back to resting under the restraints. She tried the ropes, then, said nothing. There was a red ball gag in her mouth. Her silver and blue bra and panties were picked out just for this love session. She loved shopping for our night time fun and games. She loved it when I brought her into my universe. She loved the way I made her sore in the morning. Pain was one thing she didn't mind, as long as the pleasure I gave her rocked her soul. Her entire body shook when she came. I especially Ioved the feeling of her pulsating inner muscles squeezing the cum out of my cock as she quivered from being satisfied. That feeling made me feel like a king. She was my queen. She was my everything, and nothing ever mattered when we fucked closely in one anothers arms.
As I got ready, I recalled all the great love making we had been through. I loved how she wiped the sweat from my head, while I slid deep inside her. I loved how her legs shook in my arms, while I pleased her. I loved how my warmth made her relax, while we were laying side by side. I loved how she felt in my arms. "Safe," she would say. "You make me feel safe and protected"
I could never be happier with anyone else. We were two beings set on this planet to please one another. This was my gift and my curse. She was that perfect in my eyes. She was that damn special. I felt her desires under my skin. I wanted to make them all come true.
Now, I know there are women out there who are bad news. I had been in a few of these relationships myself. But, trust me when I say; there is a chance for something better, something so pure it feels false. I get lost in her eyes when she is hot for me. Our fire for eachother is that strong.
I loved spending money making her look tasty and sensual. Money meant nothing as long as she was happy. I could feel her body heat as I passed her and said, "You are going to enjoy your anniversary present honey." Tanya smiled inside her head. She couldn't wait to see what fun-filled surprises I had arranged for her. "Rebecca said you two had been talking about this." The smile that tried to permiate around the ball-gag said it all. I kissed the silky skin on her neck, licked her ear lobe, and told her, "You mean the world to me. I hope you enjoy this."
"I know I will," she thought to herself. She felt her heart beat strong in her chest behind the passion in my words. She loved it when I took off my tough demeanor and made her the center of my attention. She thought about what her and Rebecca had discussed. A casual picture of us teasing her in the chair flashed in her mind. "This could be fun," she continued thinking.
Her surprise started with a gentle knock on the door. I hurried around the room, making sure everything was ready. "Coming," I stated out loud. Tanya sat there tied up, eyes covered, and I knew she was tingling inside. I gave her a long kiss on the cheek and said, "Tonight, only speak when spoken to. Tonight, we explore all your senses." I could hear her breath become erotic. I could feel the excitement radiating from off her skin. I tightened her restraints and set out all of our toys before I welcomed our guests in.
"Who's there," Tanya asked, "untie me..." Her hands tried to break loose. They were no match for my knots.
"Stop," I interrupted, snapping right into my commanding role, "No talking," then kissed her again rough and forceful. "Everything will be ok." Her body relaxed. I felt her heart beat with the back of my hand. It was strong, but, calming back to it's seductive rate. "There is no need for alarm." I placed my right hand between her legs and felt her heat. There was a good amount of heat there. I whispered in her ear. "I would never let this go to far. Tonight you are going to be pleasured by Todd and Rebecca." She shrugged. I couldn't read her body to tell if she was all in for it or nervously just trying to hold on. Her nodded with approval. Her head dropped as she waited for my next command.
There was a light rapping sound on the door. I looked through the peep hole. Rebecca was on the other side in a long tan trench coat and high heels. Her husband waited nervously behind her. He was dressed in a business suit, as if he had just gotten off of work. I watched them for a moment, checking their composure. Rebecca looked a little tipsy. There was a half empty bottle of wine in her hands. She took a long slow drag from the bottle, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and hushed her husband.
I unlocked the door. Tanya snapped attentive, listened for clues as to what was going on, and bit down hard on her ball gag. I turned the door knob, opened the door, and took the bottle from Rebecca. Her husband nodded, casually greeting me. A slight breeze blew in. The chile from outside our large home rushed up Tanya's body. Gooze bumps lined her delicate skin. I could see her nipples poking hard through her black bra. She tried to close her legs. Each were bound to the chair. She shook her legs and felt the rush of excitement climb up her inner thighs. She leaned her head back. She took each sensation in. Greatful, she waited for me to take control of the room again.
"Come in," I welcomed the couple. "I've laid a few things out for our 'Game Night,' " I informed them, "Chose whatever you like. Mi Casa, Su Casa."
Rebecca's husband stood by the inside of the door as if he was nervous. Rebecca was already inspecting a few toys she wanted to play with. She tried to hide her excitement, but, you could feel the heat coming off her body. She picked up a leather whip and a mask. Her husband took a big gulp of air and started over toward her. "This wil be fun," she said, pulling him closer and placing a mask over her lovers face.
I slid mine from atop my head, placed it over my eyes, and went next to my bound lover. I caressed her soft skin lovingly. She lifted her head and listened for me. I massaged her tight shoulders. She relaxed a bit more. I watched our guests look at the selection of toys I had left out for them. I went to toward the married couple to help them decide. Tanya desperately tried to turned her head. She could not follow me as I circled her. I ran my fingers along her back and rubbed my hands under her neck. "Like looks like fun," I called out to Rebecca. "She has never had that before. She will love it." Tanya perked up.
"Todd," Rebecca commanded, "ask if we can get some ice to play with." He nodded saying nothing and I went to the kitchen for Rebecca's demands. The tiles on my kitchen floor felt cool under my feet. I opened the refridgerator, harvested six ice cubes, and returned to our seductive game.
