drdeadringer

In AA, they are coming out with a new addition of the Big book, using modern language, because apparently people are having a difficult time understanding language used in the 1940s.

For example, Bill W speaks about being trapped or surrounded by quicksand. Apparently, nobody today understands quicksand. So they remove the word quicksand.

I'm 44, and this makes me feel like an old man yelling at clouds.

After my stroke 3 years ago, I find myself in a place meeting accessibility. So the icons are helpful. I cannot necessarily read the text.

In the novel The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, after the Pope remarks that the aliens involved are "other children of God", I had the thought that perhaps when humans create AI robots, the Pope might consider these robots to be grandchildren of God.

I'm not trying to drag religion into this, despite my obviously doing so on the surface.

I am trying to see where certain flexibilities might be found, since there seems to be some flexibility on personhood in law.

It started, funny enough, out of seeing the very first Doctor who episode from the 1960s, where the doctor and crew land on prehistoric Earth and primitive man is having trouble making fire, and the doctor has to figure a way on how to encourage humans to create fire on their own.

My own deal evolved from there into I should always probably have a lighter in case I need to light something of flame, not in a pyromaniac way, but in the way of, "does anybody have a lighter?" Type of way. Somebody leaving to light a candle, start a campfire, need to light a smoke, whatever.

Or even to melt the ends of a nylon rope to hedge against unraveling.

This has oddly come in handy more often than one would think.

This reminds me of a small but fond memory of mine. One of my friends in high school, up from elementary, was slightly a troublemaker. But not terribly so. One day, we found ourselves sitting at the same lunch table. He occasionally smoked, I did not (I still don't). This meant that he had a lighter and I at the time did not (I now carry a lighter with me at all times for unrelated reasons).

He made a comment about how good orange peels smelled when you burned them. I leaned into this comment with curiosity and personal ignorance on the matter.

He said yeah and then looked around made the shush shush signal and leaned in, and invited me to do the same. He took an orange peel and brushed it across his opened lighter flame. Nobody caught us, and I smelled firsthand What he was talking about. Nobody got into trouble over this innocent demonstration. But for sure as hell you would have gone into trouble for this uncensioned demonstration of fire usage.

Perhaps some type of retro futuristic nostalgia millennial gag.

In partial jest, has BBB been known to accreditate themselves?

(A blatantly obvious silicon valley TV show reference)

Speaking for myself, I know that I have never looked up a business for BBB accreditation. (I am 43 and a half).

Yelp reviews, TripAdvisor, Google reviews, yes.

And as honestly never crossed my mind to check with BBB about anything.

But I haven't done any major purchasing like with property, land, or similar.

The first I heard of this book was when I read “WWW: Wake” by Robert J. Sawyer, which regards an emergent global AI out of the Internet. “WWW: Wake” also tries to demonstrate the emergent global AI's development into having a bicameral mind through China temporarily severing their [post global AI emergence] Internet from the rest of the world.

With today's technology, how might this translate into a functioning 1980s Dick Tracy Watch -- the upgraded version from the original "radio watch" which includes video communication as well.

"But that's just Facetime on your phone but on your wrist."

"What's wrong with current smart watches?"

You still need a smartphone on or near your person. Maybe sometimes I want to be available for contact without the rest of the dizzle-dazzle in a retrofuturistic manner [flip phones aside].

> audited

I've not before seen this word used to substitute for being checked over for being robbed.

A large part of my tinkering hobbies include fixing, not just making -- often a mix of both.

A lack of "right to repair" seems to kill some aspect of both if not one of these.

On top of that, if anybody knows of similar for folks who sleep on their side I would like suggestions//insight.

> Chromebook are basically fancy thin clients that make efficient use of web-based services

This reminds me of Asimov's Multivac home terminals where every user, in the comfort of their home, could dial in a query on their computer terminal and the massive infrastructure which is the continental-sized Multivac computer will respond with an answer.

> To me, computers used to be fun when you commanded them what to do, they did it, then they prompted you for another command.

This is a good portion of why I switched to Linux full time over 10 years ago.

My computer does what I tell it to do, when I tell it to do it, as I tell it to do it. I fuck up? It's my fault and I know it and I have to fix it myself.

No more "What the fuck just happened?" bullshit.

So is ASAP, and there are people who say it as a word ["A-Sap"] as well as people who verbally spell it out ["A-S-A-P"].

Do you have any realistic, actionable resources of how to do this effectively in real life?

I've been using a Sansa Clip for a number of years.

I've been waiting to see this type of thing since reading Larry Niven scifi stories involving his transport booth technology. A transporter booth on every street corner type of thing [think "phone booth" in 1970s Superman days].

In a particular one, a journalist is compelled to investigate, write, and publish a story regarding some implications of this transport booth technology in order to help "clear his name" of some possible legal charges. In one scene, the guy is walking down a few streets crowded with new "temp" housing and shops and micro-industry and foot traffic where there once would have been nothing but vehicle traffic and empty parking spots and delivery-only zones and such. "These folks have caught on quicker than the rest of us", the guy considers.

IRL with dead malls laying around for ~30 years, every time I've passed by I've had similar marbles rolling around in my head.

I watched this "live in theatre" when it came out and enjoyed it.

It may be a buggered memory, but I don't recall seeing a movie about reverse engineering often.

TIL there are colleges who actually have a class dedicated to the topic of negotiation.

Is this "new", say within the past 15-20 years?

In my olde neighborhood, a neighbor of mine [due to an allergic husband] was an "outdoor cat only" meow-by-mouth only place for several decades. I took care of the feeding whilst they were on vacation.

It's been a while since, but stories like this make me smile if I was still having a going thing with these neighbors.

I had an in-person interview where I should have said that, multiple times.

> I loved the concepts behind VRML, and still do. Unfortunately all of the implementations around it were terrible.

Being ~18 years away and therefore memory is skewed, may I ask regarding how the implementations were terrible? Honest question.

In a summer tech program for pre-college high school tech-interested//inclined students, my group of three created four different VRML world-spaces. We each made our own, and I made the "gateway" world-space where you would enter a Parthenon-like structure with three hyperlink objects inside which you could click on to travel to each of the other places.

Each place had a similar hyperlink object to get back to the Parthenon.

I enjoyed it. I probably still have the VRML 2.0 book around somewhere.

When I used it it was through a browser.

I would create the files in a txt editor and then explore the world-space created via browser.

> In SFBA the Caltrain stations are totally deserted

Whilst some are, there are also a lot that are right next to "downtown areas" with restaurants/bars/coffeeshops. Sunnyvale, Mt View, Palo Alto, Redwood City for examples.

Are you thinking just of the San Francisco terminus or the current "pre-Google development" San Jose Diridon terminus?

> The best agrument is that privacy is power.

I am reminded of the TV series "The Prisoner" out of BBC, especially the final episode "Fall Out Pt2".

Expounds about "the individual's right to be individual", community, the status quo, and so forth.

And over that "no" is a complete sentence that needs no more explanation.

So "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is forgotten for whatever reason?

I think I'm late to the party but at this point I'm thinking the name "Dreamliner" is a misnomer.