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Try Mr. Barnard; room 12.

Thanks for sharing.

I was intrigued enough to look up the reasons why Ecuador made the switch to USD.

For those who are interested, TLDR, in 1999 their economy tanked, their local currency sucre was losing value every day and the locals were converting the sucre they had to the more stable USD. The announcement only made official what was already happening anyway.

Sources:-
On A Roll: Ecuador's gamble with the U.S. Dollar
The effect of dollarization in Ecuador

He is not only a witness if he KNOWS that he had the power

By the way, perhaps you were making a reference with your KNOWS. If not, I'd be careful about emphasizing the word knows when talking about the trolley problem, unless you've dug around in the vast philosophical literature on it, where knows in italics has special meaning. If you're not careful, pretty soon you end up piling on philosophical nonsense conundrums and end up with something like this.

how about "never give a sucker an even break", later used by WC Fields?

Fields wrote the screenplay for his movie of the same name, so yes, that was him. He was a nasty drunk himself in real life, kind of an a**hole because of drink. Here's a link of W.C. Fields quotes, and below that one that he didn't say, but was attributed to him.

http://www.mindspring.com/~hsstern/maewest/fields.htm

Anyone who hates children and dogs can't be all bad. Although a very commonly attributed to Fields himself, this is derived from a statement which was actually first said about him by Leo Rosten during a "roast" at the Masquer's Club in Hollywood in 1939, as Rosten explains in his book, The Power of Positive Nonsense (1977) "The only thing I can say about W. C. Fields ... is this: Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad."

http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._C._Fields#section_2

Web developers don't have anything to say about IE10. Either we're already ignoring any browser-specific quirks, or we're condemned to support the legacy versions.

Now, if anyone were to raise the topic of killing off the security nightmare that XP has become, you might find that web developers have a thing or two to say on the subject.

For responses in the vein of "XP works for me!" : you want room 12A, just along the corridor.

"I have only been able to come up with one algorithm for creating Unix command names: think of a good English word to describe what you want to do, then think of an obscure near- or partial-synonym, throw away all the vowels, arbitrarily shorten what's left, and then, finally, as a sop to the literate programmer, maybe reinsert one of the missing vowels."

Rachel Padman

we're here to argue.

No we're not.

YES. WE. ARE!!!!!

we're here to argue.

No we're not.

You fucking retard.

And your type really makes me puke.

Raising kids to be emotional nutjobs because they are never taught how to deal with negative feedback.

FAIL.

If you're trying to quote The Argument Sketch, try:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm

There's already a system.

See http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/19/4/ "The names zepto and zetta are derived from septo suggesting the number seven (the seventh power of 10^3) and the letter "z" is substituted for the letter "s" to avoid the duplicate use of the letter "s" as a symbol. The names yocto and yotta are derived from octo, suggesting the number eight (the eight power of 10^3); the letter "y" is added to avoid the use of the letter "o" as a symbol because it may be confused with the number zero."

Also, the order is Z, Y, so the next is X. Hence the next prefix is likely to be xona

http://www.mindspring.com/~jimvb/unitsystem.htm

http://tluthman.home.mindspring.com/dragoncon2004/images/DSCN6529-dc2004.JPG

Actually the researcher interviewed for the Newsweek article is not trying to tell us anything, just positing a possibility:

"I don't know." He laughs again. "It's, um I don't think we have enough evidence to say."

The other link, to the personal page on Mindspring is less useful, one because of the lack of a link to a more authoritative source, secondly because the researcher seems to be setting out to undermine their value as evidence:

Irrespective of religous beliefs, NDE's are not evidence for life after death on simple logical grounds: death is defined as the final, irreversible end. Anyone who 'returned' did not, by definition, die - although their mind, brain and body may have been in a very unusual state.

That does not really make sense: if the reported experiences are real, they are strong evidence.

This is an area where is is hard to be entirely impartial, but making a silly argument for one side goes to far.

