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6 Sep 2024 09:15:27 EDT (-0400)
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From: Tim Cook
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 18:58:38
Message: <4a09ff1e$1@news.povray.org>
Kevin Wampler wrote:
> clipka wrote:
>> A very unique atmosphere. I think there's nothing even remotely 
>> comparable.
> 
> I think Cowboy Bebop at least comes close.  Buy yes, Firefly was a great 
> show.

The genre is "space western", and Firefly does it a bit more ham-handed 
literally than some.  Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Gun X Sword, Trigun, 
are others, as is the universe of "Galactic Railway" series (good grief, 
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=764 ), Bravestarr, 
Silverhawks, Space Rangers, technically Star Trek falls into this 
category a bit, Star Wars a bit more...

So, yeah.  It's more common than you might think.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net


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From: mone
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 19:15:01
Message: <web.4a0a027c5d6289cb27d9bb2d0@news.povray.org>
"clipka" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> "mone" <mon### [at] alienenterprisesde> wrote:
> > Enviable :). I only can remember that I had to drive a car with broken brakes on
> > some occasions :(
>
> Hm... my "sleep cars" never had bad brakes. But occasionally I'd be dreaming to
> be driving down a slope, and not able to step on the brake hard enough to bring
> the car to a full halt.

Yes, as you mention it, I remember this kind of bad cars too. Maybe the brakes
were not completely "broken" but not strong enough.

>
> As far as flying is concerned, I never needed planes for that. Just concentrate,
> and rise myself up into the air :D (It very much felt like lifting some weight,
> only that I seemed to be using muscles different from those commonly known to
> anatomy experts)

I know this flying thing, too but not on purpose, the ability was there or it
wasn't. It was rather like a sort of floating or swimming in air. In so far
that it was possible to push away from a solid object (just like in a swimming
pool from the wall) and than keeping the inertia and movement just by some
small movement. Maybe comparable to ice-skaters when they try to spin around
there own axis as long as possible.
Cool thread, btw :)). And rather strange, all the similarities between dream
situations ...


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 21:56:10
Message: <4a0a28ba$1@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 15:04:58 -0700, Kevin Wampler wrote:

> Talking about dreams, does anyone have dreams with plots/locations
> spanning multiple sleeping cycles which you can't remember while awake?

Rarely, but I have had this happen.  Often times when it does happen it's 
two subsequent sleep periods interrupted by being awake for a few 
minutes, and often the dream is lucid - and that's the reason I go back 
to sleep, to try to see what happens.

Recursive dreams are just weird.

I have a friend from years ago who used to keep a dream journal.  He 
remembers distinctly waking up one night and writing about the dream in 
the journal, but when he woke up the next morning, the pages were blank.  
He'd apparently had a dream in the dream, dreamed that he had woken up 
and written his entry and then gone back to sleep.

He said it was quite a pity, because he remembered the dream-in-a-dream 
was good but not what it was.

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:00:57
Message: <4a0a29d9@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 13:56:07 -0500, Mike Raiford wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
> 
>> Flying is pretty common for me.
>> 
>> 
> I've had several dreams where I'm attempting to land a 747 on a highway.
>    Usually I'm successful, then wind up taxiing the plane all around
> town, being careful not to snag any telephone poles.

Mine tend to be without the aid of aircraft.  Just floating/flying, 
seeing my neighborhood from a bird's-eye-view.

> NOTE: I have no clue how to fly a jet like that. If I'm ever at the
> controls of such a beast .... :/

Get on the radio and call the nearest tower (hopefully the frequency set 
correctly) and ask for the vectors to an airport with an instrument 
landing system.  Ask for the frequency of the ILS on the active runway 
and the tower frequency (so you can notify the tower you need to make an 
emergency landing).  Ask the tower for a precision radar approach to the 
ILS.

Use the autopilot heavily to adjust altitude, heading, and airspeed.  Set 
the NAV1 radio to the ILS frequency and set the autopilot to use the NAV1.

Set the autopilot also to follow the glidescope.

And make damned sure the altimeter setting is correct.  You don't want to 
hit the ground until the right moment.

Oh, and put the landing gear down.  That helps.

(Can you tell I spend too much time flying simulators?  And in particular 
747s?)