When I returned, I stood in the door way for a bit watcing Rebecca tease my lover with her tongue. Tanya shook and quivered as Rebecca's hands felt up her breast. I questioned, "Feel good honey?" There was no reply, just heavy breathing. I walked over, placed an ice cube in my mouth, and leaned down kissing Tanya's neck. Rebecca's fingers found Tanya inner thigh and went further in. Tayna opened wider as she experienced Rebecca's fingers enter her. Tanya's moans were soft and pleasing to the hear.
Rebecca opened her husband's pants and unleashed his wanting cock into her mouth. She sucked and licked it, while fingering Tanya with her other hand. I watched them both enjoy her delicate attention. I pulled Tanya's hair back and placed my dick in front of her mouth. Instinctively she licked her lips, opened her wet warm lips around me, and began inhaling my penis long and steady.
Rebecca placed an ice cube in her mouth and continued she pleasuring assault on her man's hard wonderful cock. It was thick and veiny hard and heavy in her hands. She ran her fingers up his small beer belly and felt for his nipples. His chest was covered in tattoos. He rolled his head back as she squeezed his nipples and sucked him faster and faster with no hands. Her mouth went deep over his cock until it disappeared. He leaned in, placed his hands on the back of her head, and gagged her over and over again. Siliva slid out of her mouth onto her large tits. She reached for my hand and forced me to rub her man's precum into her skin. I loved the feeling of her huge beautiful breast in my palms. I looked at her husband for a sign of approval, but, he was enjoying her attention so much he hadn't a care in the world. She kept sucking his dick as she brought my hand between her legs. She moaned as my large hands opened her wet folds and slid inside her tight hole. "Tanya, you want me to fuck you while the boys watch," she asked.
"Yes," she nodded.
She hadn't said a word since I snapped at her. She listened so well. I smiled, gave her a kiss of commanding approval, and slapped her across the chest with the small rubber whip. The whip tickled more than anything. I swung it again, a bit harder. Her breast turned red. Her legs opened from the rush it gave her. She moaned, squirmed, then leaned in for more. I could see her hearing the fun we were having with out being able to see or join in was turning her on. She fought to get out of the ropes around her hands and feet. The chair bucked up off the floor, then, slammed back down. "Stop resisting," I warned her, grabbing her by the neck, and placing a vibrator between her legs. "Another move like that and I've have Rebecca fuck and tease you until you beg to come." Tanya snapped away. "Now, are you going to be good, or, what?" I asked pulling her hair back and licking her neck, as Rebecca's sucking sound grew louder and louder. "No," Tanya yells back, "You're gonna have to torture me to shut me up." She ripped her head away from my grasp and started violently trying to break free.
I commanded Rebecca to put on the strap-on we had bought for just her, and fuck Tanya with everything she had.
"Fuck yes," she said, with her eyes, and went to grab it. Her husbands cock bounced out of her mouth and stood erect at full attention. He stroked it waiting for her to return. She excitedly placed it on and returned like a good listener. I cut Tayna's hands free and pushed her down on the ground. The rope rubbed rough against her legs as she fell on her hands. I cut her feet free and held her down. Rebecca came up behind her and slid the strap-on hard inside Tayna. "Oh yes," Tanya screamed, over and over, rocking her ass back against Rebecca's hard thrusts. "Fuck me in my ass while I disciplne this bad girl," she called back to her husband. Taken off guard, he paused for a moment, grabbed the lubricant, and started working on his entrance. I placed my hands on Tayna's head and feed her my hard thick dick gagging her. Tanya fought for air and cried out pleased and overwhelmed. My dick juice ran down her lips. She bounced hard back enjoying Rebecca's fucking movements. Rebecca shot forward as her man entered her. Her screams mixed with Tanya's in a loud display of emotionally charged cries and pleas. "Oh God, yes, yes, yes," Rebecca cried out over and over, biting her lip. Rebecca shook and had a tremendous orgasm. Her wet pussy sprayed down her legs drenching her inner thighs and the floor. Her man came in her ass, shaking violently, he emptied his balls into his woman.
"Oh yeah," I yelled out as Tanya's lips squeezed hard against my cock. She quivered, jerked forward collapsing. She came over and over as Rebecca fucked her faster and faster. "Oh God yes," Tanya's orgasmic echoing cries rang out. I pulled out of her mouth, jerked rigorously, and came all over her breasts.
We all relaxed a bit, laid around naked for a spell, and enjoyed the warm of eachother. Todd and Rebecca held eachother as if they had just rekindled a burnt out flame. They kissed so much, I thought their lips would get sealed together. Tanya just rested in my arms. To her this was a great night of fun, but, nothing beat the feeling she felt when we cuddled after epic sex.
"Rebecca did good, huh?" I asked her.
Tanya said, "Very good." Her head rested on my bare chest. Her hand played with my chest hair. "Maybe we could do this again one day," she suggested.
"It is up to them," I stated.
Todd lifted his head slightly from Rebecca saying, "Let's just wait and see. I'm not one to share my wife. This is new to us."
I wanted to say soo much about our time alone with Rebecca. I wanted to tell him that Rebecca was more open than he gave her credit for. I wanted to say anything to help her out, but, she would have to find away to open his mind up to more experiences on her own.
I understood how he felt. I didn't mind having a bit of fun, but, I really did enjoy having Tanya all to myself. I was extremely selfish when it came to her needs. I guess, deep down inside, I wanted to get back to us being alone instead. The satisfied look on Tanya's face said, "I had a wonderful time." I silently agreed, kissed her passionately, and hugged her tight in my strong arms.
I have the greatest woman in the world. She lets me explore my sexual curiousity with her without asking too many questions. That is rare, you must understand. I told her, "You make me want to be a better man, a better husband, and the greatest lover you've ever had."
She replied, "You already are."
