Slashdot Mirror

"Fountainhead media?" Is this a company run by randroids?!?

In that case, they should have been wary. No Objectivist would ever REALLY be so altruistic as to volunteer to build a website. After all, helping is hurting!

...could the president really allow a (communist) foreign power unlimited access to the moon?

user: ultraexactzz
email: zz@livejournal.com
blog: http://zz.livejournal.com/
website: http://www.geocities.com/ultraexactzz/

..and now... GO!.. and destroy this suckers life!!!

• http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/GameProgramming/
• http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/4929/ astar.html
• http://www.gameai.com/pathfinding.html

Correction: It's Zuker/Abrams/Zuker.

Actually, it's Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker.

Dear Blue Lobster:

I read that one of the largest crayfish ever found was 90lbs and 6 feet long. They found it in Louisiana in 1934 and named it Ol Papa Epice. They did not say, but I assume it would be a Red Swamp cray since they are native to that area. Does anyone know if this is true? I found this info at www.somaradio.ca/~minimalism/crawdad.html. I could not find any other info on it though. If anyone has any info on this please email me. It sounds crazy, but I dont know why it would be made up.

Thanks,
Daniel

Dear Gentle Sir:

Crayfish come in all sizes, some no larger than the top knuckle of your pinky and some larger than your average lapdog. Of course no one cares about the smallest ones when there are real monsters creeping around the dark corners of the world. Through time there have been some very large crayfish indeed, so let's look at a few examples of record-breaking crays.

Ol' Papa pic astounded Louisiana in 1934, but let's not forget that for publicity's sake the accepted measurement of 6 feet included his antennae. More accurate reports claim that the actual length from head to tail was 3 feet, 4 inches and weight was somewhere around 30lbs. Nonetheless these numbers are impressive since no other American cray reaches anywhere near these proportions. Since the species was never recorded doubts of authenticity suggest that the "cray" may have been a marine lobster introduced into a brackish swamp pool. DNA testing of the carapace has been inconclusive thus far.

In Borneo during World War II another creature waved its gargantuan claws into history. Bagaton (Kadazan-Dusun for "big jar") was found by Australian marines patrolling swamps. Measuring an amazing 4 feet, 2 inches and weighing 49lbs, Bagaton resembled marine lobsters from that region of the world but was caught in a freshwater pool. Taxonomists theorize that Bagaton is a marine species that had re-adapted to fresh water within the last several millennia. Again, lack of further scientific testing leaves us with more questions than answers, though the Bagaton corpse is still in relatively good condition for future research.

Prehistoric crayfish and lobsters handily beat today's record-holders for size and weight. Cruising the warm, shallow seas millions of years ago we find several bizarre specimens. Anomalocaris, a close lobster relative with lobster-like pincers but no body armor, actively swam and hunted food. It grew to lengths of five feet. Meganychus grew to lengths of eight feet and featured a set of claws that spanned four feet when fully splayed! Another genus, Gigaeurys, was almost as long as it was wide six feet and is thought to have been an evolutionary dead end that was as closely related to crabs as it was to true lobsters and crays.

Other, even larger, prehistoric fossils found off the coast of Japan inspired myths of the Ebira, a giant sea monster that guarded an island of treasure from the outside world. Thanks to the myths and the fossil species, this 20 foot long primitive lobster relative thought to be capable of vocalizations meant to stun prey eventually found its way into cinema in the 1966 Toho masterpiece Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Sadly for crustaceanists everywhere Godzilla made short work of the giant lobster champion with his atomic breath.

