Slapdragon's Ghost

There is actually a lot of work going on in this, from many angles (not just Mac). There are numerous problems with Windows, even Vista has its share (I say this as three of my machines now run it. It is loads better than previous versions, and reminds me a lot of MacOS 10.2, but it is expensive, sort of bulky, and I am not convinced security has reached the basic level of Unix yet). The holy grail of a lot of people is to write some code that allows you to knock Windows out from under its various technologies so you can substitute something not locked into Redmond's vision. And the era of secret Windows function calls and instruction sets known only to Microsoft are a thing of the past. I am not saying it will ever come to light, but the people I work with seem to think it is possible, and some heavy hitters are working at it besides these people mentioned in the article.

I actually am working as a Beta lead (NDA though, cannot say more) on running graphic intensive games under Windows on Mac hardware. In fact, we just hacked a version of Vista onto a MacBook Pro. I can say that, even if you had the chance to have your own Windows machine, the Mac are better for running Windows, you won't have any problems running any game. First off, you can leave your Windows partition for gaming only and avoid all the snarling viruses and shareware that make Windows problematic. Next, if your Windows dies, boot to Mac and burn it down. Windows runs cleaner and easier on my Macs than it does on the Windows machines because if anything implodes, you can always boot Mac. So Steve and gang are really not turning to the darkside. I have 18 dual booters now in service, including one with a pre-release processor if a <censored> variety which will soon hit the market and likely end up in Macs, and I simple work on the Mac side and play on the PC side.

So .... you're suggesting that he DOES have some value? Joe </font>

My own translation fiasco: Every cop should speak spanish. In Richland County the major chicken plants, several factories, and major discount retailers employed thousands of illegals whose actions would be overlooked in Mexico, but who sometimes cross the US line of behavior. And few speak good English. (Drunk driving was a biggie, as was domestic violence. Both would be ignored more or less in rural Mexico, in the US it gets taken seriously and people can get very fighty when you arrest them if they do not understsnd why.) So I know two romance languages well enough to get by, and my partner, from PR, is fluent even in idioms. One day we pull over a car full of guys, find a crack pipe, then some crack. Everyone one of these guys in this car, and their was like 8 of them, will be going to jail for a good long time unless we can get one person to claim it and let his buddies off the hook. So I ask, while Gonzalas listens, "¿Quién posee esta pipa de la grieta?" Technically, my idiom is wrong and I do not have the right slang, but someone who speaks Spanish will get the message. These guys mumbles some words I do not understand and look at each other, and Gonzalas looks really confused. I think it is my terrible spanish which is causing the problem, or maybe, as I often do, I drifted into portenol. So I wave the pipe and say, "¿pipa de la droga?" They look at each other and mutter things to each other and Gonzalas looks even more confused, which makes me think he is just being polite and not correcting me. "¿fumar narcótico?" "feliz feliz el smoko de estimulante" then I started to loose my spanish all together and said something like, "uno demanda lo o cada uno para encarcelar." Or at least that is what the report said I said. Then Gonzalas says, "estop Esteve". And I say, "what the hell?" And he says, "they do not speak Spanish." Turns out that they speak Mixtec, except for one who speaks some language called Chol, and they do not, oddly enough, speak Spanish. So we call INS and tell them we have 8 illegals who speak something other than Spanish and they say, "good luck, might as well release them because you will never get them tried." And we call like 8 universities in the US with Mexican indigenes language professors, and none of the professors actually speak any of the languages they teach about. And we call the Mexican embassy and they say, "good luck, we cannot talk to them either and do not have the budget to hire someone even if they can be found." I never found out what happened to those guys, but no one in the US, to my knowledge, who works for any LEA, has anyway to speak to them.