I can't find much to complain about with her. She is a phenomenal woman of boundless fire and sensual energy. There are nights when she drains me of all my desire. I guess I hold her to a higher standard then most women. The way she let me fuck her in public in the next chapter doesn't hurt my feelings for her either.
© 2014 BooksieSilk | All rights reserved. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43369 | 14 Reasons You Should Be Terrified of What Facebook Knows
Ian-Fortey by Ian-Fortey on Feb. 19, 2014
According to data released by Facebook leading up to Valentine’s Day, the social network actually knows when you’re in a relationship before you do. Due to a mix of people posting every single event of their lives on Facebook and Facebook’s tireless cataloging and analyzing of this info, they can actually gauge who is about to enter into a relationship based entirely on frequency of shared posts between two people and, in fact, they know you’re going to be in a relationship about 2 weeks before you do. Feel free to check out their terrifying math.
Facebook data mined 460,000 couples to get this down, so their conclusions are likely accurate and, given that, they could probably realistically tell you you’re in a relationship before anyone, including you, fully knows it, assuming you’re an avid Facebook user. If this doesn’t terrify you, it should. It means Facebook knows you future. Not your distant future, but the foreseeable one. And if that’s the case, what the hell else does Facebook know about you, based solely on your innocent posts and likes and pages viewed? Maybe some of this?
1. Facebook’s predictive technology monitors how long your mouse hovers over an image to determine what you have an interest in, even subconsciously, and can target ads to you for things you weren’t even sure you wanted. Seeing ads on Facebook for penis enlargement pills? We have no comment.
2. Every time you look at a profile, Facebook knows. Facebook knows who you are stalking from highschool and how long you’ve been doing it.
3. How often do you keep yourself just logged in to Facebook? That mean they know when you sleep. Over a long enough period of time, they’ll know when you’re awake, all the time. Facebook is your Santa Claus.
4. Do you like Pokemon? Naruto? Comic Con? Facebook knows if you’re a closet nerd unless you go out of your way to lie about what you like.
5. Ever looked through groups and pages for something dirty? Facebook now knows what turns your crank.
6. Ever sent someone a dirty message? What made you think that was private? It’s on file, your file, right now. Facebook knows what kind of dirty talk you like, and who you’ve done it with.
7. Who do you hang out with? If someone tagged you in a photo, Facebook knows who you associate with, where you go, and when you did it. The more photos you’re in, the more easily they can determine who you’re likely to be with out in the world when you’re not on Facebook.
8. Got Facebook on a mobile device? Sure you do. Still logged in? Facebook knows your latitude and longitude all the time.
9. Remember all that stuff you filled in when you signed up for Facebook? Your birthday, where you went to school, your relationship status, your job status, foods you like, restaurants you like, TV shows you like, political views, religious views. Facebook knows more about you than your friends and family. And they sell that info.
10. Do you have an important job? Military? Government? Anyone can find you on Facebook just by searching for what you listed as place of employment. You and everyone else in your city who works there.
11. Weirded out by a creepy guy at work? Maybe it’s because he did a Facebook search for single people who work where you both work. Or people in an open relationship. Or people who like Game of Thrones. It’s all there and searchable.
12. Maybe you work with someone who is being stalked. Maybe their stalker looked up everyone at work who might be a threat to them. Maybe that’s you.
13. Even off Facebook, numerous sites partner with them to tack the movies you watch, songs you listen to and products you buy, even without clicking a “like” button. Most of your online activity is therefore cataloged by Facebook whether you’re using the social network or not. Your status as a Bronie who likes Lady Gaga has likely been sold to numerous advertisers.
14. Facebook can link you to pretty much anyone on Earth. In a test of the 6 degrees of Separation theory, after analyzing 69 billion friend connections amounts over 720 million Facebook users, almost every person on Facebook is only four people removed from everyone else in the world, at most. You’re practically friends with millions of Beliebers.
Anh-Caoto-385 User
They don't care about anyone as an individual. The most they will do is target ads to you -- to who they THINK you are. But I ignore all of their ads, so I could not care less if they have me figured out or not. They know when I sleep?Â
ispewmalarkey User
You now what really yanks my crank? The Facebook app on Android. Â I have a Facebook account....I rarely use it and I've never been to Facebook through my phone. I've "shut off" the app but if I look at my battery usage, Facebook is invariably in the top 5 of my battery usage list.....WHY?Â
Emil-Majercik-606 User
The way I see it:
Facebook is no different than a game, and in games we have a username, NOT our real names. That's why mine is not mine and the only true fact I ever submitted was that I like lasagna. Let the NSA figure out that one! Oh, by the way...
The cake is in the oven, there are 2 pies and 7 candles. Dinner will be at noon.
They got funding from someone who is one of the board of directors from the investment firm that the ClA uses to invest money into companies who have technology they want, these mindless drones are on facebook all day taking pictures and tagging them, you and your friends know what you look like, why have this feature??? It's so software can identify people in public from multiple angles in real time using a database of photos morons post on FB, you are all frogs in the pot.
TrashyTroll User
Screw Facebook. Im switching to AdultFriendFinder
Clyde-Cameron-724 User
Oh my...so sorry to hear the shithole known as FaceBook probably know how much I despise them.
Jamie Miles
Jamie Miles
And that's why you don't put anything on facebook you wouldn't want the entire world to know about.
Chase Watson
Chase Watson
Welcome to the United States in 2014 you are not free
Chase Watson
Chase Watson
Tell me something that isn't new Facebook is working with the CIA TSA NSA It's the new form of government has into Spying!
Jeffrey Dooley
Jeffrey Dooley
I'm more afraid what my browser knows about me...
