Need a list of today's technologies that were predicted in Science Fiction?

Thanks to Owlish for the pointer.

(cue Supertramp...)

Posted by: Ted at 06:07 AM | category: SciTech
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For those reading the PDA version of Rocket Jones (as opposed to those us 20th Century deskbound dinosaurs), I've done some tinkering with the templates and added Eric's routine to now allow comments.

It should be easier to read, and I'd appreciate any feedback you'd care to give. Danke.

Posted by: Ted at 06:09 AM | category: SciTech
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This is the revised version:

"Someone once said that there was no doubt that we would colonize the Moon and Mars. The only question was what language would be spoken: the language of science or the language of business. My money is on business. The language of business is universal, ignores national borders, and is capable of speaking all human languages."

You can go to RocketForge to see the original quote, and his reasoning behind thinking that the original is not necessarily true.

Posted by: Ted at 07:42 PM | category: Space Program
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So here, take your pick:

• Reason #4,367 Why I Love Mu.Nu


• Defining a need is 75% of solving the problem


• Zombies overrun convent after nuns run out of ammo

Michele defined the need, which was the ability to post comments to blogs when reading via a PDA. See, she reads at lunch, away from her desk, and wanted a way to provide feedback without annoying her bosses by doing it on company time.

She emailed me, and I sent an email to one much wiser than I in this kind of technical matter. She also contacted Eric, who has come up with a solution! Rob at Light&Dark also chipped in to help avoid a potential pitfall for some of us.

Michele is also going to do a kind of "RSS Feeds for Dummies" post this weekend. I'm looking forward to that.

So there you go, Mu.Nu collectively putting it's heads together to resupply those poor nuns with enough hollow-points to tire out their holy little trigger fingers.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Posted by: Ted at 07:01 AM | category: SciTech
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But I know quite a few people who can't wait for this keyboard designed for gamers.

Posted by: Ted at 11:38 AM | category: SciTech
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(this rant brought to you by my findings while doing some online research)

Microsoft is big and rich and evil and gets no credit for their good charitable works, because they're not doing *enough*. Besides, they're big and rich and evil.

Apple is hip and cool and stands for the common man, because they're not Microsoft.

The iPod Shuffle has a built-in battery designed to deactivate after 144 charges. The battery is charged through the USB connector, which is also how you load songs onto the Shuffle. So if you change the songs on your Shuffle, regardless of the battery status, it counts as a recharge. And you only get 144 of them.

Apple charges sixty bucks to replace the Shuffle battery, which is 35%-65% of the entire unit price, depending on the model. If Microsoft tried crap like folks would be up in arms about what a ripoff it was and how they were taking advantage of their monopoly to jack up the little people for bigger profits. You know, like Republicans do.

Yet people bend over and let Apple stick it to 'em without complaint because you *know* that Apple is cool and hip and stands up for the regular guy. Like Democrats do.

You ignore the fact that *both* sides are screwing you over.

Lemmings.

Update: Pixy did some investigating and it looks like the 144 charge claim is an unsubstantiated myth lie. So we're back to the status quo, i.e. Microsoft is still evil, Apple is still hip and cool (even though they've sucked up bigtime to U2. Ick.)

Posted by: Ted at 05:23 AM | category: SciTech
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1 Microsoft is big and rich and evil.

Apple is also big and rich and evil, but with better uniforms.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 12, 2005 03:15 AM (RbYVY)

2 But that 144 charges sounds like an urban myth to me. Let me take a look.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 12, 2005 03:17 AM (RbYVY)

3 I took a look. The only place I found that claim was on Amazon, and it seems to have been deleted from there (it still shows up in Google). It shows up on a lot of other sites that link to Amazon.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 13, 2005 04:07 AM (ymzzr)

4 And that's where I saw it. Nobody there called "Bull", so since it fit my preconceived notions... well, you know.

Posted by: Ted at August 13, 2005 09:21 AM (+OVgL)

5 Yeah, I'm well over 500 charges (I've had my iPod for almost two years, and charge it daily) and I've had zero battery problems. Most of the people that I've talked to about their iPods that have problems either use it heavily (12+ hours a day) or expose it to harsh conditions (extreme cold or heat.)

Posted by: Phelps at August 17, 2005 07:25 PM (8UMp8)

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