Juanfh's tracker page

BTW - there are an absolute ton of ways to 3D track - cameras, LEDs, magnetics, ultrasonic, lasers. Cost also depends on whether you want X/Y/Z or orientation (yaw/pitch/roll) - or both. Typically, getting orientation is easier and cheaper than getting position (usually just using accelerometers and compass type equipment). Position requires some way to get measurements. Typically, if you can get position, you can also get orientation with a little more work - but separating out the two becomes difficult (plus, factor in noise levels) - which is why Polhemus and others are so expensive (that, plus they have niche markets, and they make the interface so easy to deal with - typically, their trackers output x/y/z/yaw/pitch/roll as a simple serial stream over RS-232 or USB - just plug it in and parse the stream, typically CSV or space-sep values).

Considering that the original proposal called it the "Janitors Team" I think there is a bit of elitism going on.

Though the fact that they're welcoming the rest of us is a good first step.

"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."

Young Zaphod Plays It Safe

Here is one copy (redirects to the asimov archive, which has virtually everything for the Apple ][). There are others (and I haven't tested this one - still got my original ;).

I wonder what happened to Mark Allen? Did he get something for the iPod port? Which I find unplayable using the touch wheel, unfortunately - the difficulty of having to fire using the centre button. It might work if I could put my other thumb on the rewind button or something (on a regular iPod). It's the controls, yeah...I could play the original indefinitely, and I can't suck that much more in my declining years. ;)

Odyssey (the compleat apventure) should be there too if you look around. Or perhaps you meant Robot Odyssey (which I think may have been made freeware, unless I'm thinking of something else).

Slashdot was also spotted recently fielding an article entitled:

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Does the spearmint lose its flavor
On the bedpost over night?
If you pull it out like rubber
Will it snap right back and bite?
If you paste it on the left side
Will you find it on the right?
Does the spearmint lose its flavor
On the bedpost over night?

Actually, San Andreas had quite a few bridges in GTA1. Check out the map.

"When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. ... As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals."

In other words, go ahead and believe in OSS--just don't necessarily believe in IBM. :)

...unless you're a freegan, in which case consumerism is the devil...but you still rely on it to survive... Wait a minute...

..like the one responsible for this website, this and this one are the worst kind. And the sad, 19-year-old fuck who's responsible for the aforementioned web sites even thinks he's cool.. let him know that he's not!

Super Metroid has been done with 14% items.

OH ... MY ... GOD. I need to use that song in one of the early episodes of my "virtual series" The Creator. Dude or dudette, whatever you may be, you MUST record that song to the tune of the theme of ALL IN THE FAMILY. The worse singing voice, the better. You wrote it, so you have the copyright -- so what if its lyrics are in this discussion... just freakin' record it now, because I want to buy it!!!

Don't look at this website!

..spam is not nearly as bad as webdesign gone horribly wrong.

Except for games that use audio or graphics, Linux has pretty much spot-on compatibility with any IF game, as do most operating systems. IF games are extremely portable, written to one of a number of portable VMs (and all this years before Java...and with better compatibility than Java).

TADS (IMHO the most advanced engine, though Inform is very close) just plain runs on Linux. You want this to play .gam files.
There is Frotz to run Inform (.z5 files...I believe a couple other .zX formats, but I've only played .z5).
There is an ADRIFT implementation called SCARE for Linux. It has a less-than-perfect parser. To be honest, ADRIFT is a much simpler engine, and I generally fine TADS or Inform games to be much more fun and impressive.

Note that other classic adventure game VMs -- the ones for commercial graphical adventures -- like the Sierra (King's Quest, among others) and Lucasarts (Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, Secret of Monkey Island, among others) VMs have been ported to Linux in the form of Sarien, FreeSCI, and ScummVM. I don't believe there have been any new AGI/SCI/SCUMM adventures made -- the engines are static and no improved games will be made for them, but they're still neat projects to have fun playing the originals on.

Here's a proper link (sort of):

Larry the Magician

Shameless off-topic plug (though it's not for me in person, so I hope I get away with it): If you enjoy this, you might enjoy Super Metroid speedruns as well. Records: 38 minutes for pure speed, 58 minutes for speed with 100% items. Both by the same player, available here.

Mirrors: :38 :58

Require ZSNES and a Super Metroid ROM.

