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At least Millennium Falcon seems to be in the correct shape.

You mean a hamburger with an olive on top ? Lousy shape for a spaceship. Especially for one that can do the Kessel run in 12 parsecs. The original design was so much classier. Maybe to classy for Star Wars.

You know that a parsec is a measure of distance, not time, right? Also take a look at the article on Wikia

It's all fun and games until Earth gets canceled

The Aldera design is even in the same color scheme, except it doesn't suck as architecture (implemented McQuarrie designs tend to lose the That 70's Look of his paint). Here's the deal - windows make for free light for a whole bunch of exhibits (put the dark ones in the center), normal humans enjoy bright and sunny places, and they also enjoy non-creepy architecture as well.

The proposed design looks like the Taelon embassy tried to assimilate a circus tent, and - what is that, a golden halo on top of the Lucas building? Are we not supposed to take this as a literal edifice to ego?

With my luck, I'd get The Toaster.

TT helped Holly double his original IQ but shortened his life to three and a half minutes. He won 793 consecutive chess games against Holly. During this time, the Toaster also saved the crew from death: while Holly was a genius, he explained to the Toaster how to escape from a Black Hole, information which later came in useful when the crew encountered one. The Toaster did not, however, merely volunteer this information: it practically tortured the crew by forcing them to eat ridiculous amounts of toast before talking (The Cat later explains that the toast was burnt, cold and soggy). When the crew is attacked by a polymorph, and the crew loses a certain emotion (Rimmer loses his anger, Lister loses his fear, The Cat loses his vanity and Kryten loses his guilt), the Toaster is destroyed by Kryten before the Polymorph is destroyed and their personalities are returned to normal - except for Talkie Toaster.

Talkie Toaster was subsequently repaired, but its personality circuits were damaged to the point where it believed it was a moose, and was reduced to making loud bellowing noises and threatening to charge the crew with its antlers.

http://discworld.wikia.com/wik...

I was SO confused

maybe this will help.

There is a public debate. Every citizen of the Campaign-funding Corporations of America has the ability to vote, through their elected Lobbyists.

Don't laugh. The Global Corporate Congress is exactly who is getting to vote here.

sigh I miss America...

Even Williams Electronics, an arcade game maker that used an upside-down Motorola logo, spun off its video game business to Midway, which is now part of Time Warner.

It's the Pyramid, desktop edition!

I just typed it. But Slashdot simply "disappears" thorn characters, which is annoying.

Bárðarbunga is full of eye candy. I can point to abundant examples including no shortage of videos on Youtube / Vimeo.

As for pronunciation: Á is said "ow". BOWR-dthar-BOON-ka. The R is an alveolar tap or trill. If that's too hard for you, you can also call it Holuhraun (HOLE-ih-HROYN), Nornahraun (NORDN-uh-HROYN), THorbjargarhraun (THOR-Byardg-ar-HROYN), or a bunch of other names (the TH should really be a thorn, but again, Slashdot silently eats thorns). Among the many proposals for names was Holuhraunshraunshraunshraun, which was suggested because it would be fun watching foreigners try to pronounce it ;) It was never actually a serious contender, but I wrote an article poking fun at the concept on Uncyclopedia at one point ;)

The Weyland-Yutani Corporation has had several different origins in various media. While it was not the first to be portrayed, the origin established in Prometheus is now considered the canonical version. In the film, the company is preceded by Weyland Corp, established by Peter Weyland on October 11, 2012.

Sounds like a job for Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

.

Yup. http://firefly.wikia.com/wiki/...

[T]he Alliance tried to chemically modify its populace to be peaceful. This worked perfectly; it eliminated violence, but in the process it had a fatal side effect. The inhabitants lost all ambition ;they stopped doing any work, stopped talking to each other, stopped reproducing and eventually stopped even feeding. For 0.1% of the population it had the opposite effect and caused extremely violent behavior, beyond mere psychosis but animalism. The "survivors" of Miranda were the Reavers who started to menace the Rim planets.

Not enough of it for them to say "I kill me!" and then follow through with it.

Also, the cat had to be terrified.

Hey jerk. If you want one write your own. Maybe you can also ask them if they share the code. However, the idea behind such universes is that you do not split things up.

Just like the idea behind Wikipedia is you don't split it up.

Yes Lego was very bad with that during the later parts of the 90's and 2000's and they lost a lot of customers because of it. That said they learned and have gotten a lot better about the special pieces of late. While some of the detail pieces they now have are very detailed and special purpose (looking at you lego frogs and your ilk) there are other pieces that have been been added that are very generic, especially in the studs not on top category. Lego has done a good job in recent years of making more generic parts but using them in interesting ways. Also they have been more willing to use pieces from other themes in other ones so there is a lot more Technic parts in sets that would have never seen them previously.