Maradona Asheaia
Maradona Asheaia
sorry to burst your bubble dude. they have your IP address. from that they can get your name, job etc. soooo yeah.
Andrew Jared
Andrew Jared
They probably know that I fap ten times per day. Oh well, now they definitely do.
wumidk User
They know what YOU tell them. I've been married for years on facebook...and only on facebook. Yes! They CAN take advantage of what YOU tell them. Stop blaming others for your ignorance. May sound harch but for lack of better words.
Andulamb User
TommyJJD User
I'm going back to Friendster.
hader2108 User
The conclusion of  number 14 is the most terrifying.
Billyraymontana User
You think Facebook is scary? What about your ISP that knows EVERYTHING you do on the internet.
Fortey moderator User
@Billyraymontana That's why Facebook is worse- they know what you're doing offline. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43375 | Richard Kuhn
Richard Kuhn, (born Dec. 3, 1900Vienna, Austria-Hungary—died Aug. 1, 1967Heidelberg, W.Ger.), German biochemist who was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for work on carotenoids and vitamins. Forbidden by the Nazis to accept the award, he finally received his diploma and gold medal after World War II.
Kuhn took his doctorate from the University of Munich in 1922 for work on enzymes under Richard Willstätter. He spent 1926–29 at the technical school in Zürich and then became professor at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research (later renamed for Max Planck) at Heidelberg.
Kuhn investigated the structure of compounds related to the carotenoids, the fat-soluble yellow colouring agents widely distributed in nature. He discovered at least eight carotenoids, prepared them in pure form, and determined their constitution. He discovered that one was necessary for the fertilization of certain algae. Simultaneously with Paul Karrer he announced the constitution of vitamin B2 and was the first to isolate a gram of it. With coworkers he also isolated vitamin B6. From 1948 he was an editor of Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie (“Justus Liebig’s Annals of Chemistry”). |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43376 | Kyaukse, The city hall of Kyaukse, Myan.Ekyawtown, central Myanmar (Burma). Lying on the Zawgyi River, 25 miles (40 km) south of Mandalay, it is served by the Mandalay-Yangon (Rangoon) railway. The first Myanmar (Burmese) probably settled in the area about 800, and local 12th- and 13th-century inscriptions refer to Kyaukse as “the first home.” Remains of pagodas and old cities are found throughout the area. The Shwethalyaung pagoda, built by King Anawrahta (reigned 1044–77), is located in Kyaukse.
The surrounding area consists of a level strip running south from Mandalay along the foothills of the Shan Plateau. The area is located in the heart of Myanmar’s dry zone but is drained by the Panlaung and Zawgyi rivers, which were used for an ancient irrigation-canal system that predates Myanmar settlement in the area. The main lines of the canal system were supposedly dug by order of King Anawrahta in the 11th century. They are the largest of the historic irrigation works in Myanmar. The canalized area, traditionally the main Myanmar granary, was repaired and expanded under the British; it produces high yields of rice. Pop. (1983) 27,850. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43390 | An Up-Close Look At Roman Abramovich's $1 Billion Superyacht en-us Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500 Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:18:55 -0400 Robert Johnson TaraB Fri, 10 May 2013 09:18:52 -0400 Beautiful photos as usual from Johnson. BI - SEND HIM ON MORE TRIPS!!!! haywoodmatthews Thu, 09 May 2013 19:23:25 -0400 HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW? REALLY? Sammy the Walrus IV Wed, 08 May 2013 08:06:21 -0400 This yacht did not cost $1.5 billion. Far from it actually. Disney built two new cruise ships (which are many times larger than this yacht) for approximately $2.0 billion and if you have ever been one of those, you know they don't exactly skimp on stuff. As a previous commenter said, I would say this yacht cost $200-$300 million, if that. (Steve Jobs yacht cost about $150 million). lawrence-lugar Tue, 07 May 2013 16:14:01 -0400 Spend it lavishly, before you die -- nothing wrong with that. it's his money. Is this right? Tue, 07 May 2013 02:30:55 -0400 Are the numbers here right? He's worth $10 billion, and the boat is $1.5 billion, plus all these added expenses? So he's got more than 15% of his total worth wrapped up in one boat?!? SkunkApe Mon, 06 May 2013 23:56:54 -0400 ...and maybe it's a thermonuclear weapon. Sitting. Waiting. dwightmannsburden Mon, 06 May 2013 19:08:29 -0400 I have more respect for Carlos who is sinking money into education and even bicycles for school kids. Benderman Mon, 06 May 2013 17:11:30 -0400 What a great scam, put up with crap in life because you will get taken care of in the next life. Love the yacht Venom Mon, 06 May 2013 17:11:18 -0400 What exactly can you do with $50 billion that you can't with $10 billion? At least Abramovich is enjoying his money to the fullest until he eventually has to meet his maker because as we all know, you can't take it with you. Could he do some more with his money to help others, sure, and I hope he does. dwightmannsburden Mon, 06 May 2013 16:05:33 -0400 Where is Carlos Slim's billion dollar boat? What's that you say? He doesn't have a billion dollar boat? That's why he the richest hombre on eartch, muchacho! <a href="" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" ></a> alan2 Mon, 06 May 2013 15:04:00 -0400 iam sure the Russian people would do just about anything to leave that country must be really happy that he can live so lavishly !! Venom Mon, 06 May 2013 14:48:35 -0400 Beautiful boat, the costs on that must be staggering. Daughter and new baby? I think you mean his girlfriend and her new baby. Rusty Shackleford Mon, 06 May 2013 14:45:11 -0400 So, how long until Occupy gets their hands on an Exocet or Silkworm anti-ship missile? Rocketman Mon, 06 May 2013 14:42:30 -0400 19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ 25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ 27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” naro Mon, 06 May 2013 14:21:42 -0400 There is no way this yacht cost 1.5 billion. It is nonsense. I estimate 500 million maximum Robert Johnson Mon, 06 May 2013 14:20:34 -0400 Thanks, those are cool too though. David Tulchinsky Mon, 06 May 2013 14:19:50 -0400 very nice photos. much better than mine :) <a href="" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" ></a> <a href="" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" ></a> |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43420 | A Nobel Letdown in Economics
It's customary, when the Nobel Prize in Economics is announced each year, for the members of the economics profession to gather around and proclaim how deserving the winners are and how important their research is to the field. I have to say, however, that this year's Nobel Prize in Economics, given to two game theorists, brings up mixed feelings for me.