...are people who use it in useless applets like on this page.

Did anyone else in the UK think of the Harry Enfield's hilarious "Old Gits" on seeing "GitS Sequel"?

ALF GIT: When's the funeral?

FRED GIT: Today.

ALF GIT: Good! Are they gonna burn him or bury him?

FRED GIT: Up the chimney.

ALF GIT: Yeah, that's how I'd like to go, have my ashes scattered in the old back garden - when her next door's got her washing out.

FRED GIT: Take her weeks to get you out of her knickers.

Matrix was clearly ripped off Ghost in the Shell.. so will we soon get a new matrix sequel ripped off innocence... i wonder?

This example of how not to design a webpage. Pay special attention to the content in the iframe.

The naked truth about bad webdesign: Click me.

JOSEY: You be Ten Bears?

TEN BEARS: I am Ten Bears.

JOSEY: (Spits tobacco) I'm Josey Wales.

- snip -

TEN BEARS: It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double-tongues. There is iron in your word of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron, it must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life. (He takes his knife and cuts his hand. Josey does the same and they grasp each other's hand.) So shall it be. [ From The Outlaw Josey Wales ]

..to look at this website until their eyes bleed. No, really. They deserve it.

I didn't say that it works without dependencies, I said that it's been fully converted to C. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Why does the SCM care about the OS? It doesn't, really, beyond caring about POSIX compliance. Slap WSU on WinXP and it's suddenly on a POSIX compliant OS, and reportedly functions perfectly. (By the way, I said "WSU", not "Cygwin"; listen carefully, please; Cygwin is not required).

As for the Cygwin branch, see here. Is it a hack? Sure. Does it work? Reportedly so (and yes, its archives are compatible with the UNIX version).

And don't forget to write in the JavaScript enabled GUESTBOOK (click on the feedback link) on Internetgoat - we appreciate every reply!

The new goatsex: Click ME!

Visit the new goatse here!

The US has had 17 deaths in US spacecraft (3 in the launch pad fire, 7 on Challenger, 7 on Columbia), and 280 people have flown in US spacecraft. (seeAmerican Astronauts )
Death rate for those flying in US spacecraft:
6.0%

6% is an EXTREMELY high death rate for any "safe" activity. Sure, when something breaks, NASA tells us that space travel is still unsafe and experimental, but their actions belie their words: they think it's safe enough to fly three senators and a teacher.

By comparison, I did some checking on US wars back to the Civil War; the killed-in-action rate for the war is lower than 6% in every case. That's right, boys and girls, you're more likely to be killed in a US spacecraft than by an enemy bullet in a war. In the US civil war, if you consider deaths from disease, and if you consider the Confederate army also, the death rate is a whopping 19%, so war is not all fun and games.

On the other hand, since a failure generally kills everyone aboard and doesn't leave you wounded, we could look at the percentage of "dead" missions. I'm not sure exactly what to count as dead; would Apollo 13 count, for example? A quick and dirty calculation for the shuttle program is 2 (number of destroyed shuttles / 107 (number of shuttle missions). This is less than 2% and is comparable to the KIA rate in the Viet Nam war.

..here's the ultimate goatse-simulation!

...of Terry Gilliam saying "It's only a model".

I think that Brad Guth hasn't forgotten Venus

I think the whole Area 6413 has been debunked many times. Point by point and Google can help too.

Really, really bad web design as can be seen here.

In case you were wondering like me ...

"Taikong" is a Chinese word that means space or cosmos. The resulted prefix "taiko-" is similar to "astro-" and "cosmo-" that makes three words perfectly symmetric, both in meaning and in form. Removing "g" from "taikong" is to make the word short and easy to pronounce. On the other side, its pronounciation is also close to "taikong ren", the Chinese words "space men".