The other article on Ketamine on the same site makes things look a bit different.

The personal experiences section of the site is quite convincing, but is not hard evidence of anything becuase of self-selection bias.

http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/jansen1.html, can itself cause a NDE. Geocities is that you?

Yea as we all know the rush to go out and buy quality Russian goods has never ended. Like the watches or jeans or cars! Nothing like a good old Zaporozhet !! http://www.mindspring.com/~corvair/zaz.html

I was wondering about that myself, it's correct in my preferences?
http://wooferhound.home.mindspring.com/

[full disclosure: I just copy-pasted that quote from here. I'm pretty sure that should be "toffee-nosed", not "coffee-nosed".]

I agree. The grandparent needs to be modded down. Ellora's Saga is legendary because the guy tried so hard to not be spoiled. Saying someone should try their hardest to beat Nethack without spoilers is just plain mean.

For what it's worth, the Reaper bot in Quake 1 also cheated - see http://www.mindspring.com/~win32ch/Reaper.htm

I did almost the exact same thing with almost the exact same specs (Toshiba 2155cds laptop) for several years, (well, only VGA graphics but 20MB RAM). It ran it's factory install of Win3.1 for five straight years till it's HDD died in 1999. No big loss since with a 500Mb HDD, I had long moved all my data and several apps to an Iomega Jaz drive I kept tethered to it.

The same machine was resurrected with a 2Gb HD (WOOO!....uh, ahem) and remains bootable to this day. The webpage linked above though, is ancient, dating back to when XP was replacing ME on new machines, and the collection of hardware there was only for the photo--at that point only the 4015CDS on the left (now my email-collecting machine) was in regular use (I didn't have room for a full-time desktop/tower setup)and the newest laptop (running ME) hadn't yet taken on a full-time role.

---PCJ

As a nerd recumbent bikes intrest me, but as a Swede trikes intrest me even more, eventually.

I can't decide because I want a fast and technically advanced bike, but a trike would be so awesome during winters because yes, you may slide, but you're not very likely to tilt over and hurt yourself.

There are also some recumbent bikes with windshields as addons and I guess those may help a lot during cold winters if you don't want to freeze your nose.

A bunch of trikes can be seen here: http://home.mindspring.com/~kb7mxu/

I agree these types of observations are often dismissed by management. They are not, however, very often debunked, which implies that they were incorrect, and proven to be so by a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.

There is an interesting problem with trying to persuade management of a problem like a giant failing project. They usually have a vested interest in the project success, and often the team. On the one hand they will dismiss arguments with insufficient detail. On the other, they will ignore or dismiss as "pedantic" or "overly detailed" any argument supported solidly by evidence. More often, however, they bog the bearers of bad news down with a giant pile of pointless assignments: "go produce document which explains "code fragility" and documents the extent of code fragility in this project, using industry standard metrics. " The point is, this debate cannot be won without going above the level of management that is causing the problem, up to the level of management which actually gives a hoot about whether the business objectives can be met. Doing so will probably cost the whistleblower their job, or their career.

It was a game balance and rules contradiction or rules ambiguity problem. As much as one might want to leave all decisions to the GM/DM, there were the inevitable rules lawyers that made gaming miserable by ... well ... lawyering...

But there are rules lawyers in every game with rules, even games like Monopoly and American Football. Some games even seem to facilitate this process with complex rule systems (RuleMaster, I'm lookin' at you, baby).

In my eyes, 1st Ed. AD&D is the One True Edition just as vi is the One True Editor. :D

The problem is there has not been a properly mastered CD released for nearly a decade so most of you dont have a clue as to what a good one sounds like.

Project HDTP: better looking textures
enhanced OpenGL renderer: allows the game to take advantage of your newer card
Shifter mod: adds some gameplay tweaks

I'd like to add "conversation logs" to the DX3 xmas list.

How does it cost more than 2 million dollars to execute someone?

A pretty good write-up can be found here: (this is not my work, BTW).