Since I'm a journalist with a PhD in economics, I will go half the distance. I agree that Robert Aumann and Thomas Schelling, this year's Nobel laureates, deserve their awards. Schelling, in particular, wrote two of the best economic books ever, The Strategy of Conflict and Micromotives and Macrobehavior.
CONSISTENT WITH MANY OUTCOMES. In my opinion, however, game theory represents an evolutionary dead-end in the development of economics. Game theory tries to use the principle of rationality to explain conflict and cooperation in a wide range of economic and social situations. For example, game theory has been used to analyze why the apparently insane buildup of nuclear weapons in the postwar period was actually a rational method of deterring war, and why aggressive price-cutting by airlines was an effective means of deterring competition.
To put it a different way: If the world had been blown up during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, game theorists could have explained that as an unfortunate outcome -- but one that was just as rational as what actually happened. Similarly, an industry that collapses into run-amok competition, like the airlines, can be explained rationally by game theorists as easily as one where cooperation is the norm.
FRESHER THINKING. Rationality only gets you so far in terms of predicting behavior. In the aftermath of Katrina, news reports of widespread looting and crime in New Orleans were perfectly plausible. After all, it would be rational for criminals to take advantage of the absence of effective policing.
But now that we know that criminal activity after the hurricane was relatively rare, well, it also seems rational that everyone would band together in the face of a common disaster. Similarly, in Iraq today, either of two polar outcomes -- civil war or cooperation between the Sunnis and Shiites -- is perfectly compatible with game theory.
Instead, the real progress in economics these days is coming not from game theory, which has been around for 60 or more years, but from the much newer fields of behavioral and experimental economics. Behavioral and experimental economics don't start with the assumption of rationality used by game theory. Rather, as the name suggests, the focus is on looking at how individuals and organizations actually make decisions in practice, including systematic biases, misperceptions, and just general all-around bloody-mindedness.
DEFYING EXPECTATIONS. In fact, Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for their work on behavioral and experimental economics. The writeup that accompanied their award observed:
In a series of studies, Kahneman -- in collaboration with the late Amos Tversky -- has shown that people are incapable of fully analyzing complex decision situations when the future consequences are uncertain.
SAYING TOO MUCH. In other words, Kahneman and Smith won their 2002 prize precisely for showing that people mostly don't behave the way that game theory assumes they do. Game theory is based on a finely honed sort of reasoning: "If I do this, then he'll do that, then I'll do this" ad infinitum, assessing the probability of different final outcomes. In reality, though, that's not how most people think or make decisions.
Now, nobody forces the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize, to worry about intellectual consistency. But I do object when the Nobel Prize press release asks "Why do some groups of individuals, organizations, and countries succeed in promoting cooperation while others suffer from conflict?" and then calls game theory "the dominant approach to this age-old question." That's just overstatement.
Mandel is chief economist for BusinessWeek
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43442 | Join the Car Talk Community!
To Knit or Knot to Knit?
The Puzzler
RAY: Now, the hint was that they're dieting.
TOM: Really?
RAY: Yes. We have a digital scale in the kitchen, you know there's more than one way to measure things. Well, you might want to measure the yarn by --
TOM: Ohh. He weighed it.
RAY: Exactly. He weighted the knitting, the knitting needles, and then he weighed the ball of yarn.
TOM: Of course, he knows the ratio now.
RAY: He knew the ratio, and he did the math and he said you can knit two more feet. Pretty cute, eh? So who's our winner?
TOM: The winner this week is Kim Canavan from Louisville, Kentucky, and for having her answer selected at random from among all the correct answers that we got, Kim gets a 26-dollar gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at, with which she can get a copy of our double CD collection called, The Best and Second Best of Car Talk.
RAY: You figure we'll ever do like a third best of Car Talk?
TOM: No. After this we have to start coming at it from the other direction, like the best of the worst of Car Talk.
RAY: That might be easier.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
Support for Car Talk is provided by:
Donate Your Car,
Support Your NPR Station
...and get a tax break!
Get Started
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43444 | Mother cat 4, trying to hurt son cat 3 out of the blue!
I have a mother cat who is at least 4 years old and her son who is now 3. She's an even tempered tortie and he is a red tabby. Last night, I noticed her chasing him and its like she's out for blood. All of a sudden they cannot be in proximity to one another without her going after him...fur raised and tail puffed. I kept them apart overnight and first thing she went after him again! I noticed the back door opened last night before the attack and thought he got into something she didn't like but I've cleaned him up and she's still after him. Totally not like her but its like she forgot he's her son. I'm not sure what to do? Its too early to call the vet yet.
Asked by Member 1141038 on Nov 17th 2012 in Aggression
• Cast your vote for which answer you think is best!