Don't hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning.
- Oddball

The police perspective (and no, I'm not a cop): They don't know who's drinking too much, eluding a warrant in a stolen car with a gun under the seat, or taking cookies to Grandma. If someone swerves, they ignore it or pay closer attention, based on what they know. Every traffic stop could be their last. They have a job that I would NOT want. If I had to walk to your car but didn't know if you'd shoot me when I got there, I'd be pissed if you acted rudely. Most cops are pretty cool if you treat them with genuine courtesy--not the "yes sir no sir" bullshit, just like a fellow human being--and give them a couple minutes to realize you're not going to make any trouble. They're just people trying to do their jobs. Like America's military, they are far too taken for granted and under-appreciated.

From the MADD article you linked:
First, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporing System (FARS) data show that the average BAC level in a fatal crash where a driver was actually tested is .17% -- more than double the proposed .08% BAC standard. Second, the typical DWI fatality is caused by a person who has had more than NINE DRINKS before driving. And third, nearly two-thirds of alcohol-related deaths involve drivers with BACs of .15% and above.

So does this mean that accidents where someone was only disabled or merely hospitalized for a couple months don't COUNT?!? Okay no problem with your sister's incident, because no one died. Someone who's only had EIGHT drinks is not dangerous at all? Come ON! That's just a retarded line of thinking. These data are all based on exclusively-fatal accidents.
Ah, you're probably only drunk enough to break someone's leg, not kill anyone, so you can go.

Look, the interlock stems from a good thought, but it could never be truly practical; it's a bad idea. Plus, I foresee tons of lawsuits filed, because a medical emergency was delayed. Just don't buy a car so equipped.

0.05%? Give me a break. Some people can hit that with two drinks -- that doesn't make them drunk

If the alcoholic portion of blood surging through your brain doesn't make you drunk, what does? If you hit .05 with two drinks, DRINK ONE!

There's gotta be a way to quantify how drunk someone is and remove the guesswork, so for now, the BAC is how it's done.
"Well, your honor, we didn't give the defendant a BAC test, but I'm confident that he would have caused someone between 20 and 40 thousand dollars in damages, so I'm recommending a one year sentence."
Misplaced priorities? Should the police wait until a "fatality" actually occurs and then make the arrest? Do you want them to ignore more than just your helpful phone calls? The line has to be drawn somewhere, preferably before the point where fatalities are expected. If you're SO concerned about getting pulled over, drink soda when you're the designated driver. If one drink is an absolute necessity to having a good time, you have a more serious problem than mere harassment.

Here's what happens to Free Software:
Tux takes a beating

True: exactly what the new job will be will depend to a great extent on how convincing the person is when they say "I meant to do that!" when their boss's boss comes round to ask about it.

I tried googling for Program State Code Protection

*hmm* The closest thing I found was:

West Virginia State Code - Farmland Protection Program

The govenment use almost the same words already... I guess it will turn out that Al Gore invented this thing too... not just the interweb thingy :)

I know any money is helpful, but consider that the overwhelming majority of musicians are not signed and have no hope of securing a record deal. And that iTunes (if they can get signed on), only compensates them about 11% or so.

Here's a better idea. Look at all those musicians who let you download music legally and dash them an email, saying I want to give the money to you as a way of saying thanks for being so generous and talented.

To love the music, you must share the music. Sharethemusicday .

Sure glad for the Privacy Act of 1974.

'(a)(1) It shall be unlawful for any Federal, State or local
government agency to deny to any individual any right, benefit, or
privilege provided by law because of such individual's refusal to
disclose his social security account number.

You can always read the script though.

How about a discussion about how the DUI statitics are so blaently spun such that they make the shrub's lies about WMD look like schoolyard fibs. Oh, but it's ok. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!$^@%&!!

I still say it would have discouraged that guy if he lost a car every time he got caught. 400 arrests!!!

shoot the link is farked. here's another one. http://it.geocities.com/zompi85/data/images/distri buzioni/mandrake.jpg