When I was at DOJ they had a classified problem with translation which was hysterical, but unfortunately cannot be discussed. One thing that can be discussed is the problem with unreliable tranlators, and it was a serious problem. The DOJ goes haring out across the US for translators, competing with every other agency, after the towers fell. They actually find a passle of them. I wish I knew the real numbers, but background checks cut a cast of thousands to a cast of something like 8. This one had a brother who was fighting Israel. This one read Jihad magazine. This one wrote a paper advocating terrorism in college. And before people say, well, background checks are paranoid, they are actually very important, and lots of americans could not pass a standard background check to work with confidential law enforcement material. You cannot read minds, but you can look at what they do and have done and use that as a pretty accurate barometer. Most spies end up to be people who would not have passed background checks, if only we had known about something in their past that was missed. A lot of translator solutions have been tried also and are no good. French and Israeli services have quite large translation staffs, but if you borrow one they are just as likely to be spying on you as they are to be translating - even your allies will put a spy in your agencies if you do not watch out. Academics can be called in to serve, but the background checks are again tough, and on ocassion an academic was found to be mistranslating purposefully, or because they are just not good with the language they claim to be expert in..

I had a vision yesterday of Abbottsitting around the house in his underwear thinking he was celebrating a British holiday. Took 16 ounces of Scotch to drive the vision from my mind.

Cool! [serious]How can I get me one of those!!!111!!![/serious] </font>

Feck Off

As a silent observer of online insanity, this post makes a lot of sense. Why do modern, because it is cool. I hope they do Roman Empire next. WW2 is cool, but people act like this is something important like a Bren Tripod.

By goote, I think someone needs to offer this fruitwad a squireship. That last post was inspired, even if it appeared to be typed by a set of syphillitic moneys hammering the keys to the strain of the song "Disco Duck" while have gamettes extracted with a cold turkey baster. I mean, lets take an intellectual look at his drivel. He creates clever insults despite obviously lacking a 23rd chromosone. I imagine 37mm with a unibrow (sort of like dalem) squinting at his 14 inch Sylvania monitor tapping with one finger at the keyes while he racks his brain when bingo, the mental constipation ends and the flow gates of lunacy set forth to fill a screen full of filmy slurpings. In otherwords, you were able to function at about Joe Shaw's level. I hope you are offered a position under a noble knigget where you can act as his or her fluffer and suffer the abuse of living in the basement of a privy. My offer still stands though -- if someone challenges you and wins, I will pipe their tripe for two months. Seeing you beaten and humiliated is my goal.

How about "Hold This?"

[Grog]Sociologically speaking it is an attempt to aid you in your attempts to integrate into a closed and insular group with high levels of paranoia and xenophobia by using the standard tool of discourse between tribesman (ie. the good natured insult) to provide a socially acceptable reason for you to engage in ritualistic tribal behavior (ie. playing a CM contest) whose outcome can be discussed by edler tribes members. Alternatively, according to social norms, the person outside the group can turn the challenge off on other members of the group and use it as a "springboard" into group integration (integration here define along Kroberian lines instead of Meadian lines). In effect, the Kula Shell is placed at your feet with a threat display, but the intentions is to provide a chance at tribal integration by building Freeman style "trust bonds." [/grog] Or perhaps I just like calling people skells.

Noba my dear addled former fart-catcher. How can you doubt this is the honorable and noble Slapdragon of old. How can you doubt it? I will answer any questions you like that demonstrate my ancient knowledge of this forum. For example, who else would know that Seanachi in addition to being a skell himself, went to a college in a town that drove away the James and Younger gang by all grabbing their various firearms and raining lead on the Missourians, thus proving the Gnome is a card carrying member of the NRA? If I ever get a machine again that can play CM, I will instead beat you into non-existence in a match between dualing hamstertruppen. Also Noba[/b, I have began to request a recount in Wyoming and Rhode Island in the attempt to further cement you election to the US presidency, but you really must avoid queering it and bold your own name and title of president elect for the Grass and Sheep party.

Lars my dear Baffin. You are as ignorant as you are stupid. Besides, we know who will win the election. As soon as I requested a write-in ballot and cast it for Noba, knowing it would start a ground swell. In New York, Noba is all set to unseat Nader for president and get all of our electoral votes. Then he simply has to fake up a birth certificate with a birthdate in 1968 or better and a birth place like Ottumwa, Iowa, and we are home free. President Noba here we go. By the way, this 37mm poltroon seems like a turkey to me. If someone defeats this porkbelly in two CM matches of Noba's design (for example all jeeps with 50 cals, or ATRs and landmines, or something else historically accurate) then I will place, in my sigline, their name and their choice of embaressing comments for the next sixty days. However, if this worthy looses to this skell, then I insist they place my name and a suitably cranky comment in their sigline. Anyone up for the challenge?