But over and above cost, there is still the issue of how permanent a sanction the death penalty is. In most capital murder cases, there is a decent chance that the court got it wrong and they are sending an innocent man to his death. I guess that's why hardly anyone (at least to my knowledge) kicked up a fuss about executing Timothy McVeigh. The murders were truly horrific and he was definitely guilty, to the point of being proud to admit it.

Shamelessly stolen from http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm:

Q: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
M: Well, I was told outside that...
Q: Don't give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
M: What?
Q: Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, malodorous pervert!!!
M: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I'm not going to just stand...!!
Q: OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it.
Q: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.
M: Oh, Thank you very much. Sorry.
Q: Not at all.
M: Thank You. (Under his breath) Stupid git!!

You retired from reality? When did you join Facebook?

Asking here at this place ???

CC.

One issue though with using a real world unit like dB SPL or similar is that the computer doesn't actually know what signal level translates into what SPL. A laptop outputting everything its got may only producing only 50dB max on the built in speakers meanwhile plug the same system into a stadium sound system and suddently its 120dB or more, yet the computer has no way of knowing this.

Also, look to CD's for another reason as to why this wouldn't work; The dynamic range of a CD is over 90dB, quite capable of carrying a huge range of sound. Yet the loudness of music recordings is pushed so high that even with this dynamic range the signal is forced to clip. http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm

There's plenty of opposing viewpoints, but really there's no "discussion" here

There are NO restrictions on rights.. only the included responsibility to use them in a safe manner.

Maybe you're looking for "The Death of Dynamic Range", which gives plots of a number of samples of music, from Bryan Adams' 1982 album which peaked at 75% of full scale, to Willie Nelson's 1988 disc which had *one* 100% peak, through to Amy Grant's 1992 album which had multiple clipped peaks and The Rembrandts (1995) with its continual hard clipping at 96%(!), finishing with the "audio carnage" of Ricky Martin. http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynam ics.htm

The problem isn't just compression. It's that the full dynamic range of CDs is no longer being used for most popular music. The wide dynamic range of a CD is a major reason why it is an advance over the LP--it's what gives CDs their great signal/noise ratio. There's more on the issue here:

http://georgegraham.com/compress.html
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.ht m

and pretty graphs here:
http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynam ics.htm

You can read more about the loudness war here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

It really is true: if you apply too much sound-level compression to a recording, the recording sounds worse. Music is more interesting with some dynamic range. Some of my favorite classic rock songs sound much better from the CD than they do when played on the radio, because the radio station applies sound-level compression.

On the other hand, it's not really wrong for the radio station to apply the sound-level compression; you wouldn't thank them if you set your volume control knob for one song and then the next song was much louder. And the compression helps the music "cut through" the background noise of driving, so you can hear it better. But it is a pity if the CD is mastered with that kind of sound-level compression from the beginning!

Here's another really good web page about this.

http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynam ics.htm

Just take a look at the Ricky Martin song. The gain was set far too high, and as a result many waveforms went outside legal bounds; when you try to master a CD with a wave that is simply too extreme to be legal, it is hard-clipped to make it legal. That sort of clipping makes an unpleasant sound, and makes the CD sound even louder. And hard-clipping means discarding audio data; there is no way to reconstruct it later.

The above is one of the reasons why vinyl LPs still have their fans. You simply cannot push an LP so hard that it's playing hard-clipped square waves. But a well-mastered CD will have more dynamic range than even the best-mastered LP, and less distortion. (Some of the distortion you get with an LP can actually improve your music, and that's another of the reasons why LPs still have fans. But you could apply a digital effect that sounded like LP distortion, if you wanted to.)

steveha

M: I came here for a good argument. A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument. M: An argument isn't just contradiction. A: It can be. M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. A: No it isn't. M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction. A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position. M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.' A: Yes it is! M: No it isn't!

When was game AI good? I'll tell you when.