A great example of this is the recently released Lego Ghostbusters Ecto-1 there are only a few pieces that didn't exist when I was younger (the wheels, slanted grates, some studs not not top ones, and a few others I can't remember) but even at that most of it is made from very generic pieces. It is mostly the reuse of things like pneumatic hose, whips, light saber handles, roof tiles, etc in interesting ways that makes the set. If you would prefer there is this little guy which is also similar in that it has some pieces that didn't exist when I was little but is made from very generic pieces that probably should have been out when I was younger. It does however seem that the style of building has changed a lot from when I was a kid. Now when building vehicles there are a lot fewer bricks used and instead lots of plates and tiles which were fairly rare when I was younger. Or are you implying that if it isn't composed of bricks that are entirely made with right angles it isn't a proper lego set?

Thinking about Card's Hierarchy of Foreigness will give you an idea what these people are trying to accomplish.

http://ansible.wikia.com/wiki/...

They are basically trying to have chimps and dolphins reclassified as raman, not as humans, not as djur. Raman don't get citizen rights such as voting, but the non-state related parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ought to apply to them as persons.

http://www.un.org/en/documents...

Everybody lies.

Yes! http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki...

The Irken Empire has a hierarchical class structure in which shorter individuals are both figuratively and literally looked down upon. The tallest Irken born in a specific generation takes command of the entirety of the Empire.

I look forward to the day when humankind are ruled by our own Almighty Tallest.

What a deviously genius plan.

Looney Tunes, Bugs, Elmer Road Runner etc...THOSE were cartoons. What happened is the political correctness destroyed them. ...

Yup, that's why a Looney Tunes sitcom with all those characters, including Speedy Gonzales was produced between 2012 and 2014. Damn political correctness, killed Looney Tunes. Or maybe, entertainment has moved on and it just didn't get decent ratings.

As far as the original Looney Tunes cartoons, I grew up on those. Don't let nostalgia cloud your thinking. If I had access to all the forms of entertainment available now, I would not have watched so many Looney Tunes repeatedly. But it was the only game in town. Is it really so surprising that children in 2014 are not enamored by cartoons made between 1930 to 1969? Is it so surprising that after running in syndication for over 40 years that a cartoon might just be played out?

Naw, let's blame whatever cultural phenomenon we currently find annoying for everything. That's what our grandparents and parent did, it must be right!

Looney Tunes, Bugs, Elmer Road Runner etc...THOSE were cartoons. What happened is the political correctness destroyed them. ...

Yup, that's why a Looney Tunes sitcom with all those characters, including Speedy Gonzales was produced between 2012 and 2014. Damn political correctness, killed Looney Tunes. Or maybe, entertainment has moved on and it just didn't get decent ratings.

As far as the original Looney Tunes cartoons, I grew up on those. Don't let nostalgia cloud your thinking. If I had access to all the forms of entertainment available now, I would not have watched so many Looney Tunes repeatedly. But it was the only game in town. Is it really so surprising that children in 2014 are not enamored by cartoons made between 1930 to 1969? Is it so surprising that after running in syndication for over 40 years that a cartoon might just be played out?

Naw, let's blame whatever cultural phenomenon we currently find annoying for everything. That's what our grandparents and parent did, it must be right!

Windows CEMeNT98

As I discussed here (~25years ago): http://www.pdfernhout.net/prin...
"As outlined in my statement of purpose, my lifetime goal is to design and construct self-replicating habitats. These habitats can be best envisioned as huge walled gardens inhabited by thousands of people. Each garden would have a library which would contain the information needed to construct a new garden from tools and materials found within the garden's walls. The garden walls and construction methods would be of several different types, allowing such gardens to be built on land, underground, in space, or under the ocean. Such gardens would have the capacity to seal themselves to become environmentally and economically self-sufficient in the event of economic collapse or global warfare and the attendant environmental destruction. "

And: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...

And here: http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/d...

But many others have discussed similar things, so just another voice in the choir in that sense. If Musk really reflects on these issues (other than being another Mars fanboy) he will see that there are many possible avenues to decentralization and resiliency, of which Mars is just one. As we gain knowledge and experience in creating such systems, then we can disperse farther and farther to deal with bigger and bigger possible disasters (including the ones you point out about gamma ray burst or wandering neutron stars).

More ideas in that direction: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

And by others:
http://www.luf.org/
http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Mai...
http://lifeboat.com/ex/main
http://openluna.org/

Also something I've been involved with, but has since became more broadly "Open Manufacturing" and the maker movement: http://openvirgle.net/

So, generation ships etc. are interesting ideas, and they all fit into a large general picture of possibilities.

Still, for all that, making the Earth work well for most everyone (zero emissions cradle-to-cradle manufacturing, better healthcare and nutrition, a global basic income, better education for all, indoor agriculture, new power sources like dirt cheap solar and hot and cold fusion, and so on) is a good first step towards knowing how to live in space, especially given we are already on what Bucky Fuller called "Spaceship Earth". So, I see no big incompatibility between trying to make the Earth work for everyone and preparing for a future where there are quadrillions of people living in self-replicating space habitats throughout the solar system and ultimately the galaxy and beyond -- perhaps even into other dimensions and realities and simulations? Of course, there are philosophical issues still about all this about meanings in life and so on.