Izadore (Izzie)
If your cats are not both "fixed", you need to have this done or the behavior will continue. I'm pretty sure that animals don't recognize their offspring AS their offspring and that's why fathers will mate with daughters, mothers with sons, etc. If your cats go outside, they could very well be coming back smelling not so great and this could be what's causing the fighting. Or, one might not be feeling well and that can cause attacks as well. It's not normal for 2 cats who previously have gotten along to suddenly start fighting. There's usually some issue, physical or mental, going on, and only the vet can help you figure out what it might be.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43453 | « Prev John 2:23-25 Next »
John 2:23-25
23. And when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, many believed in his name, beholding the signs which he performed. 24. But Jesus himself did not confide in them, because he knew them all. 5353 “Il les cognoissoient tous,” 25. And needed not that any should testify of man; for he knew what was in man.
23. Many believed. The Evangelist appropriately connects this narrative with the former. Christ had not given such a sign as the Jews demanded; and now, when he produced no good effect on them by many miracles — except that they entertained a cold faith, which was only the shadow of faith — this event sufficiently proves that they did not deserve that he should comply with their wishes. It was, indeed, some fruit of the signs, that many believed in Christ, and in his name, so as to profess that they wished to follow his doctrine; for name is here put for authority. This appearance of faith, which hitherto was fruitless, might ultimately be changed into true faith, and might be a useful preparation for celebrating the name of Christ among others; and yet what we have said is true, that they were far from having proper feelings, so as to profit by the works of God, as they ought to have done.
Yet this was not a pretended faith by which they wished to gain reputation among men; for they were convinced that Christ was some great Prophet, and perhaps they even ascribed to him the honor of being the Messiah, of whom there was at that time a strong and general expectation. But as they did not understand the peculiar office of the Messiah, their faith was absurd, because it was exclusively directed to the world and earthly things. It was also a cold belief, and unaccompanied by the true feelings of the heart. For hypocrites assent to the Gospel, not that they may devote themselves in obedience to Christ, nor that with sincere piety they may follow Christ when he calls them, but because they do not venture to reject entirely the truth which they have known, and especially when they can find no reason for opposing it. For as they do not voluntarily, or of their own accord, make war with God, so when they perceive that his doctrine is opposed to their flesh and to their perverse desires, they are immediately offended, or at least withdraw from the faith which they had already embraced.
When the Evangelist says, therefore, that those men believed, I do not understand that they counterfeited a faith which did not exist, but that they were in some way constrained to enroll themselves as the followers of Christ; and yet it appears that their faith was not true and genuine, because Christ excludes them from the number of those on whose sentiments reliance might be placed. Besides, that faith depended solely on miracles, and had no root in the Gospel, and therefore could not be steady or permanent. Miracles do indeed assist the children of God in arriving at the truth; but it does not amount to actual believing, when they admire the power of God so as merely to believe that it is true, but not to subject themselves wholly to it. And, therefore, when we speak generally about faith, let us know that there is a kind of faith which is perceived by the understanding only, and afterwards quickly disappears, because it is not fixed in the heart; and that is the faith which James calls dead; but true faith always depends on the Spirit of regeneration, (James 2:17, 20, 26.) Observe, that all do not derive equal profit from the works of God; for some are led by them to God, and others are only driven by a blind impulse, so that, while they perceive indeed the power of God, still they do not cease to wander in their own imaginations.
25. For he knew what was in man. As it might be doubted whence Christ obtained this knowledge, the Evangelist anticipates this question, and replies that Christ perceived every thing in men that is concealed from our view, so that he could on his own authority make a distinction among men. Christ, therefore, who knows the hearts, had no need of any one to inform him what sort of men they were. He knew them to have such a disposition and such feelings, that he justly regarded them as persons who did not belong to him.
The question put by some — whether we too are authorized by the example of Christ to hold those persons as suspected who have not given us proof of their sincerity — has nothing to do with the present passage. There is a wide difference between him and us; for Christ knew the very roots of the trees, but, except from the fruits which appear outwardly, we cannot discover what is the nature of any one tree. Besides, as Paul tells us, that charity is not suspicious, (1 Corinthians 13:5,) we have no right to entertain unfavorable suspicions about men who are unknown to us. But, that we may not always be deceived by hypocrites, and that the Church may not be too much exposed to their wicked impostures, it belongs to Christ to impart to us the Spirit of discretion.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43466 |
Reference EN 60318-4:2010
Title Electroacoustics - Simulators of human head and ear - Part 4: Occluded-ear simulator for the measurement of earphones coupled to the ear by means of ear inserts
Project Number 22068
Abstract/Scope IEC 60318-4:2010 describes an occluded-ear simulator intended for the measurement of insert earphones in the frequency range from 100 Hz to 10 000 Hz. It is suitable for air conduction hearing aids and earphones, coupled to the ear by means of ear inserts e.g. ear moulds or similar devices. The occluded-ear simulator is also suitable as the basis for an extension intended to simulate the complete ear canal and the outer ear (for instance in head simulators). The occluded-ear simulator simulates the acoustic transfer impedance for the occluded normal adult human ear. However, it does not simulate the leakage between an earmould and a human ear canal; therefore, the results obtained with the occluded-ear simulator may deviate from the performance of an insert earphone on a real ear, especially at low frequencies. Moreover, large performance variations among individual ears will occur which should be considered when using the ear simulator. Above 10 kHz the device does not simulate a human ear, but can be used as an acoustic coupler at additional frequencies up to 16 kHz. Below 100 Hz, the device has not been verified to simulate a human ear, but can be used as an acoustic coupler at additional frequencies down to 20 Hz. IEC 60318-4:2010 cancels and replaces IEC 60711, published in 1981 and constitutes a technical revision. The main changes with respect to the previous edition are listed below: - extension of the usable frequency range to 100 Hz - 16 000 Hz; - addition of values of maximum permitted expanded uncertainties to all tolerances.