The Reaper Bot

I remember playing that thing when it first came out, and thinking to myself that we were on the verge of some major game AI breakthroughs. I mean, this thing played like a HUMAN, not a robot! You had to beat it with skill and cunning rather than the typical, "find the flaw in the bot and exploit it" scheme.

Of course, the Reaper wasn't perfect. Which isn't surprising when you consider that it was the first of its generation. Unfortunately, the industry pushed in two directions that were mostly incompatible with the further development of such AI:

1. Scripting - The introduction of Half Life kicked off a scripting craze that we still feel today.

2. Online Play - Quakeworld sealed this deal.

We could develop better AI if programmers put their minds to it. The problem-space of simulating how humans are supposed to react in a simulated environment isn't anywhere near as hard as trying to respond to real-world stimuli. (Especially since the AI can use shortcuts and cheats behind the scenes.) Unfortunately, there is little incentive to focus on such AI. So it may take a very long time before we see any real improvements in that area.

There is actually a fairly large community for games similar to this in the English-speaking world, where it is known as interactive fiction (or by it's old-fashioned name, text adventure). Infocom produced some of the most famous games in this genre, including Zork and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but there's now a very active community of (mostly) amateurs creating these games just for fun and to explore the artistic possibilities of interactivity in storytelling.

Most interactive fiction these days is purely text based, as that can be easily created by one or two people who have more experience with writing and programming than graphics and multimedia, and doesn't require a large budget or time investment, though you do occasionally see games with graphics. It has become common to write these games to run on a virtual machine, so that they can be run on all kinds of different platforms. The two most common virtual machines are the Z-machine, which has actually been reverse-engineered from Infocom's virtual machine and thus is compatible with most of their old games and tons of old computers, and the TADS VM. Likewise, there are two common authoring environments, which target these machines; Inform targets the Z-machine, and TADS targets, well, the TADS VM. Both have recently released innovative new systems; Inform 7 uses a natural language syntax (similar to the natural language input that controls the game), and TADS 3 is designed to be aggressively object-oriented.

For anyone who is new to these sorts of games, there are a few games that have been designed specifically for beginners. I would recommend Andrew Plotkin's Dreamhold or Emily Short's City of Secrets. You can find lots more games, along with capsule reviews of some of them, at Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive. In order to play these games, you'll need an interpreter for the virtual machine. On Windows or Unix/Linux I would recommend Gargoyle, as it's an interpreter that has nice typography and supports many different virtual machines. On the Mac, I would recommend either Zoom (for Z-machine, with support for some other interpreters in beta) or Spatterlight (which supports many different machines).

There is also a large community interested in developing, playing, criticizing, and discussing these games. Some of the best places to go for discussion are the interactive fiction newsgroups, rec.arts.int-fiction (for discussion of interactive fiction programming, game design, and topics about the field as a whole) and rec.games.int-fiction (for announcement and discussion of particular games). There is also an interactive fiction MUD (mostly a fancy chat-room), several contests for developing the best interactive fiction, plenty of reviews and other articles online. There are several good beginner's guides to the format as well.

Anyhow, I thought that since this review made it sounds like interactive novels were mostly a Japanese thing, I thought I'd point out a bit of what is available in the English speaking world. As I mentioned, these are mostly text based, both due to the preferences of the authors and lack of budget, unlike the graphical Jap

ummm, no.
from a google of "pedestrian right of way" and North Carolina (state in the U.S.) laws (src: (c) Where a system of traffic-control signals or devices does not include special pedestrian-control signals, pedestrians shall be subject to the vehicular traffic-control signals or devices as they apply to pedestrian traffic.
and...
20-174. Crossing at other than crosswalks; walking along highway.
(a) Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway.

I teach argumentative writing to freshmen

nah, they've hardly even scratched the surface. http://jimvb.home.mindspring.com/unitsystem.htm I might wait for the xeto or unto XTs though. Still to big for me.