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:05:48
Message: <4a0a2afc$1@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 09:20:01 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> And today's was quite good as well, but it helps if you've heard the
>> Car Talk radio programme (we listen to the podcast every week - think
>> of Tom & Ray as being the geekier cousins (who know more about how cars
>> work as a result of an engineering background) of the guys on Top
>> Gear).
> 
> I have no idea what you're talking about.

http://www.cartalk.com

> I also have no clue what "firefly" is all about - so the last half dozen
> strips made no sense at all.

http://tinyurl.com/8vu9n

and

http://tinyurl.com/3xp32

Both very good, highly recommended viewing.

>>> Heh. I keep wanting to encrypt by brain to stop the auditors from
>>> trying to steal it...
>> 
>> LOL, you would certainly want to use an anti-heuristic algorithm, just
>> to confuse them.
> 
> It's more that, loosely speaking, encryption is a way of protecting
> things from harm, and auditors are people who want to harm me. Thus,
> following that pretty vague logic, this suggestion kind-of makes sense.

That does make a certain amount of sense, yes.

> Almost all of my dreams involve me being persecuted in some way or
> other. So thinking about protection while I'm half asleep makes sense.

:-(

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:06:19
Message: <4a0a2b1b$1@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 17:52:32 -0400, clipka wrote:

> (Haven't seen the movie though; but I bet it's worth it, too.)

Oh yes, it is.  We saw it in pre-release and then bought the DVD.

River Tam kicks *ass*.

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:08:18
Message: <4a0a2b92@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 21:21:20 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> Wait, what? Auditors? Harm you? Paranoid much?
> 
> Well, it *is* their job to prove that I'm doing my job wrong

Well, no, not really.  It's their job to prove your company is following 
the laws that they're required to and to document areas where compliance 
isn't being met.

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:10:04
Message: <4a0a2bfc$1@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 09:23:18 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Hmm. Maybe it's because I never ever missed one single class during my
> entire time at college and university? Even the pointless ones. It never
> really occurred to me that it was *possible* to miss classes; I guess I
> thought I'd get detention or something. I don't know. It never really
> crossed my mind. I've always been such a *good* little boy. Very
> obedient. That's what comes from having very strict parents...

God, this sounds familiar.

The weird dreams I had relating to school recently had to do with me 
skipping out on an entire semester of some sort of American History class 
because the topic was boring to me, and then showing up to take the final.

Weird.

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:13:08
Message: <4a0a2cb4$1@news.povray.org>
On Tue, 12 May 2009 09:57:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> I once sat a 45 minute test, finished in about 10 minutes. Went back and
> did it all again to check my work. Another 10 minutes.

That's one of the things that always got me in those classes - I'd also 
often get done so early I wondered what I'd missed.

I did a certification test a few years ago that I did this on - exam was 
2.5 hours long, I finished in 15 minutes.  So I checked my work - good 
thing I did, because I did actually miss something, and ended up crashing 
the test environment trying to fix it.

If it hadn't been for a configuration error in the exam environment, I 
would've been outta there in 15 minutes.  Fixing a series of cascading 
failures due to the configuration error took me another 2:15, at which 
time the exam crashed hard.

I was quite pissed about it because I'd scheduled the exam time 30 
minutes before my normal lunchtime.  So I was very hungry by the time it 
crashed.

Jim


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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: That XKCD thing
Date: 12 May 2009 22:14:18
Message: <4a0a2cfa$1@news.povray.org>
On Mon, 11 May 2009 19:06:16 -0700, Chambers wrote:

> On 5/11/2009 3:49 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I had a weird experience a week ago last Saturday - don't know what I
>> was dreaming about, but I woke up convinced I had forgotten to check
>> and see what time I needed to be up for a meeting, took me a couple of
>> mins to realise that it was Saturday.
> 
> Have you ever gotten up for work, showered, gotten dressed, and went out
> to wait for the bus only to realize that it's 3:30 in the morning, and
> you could go back to sleep for 3 more hours?

Can't say I've done that.  Of course I walk to work 95% of the time these 
days (about 25 feet), and the rest of the time I drive 45 miles to the 
office.

So I can say I've gotten out of bed and stumbled to the home office 
before realizing that it wasn't a workday.  Does that count?

Jim


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