Current Stage code 6060
Current Stage code date 2010-05-07
Current Stage code deadline 2011-02-01
Deadline date for vote
Order Voucher
IEC Technical Body IEC/TC 29
Reference Document IEC 60318-4:2010 (EQV)
ICS 17.140.50 - Electroacoustics
Keywords Electroacoustics; Simulator; Human; Ear; Insert
Note Supersedes HD 443 S1:1983
Special National Condition(s)
Categories - Aspects
Product Life Cycle
Deadline Date
5099 2010-05-01 2010-07-01
5061 2010-03-26 2010-05-01
5060 2009-06-26 2009-07-17 export to doc file EN
5020 2008-10-10 2009-03-13
1090 2008-10-07 2008-10-10
Implementation Dates
Supersedes HD 443 S1:1983
Superseded by
EN 61094-4:1995
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43554 | Guacamole with broccoli
For the broccoli averse: If someone you love won't eat nutrient-rich broccoli, try disguising it in this guacamole-like dip. (Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune)
"I do not like broccoli," President George H.W. Bush famously declared in 1990 in a New York Times story. "And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm president of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli."
Barbara Bush was strong-minded enough to tell the White House chef to serve it to her husband anyway, according to The Washington Post. The president still hated it, but perhaps he never happened on the right recipe.
Dark-green vegetables such as broccoli supply loads of nutrients, including vitamins C and K and folate, as well as antioxidants and fiber, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (the new name for the American Dietetic Association), and should be part of a healthful diet.
If someone you love won't eat nutrient-rich broccoli, try disguising it in this guacamolelike dip.
Save the broccoli stalks, which are high in fiber. They are delicious when peeled and lightly sauteed.
Broccoli is typically steamed, which takes only 1 minute. In this slightly slower method, all of the water is absorbed by the broccoli, retaining its nutrients.
Serve as you would the guacamole way: with tortilla chips or atop tacos. It's also wonderful as a topping for baked potatoes.
Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 5 minutes
Makes: 3 cups
1/4 cup water
2 cups broccoli florets, from about 2 stalks (save stems for another use)
2 tablespoons each: minced red onions, lime juice
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 avocados, pitted, peeled
1/4 cup cilantro leaves, tightly packed
2 plum tomatoes, seeded, diced
1 serrano pepper, seeded, minced
1. Put water and broccoli into a small saucepan. Cover with a tight-fitting lid; turn heat to medium. Cook until all the water is absorbed and florets turn dark green, about 5 minutes. Chop coarsely.
2. Combine the onion, lime juice and salt in a bowl. Add the avocado; coarsely mash with a potato masher or fork.
3. Finely chop the cilantro; stir into the avocado mixture, along with the broccoli, tomatoes and serrano.
Nutrition information:
Per 1/4 cup serving: 60 calories, 5 g fat, 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 4 g carbohydrates, 1 g protein, 123 mg sodium, 3 g fiber.
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global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43577 | Comment: LOL wait so
(See in situ)
In reply to comment: .. (see in situ)
LOL wait so
when one of them gets tired from carrying the other, does one of them just do a back flip and the other starts walking for the both of them?
hahahahaha Good one.
Lima-1, out.
If you don't know your rights, you don't have any. |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43578 | 3 ½ stars (out of 4)
"Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," like many another pop movie phenomena, becomes many things as we watch it: a vast science fiction epic and a huge moving-picture toy catalog. A twisted family saga of mock-Elizabethan sweep and a gigantic video game full of zaps and zowies. A dreamland voyage through lands of cockeyed marvels and a nightmare plunge into fear and horror.
Most of all, "Phantom Menace" is a highly entertaining and visually breathtaking movie, capable at times of rocking and delighting you. Taking most of its cues from other movies, TV, comics and pop culture in general, "Phantom Menace" often manages to make something grand and riveting out of what can often seem silly or artificial.
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This new movie in George Lucas' "Star Wars" series -- the fourth one he has made, despite being the first installment in the saga's chronology -- has something both magical and irritating about it. Irritating because of the burden of hype and expectation; magical because of the story's wide-eyed, wondrous tone and dazzling technique.
Lucas moves "Star Wars" back decades in time to the childhood of Luke Skywalker's father, Anakin Skywalker (who later becomes Darth Vader), showing us the backstory of the 1977-83 "Star Wars" trilogy. And as he pulls us back, he heightens the "once upon a time" quality these movies have always had.
As before, Lucas begins by plopping us right into the middle of the action, as another set of grandiose, receding movie-serial titles over black deep space informs us that "Turmoil has engulfed the galactic republic." While the "greedy Trade Federation" has put a stranglehold on the small and peaceful planet of Naboo, two Jedi Knights have been dispatched to settle the dispute.
Those knights are the magisterially calm and grave warrior Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his wary, smiling protege, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Qui-Gon is a new character, and a terrific one. But Obi-Wan, as "Star Wars" veterans know, will grow into the wise warrior-apostle played by Alec Guinness in the first 1977 film. Now, the two sword-wielding diplomats are betrayed and nearly killed by a new black-robed villain, Darth Sidious and his dangerous cohort, Darth Maul (Ray Park), who appears later in the film. Surrounded by killer droids, the knights have to cut their way out with laser swords and then embark on a dangerous chase-quest, joined by Naboo's Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) and her retinue, plus a screwball comic alien guide named Jar Jar Binks (voiced and modeled by dancer Ahmed Best of "Stomp"). Binks, an often-annoying Looney Tunes sort of weirdo, talks like a cartoon West Indian and moves like Robert M. Crumb's loosey-goosey "truckin' " comic shufflers.