A good example of what will be easier to write in the next generation of interactive fiction is Galatea, and some of the worked examples that come with inform 7 really showcase its power. I defy you to read through the manual and not come up with an idea for at least one story to implement.

One great article I read that actually made me stop, reread the paragraph, and put down my pilot (I read it in plucker) and think about the implications was in SPAG issue 44. Another couple good articles are in http://brasslantern.org/writers/howto/i7intro.html and http://brasslantern.org/writers/iftheory/i7observa tions.html . Without spoiling the latter article, I'll mention that one of the paragraphs under the 'relations' section blew my mind.

A good example of what will be easier to write in the next generation of interactive fiction is Galatea, and some of the worked examples that come with inform 7 really showcase its power. I defy you to read through the manual and not come up with an idea for at least one story to implement.

One great article I read that actually made me stop, reread the paragraph, and put down my pilot (I read it in plucker) and think about the implications was in SPAG issue 44. Another couple good articles are in http://brasslantern.org/writers/howto/i7intro.html and http://brasslantern.org/writers/iftheory/i7observa tions.html . Without spoiling the latter article, I'll mention that one of the paragraphs under the 'relations' section blew my mind.

The part that sucks is the part where your great CD's source has been compressed to make it loud instead of maintaining headroom and dynamic range.

http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynam ics.htm

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_arti cle/imperfect-sound-forever.htm

http://georgegraham.com/compress.html

http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.ht m

The first link is the most telling. It shows the clipped and maxxed out audio on some modern CD's compressed and squashed to just be loud constant noise. It's one of the reasons I quit buying CD's. The quality is gone to the point they sound just like a tape that was recorded at +20 Db on the VU meters. The clipping, loss of headroom and dynamic range is just the same.

The alternative to a "cold chill" (a 'hot chill') sounds as half baked as the cold light cloaking device from manhunt in space XD

Well using this you can at least explore endings that you find interesting:

http://www.mindspring.com/~emshort/cheats.htm [mindspring.com]

Another good game to try is Blue Chairs. Less flexible, but it has enough to make the interactivity really feel interactive. Unlike Galatea this is a "real" game with moderate game length (it took me a couple nights of playing) and real endings. I still don't know which I prefer.

Going graphical a really decent exploration of game interactivity is Indigo Prophecy (PC and XBox).

Well using this you can at least explore endings that you find interesting:

http://www.mindspring.com/~emshort/cheats.htm

All right, I don't really believe that CDs killed dynamic range. I believe that the people using CD technology to master any type of music, aside from jazz or classical, have gradually stopped taking advantage of the dynamic range available to them. I'm basing the belief on articles like this and personal experience, comparing my own favorite artists' recent work on CD versus vinyl.

As for "HD Radio", never heard of it.

There is such a thing as groupthink and committees can make stupid decisions and meetings do seem to reduce one's intelligence, but. . .
You are oversimplifying. There are cases of collective intelligence, and examples of good work coming from groups.
For example, the group that produced the King James Bible, the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program, GIMPS (not GNU Image Manipulation Program, but the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search - OK, it probably doesn't belong in this list, as it's less "intelligence" and more brute force throwing processing power at a fairly simple but time-consuming problem).
I'm sure there are other good examples people could give. Those are just ones that quickly come to my mind. Some have suggested that the human brain is itself a form of collective intelligence. Lots of little "subroutines" working together to form a "sum greater than the parts", or something like that. It's been awhile but I've read a couple of the references cited here: http://ericrollins.home.mindspring.com/evoCellACM/ index.html and they suggest that idea.

I think the term you're looking at to satisfy #1, #2, and #3 is "interactive fiction." Players of pedantic text adventures may not look down on others, but I assure you, connoisseurs of interactive fiction, of the literary type produced by Adam Cadre , Emily Short , and Zarf , among others, most likely look down on all other "gamers," and are probably scorned in kind by WoW players! And not nobody is selling IF at Wal-Mart...