Soon, the knights are off Naboo and onto sand planet Tatooine. There, we see every seed of "Star Wars" being planted, as the group meets an incredible towheaded slave boy named Anakin (Jake Lloyd). Though only 9 years old, this amazing prodigy designs, builds and flies Podracers (jet-engine Tatooine craft) and is hard at work constructing a fidgety protocol robot whom we recognize, even without his golden casing, as C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) -- and who eventually meets, for the first time, a feisty little droid named R2-D2. (Another old friend, Frank Oz's gnomish Yoda, pops up later.)
Finally, in this section, Lucas treats us to the film's most exciting sequence: the Podracer contest, which blasts off from a Colosseum-like setting and has the Sydney Greenstreet-style alien gangster Jabba the Hutt of "Jedi" as evil emperor. This scene, clearly modeled on the chariot race from "Ben-Hur," is a real showcase for Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic wizardry.
Dueling Podracers soar over the blazing Tunisian desert landscape with frightening speed and "Road Runner"-style cartoon hilarity, crashing and banging, flipping and flying. And, afterward, Anakin is ready to leave Tatooine and his mom (Pernilla August of "The Best Intentions") for Jedi Knight training. Everyone arrives on capital city planet Coruscant in time for a dizzying series of political double-crosses, in which Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid)--a man who bears a suspicious resemblance to the death-faced Emperor of "Return of the Jedi"--spins a few webs. Soon, we are in the middle of a series of battles and fights, complete with laser swords swinging and heroes dangling over the abyss.
Such is the story. But, complex as it is--and good as most of the actors are--reducing this movie to its plot misses its full impact. "The Phantom Menace" is a hokey tale, but it's also a gallery of mind-blowing visual treats, realized with incredible imagination and overwhelming detail by Lucas' ILM team. Whether it is showing blaster battles in a stunning Italian renaissance palace or a huge army of what looks like praying mantis robots, a glowing underwater world with big fish eating others or the sub carrying our heroes, this movie gorges us visually. One scene after another rolls past like a circus parade of living wonders.
"It's just a Saturday afternoon serial for children," Lucas insisted at his New York press conference. But of course he doesn't mean it. "The Phantom Menace"--Lucas' first solo writer-directorial effort since 1977--is a "kiddie movie" done with a technical bravura and visual splendor that are often staggering. David Lean might have made children's movies like this, if he had picked up C.S. Lewis' Narnia series. If the movie fails, it's because Lucas can't quite give us human or alien characters to match his spectacular backdrops. Most surprisingly, he doesn't give us a believable Anakin Skywalker. In the earlier movies, you could accept Luke Skywalker as an idealized California teenager. But Anakin? Lloyd--whom Lucas spotted in the obnoxious Arnold Schwarzenegger Christmas comedy, "Jingle All the Way"--can be off-puttingly cocksure and bratty. (To give him his due, this cockiness can suggest a pint-size Darth Vader.) Here, he is a superkid of unbelievable superiority. Supposedly a slave, he has the time--and money--to construct complex vehicles and machines, including C-3P0.
At the opposite end of the believability scale are August, plus Neeson and McGregor, as fine a pair of Jedi Knights as you could wish for. Lucas, inspired by Akira Kurosawa's samurai, gives these two the same unhurried, glowering force Toshiro Mifune had in "Yojimbo" or "The Hidden Fortress." But Neeson adds a rock-steady quality.
Lucas has not directed an entire movie for more than two decades, but it's clear that both "The Empire Strikes Back" and, especially, "Return of the Jedi" missed his touch and eye--however much care he may have lavished on them as co-writer-producer. There is a warmth and glow to the images in "Phantom Menace" that imbue the whole film with a sense of exploration and joy that matches composer John Williams' soaring score. The movie has been rejected by some critics, but then didn't some critics reject fairy tales and fantasies?
Anakin aside, "Phantom Menace" is everything its admirers could have wanted: a shining fantasy of stars and war, a child's epic.
Directed, written and executive produced by George Lucas; photographed by David Tattersall; edited by Paul Martin Smith; production designed by Gavin Bocquet; music by John Williams; sound design by Ben Burtt; creatures effects by Nick Dudman; visual effects supervision by Dennis Muren, Scott Squires, John Knoll; animation supervised by Rob Coleman; produced by Rick McCallum. A 20th Century Fox release; opens Wednesday. Running time: 2:11. MPAA rating: PG.
Qui-Gon Jinn ............... Liam Neeson
Obi-Wan Kenobi ............. Ewan McGregor |
global_01_local_0_shard_00000017_processed.jsonl/43582 |
Android has posted incredible growth since last year.
Comments Threshold
RE: lol
By robinthakur on 10/4/2010 5:08:17 AM , Rating: 2
The actual (and slightly disturbing) truth is that even with the minor antennae issues, the iPhone4 somehow manages to be the best smartphone out there...Having said that, his anecdotal evidence would reflect that nobody checks Android apps in the same way that iOS apps are checked before they go on the market, so its not exactly surprising. I have yet to find a reputable iOS app which crashes in the Appstore.
The quality and quantity of apps, the Retina display, overall usability, the speed of the OS and iTunes are what keep me with the iPhone4. If any of these things starts to fall behind, I would simply buy something else instead. Speaking from anecdotal experience though, other than Googles own apps which are fab, there is nothing which seems that interesting on the Android app store.
RE: lol
By retrospooty on 10/4/2010 8:20:01 AM , Rating: 2
"I have yet to find a reputable iOS app which crashes in the Appstore."
um...Apples own OS updates might just brick you or make your phone slower than dirt...
RE: lol
Apples own OS updates might just brick you
If you jailbroke
Such a pathetic attempt from a PC fanboy, har har
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