Maybe it's like in Civilization, where if your units get enough experience they can be upgraded to something more powerful. In which case the question becomes, is this the software for training a gyrocopter into a helicopter? Or does it upgrade helicopters into antigrav gunships? If the latter then this could be a serious threat to national security.

actually, anti-tank guns train to be helicopters. this is powerful software.

I still like the Windows version that rolls CE technology, ME technology and NT technology into one. Together they are stronger, right?

Showing my age, a character from a fighting game.

I'm no physicist myself, but from what I can tell, David Weber's Honor Harrington series of novels does a pretty good job of getting the physics right. Most battles are missile duels, energy weapons are powerful, but short-range, and when they develop a means of giving missiles multi-stage drives, it changes the game significantly, as they no longer have a single burst of maneuvering speed and then come in ballistic; they can accelerate at their target, burn out the first stage, coast in ballistic for many thousands of kilometers, and then activate the second stage for final maneuvering.

It's a good concept on the surface, but Weber destroys the physics with his own lust for large numbers: ships are not fighting at "short-range" of a kilometer or two... they're at "short-range" of a hundred thousand kilometers. "Long" range stretches out to tens of millions of kilometers. Of course, he has to, when he has ships that can accelerate at hundreds of Gs, and missiles that can accelerate at 96 thousand G's.

I love the series, but Weber's constant need to go from "a ship firing 10 missiles at a broadside... no wait, 10 thousand missiles at a broadside! And they zoom off at a kilometer per secon- no, wait, a million kilometers per second!" is more than little silly, and certainly not a "pretty good job" of getting the physics right.

Have you seen Postgres-XC? It's pretty much built for this purpose.

http://postgresxc.wikia.com/wi...

The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as

"a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man."

I'll leave the ultimate zinger for somebody else...

But who would build a machine that only goes around killing spiders?

"Unleash the power of the pyramid"
http://theoffice.wikia.com/wik...

The Encyclopedia Galactica defines a robot as

"a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man."

I'll leave the ultimate zinger for somebody else...

http://gattaca.wikia.com/wiki/...

NerveGear is much better. Now if only reality could catch up with anime science-fiction so that companies could make it available as a consumer product.

Agree, I worship Picard. The warrior-poet, the tactician, the scholar.

But you want to talk shitty, grim future? I see your Battlestar Galactica and raise you Warhammer 40k!

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/...

IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY WAR ...

Hey, now... There is no need to kill a fly by using a sledge hammer! 8-)

Agree, I worship Picard. The warrior-poet, the tactician, the scholar.

But you want to talk shitty, grim future? I see your Battlestar Galactica and raise you Warhammer 40k!

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/...

IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY WAR

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the vast Imperium of Man for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat to humanity from aliens, heretics, mutants -- and far, far worse. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

> 25MHz 486 and 640x480 VGA with no acceleration?

Before you get flamed ...

Dos Doom used @ 320x200 in ModeY, Quake supported Michael Abrash's ModeX @ 320x240.

Doom95 which ran on Windows 95 supported different resolutions.

I played it on my 386SX 16 MHz with the screen shrunk down a few levels. It was silky smooth on the Pentium 90 MHz, and the Pentium Pro 200 MHz (obviously) as was Quake.

Reference: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Asp...

The oculus will not read your body language, your eyes, your stance, your arms, etc.

I agree with what Brendan is saying, however it's going to take something on the same level as the NerveGear from Sword Art Online.

First Person Skiing

Are you referring to Tribes ?

Did this fellow just watch the movie "Licence to Kill"? In that movie, which came out back in 1989, there's a gun gadget with this capability.

This site has a photo of it, and describes it as:

Signature camera gun - A camera that when put together became a sniper rifle that only worked for Bond, due to a scanner built into the grip.

I agree. In fact, it was probably the Xeelee. http://xeelee.wikia.com/wiki/X...

I'll be happy when I can use it to detonate those remote mines that I set.

It's even more confusing than you think.

No, the dropper was named Clapper ref: Quotum Leap

i'm guessing the fact that it was aquatic dissuaded the rats and ferrets. I'm not sure the size of the creature means the small parasites would ignore it, either.

I'm guessing leeches and little shrimp-like things and jesus that's disgusting. No wonder it's extinct. Good thing, too. You wouldn't want one of these wandering into your backyard to get into your garbage. It would give your dog a heart attack.

Thanks, now we know what was swimming around in the Death Star's garbage disposal. They've just unearthed a Dianoga!

Sigh. Another /. response that opens with a veiled insult in the form of an ad hominem argument. I hope your self esteem got a little boost, person who is clearly better than I.

The problem wasn't determining the intended meaning of the phrase. That was pretty clear: it implied that "many" areas in the US are literary wastelands devoid of life and nourishment (for the mind) with haggard readers thirsting for relief crawling slowly along in the dirt, bathed in the harsh life-sapping light of modern media, hoping to come upon an oasis. I get it.

The problem is, this isn't a poem or creative piece of prose where such imagery can provide a more engaging reading experience. It's a summary set in the real world about a cheap smartphone with ereader software installed and a statement about the potential impact of said phone (in the real world). So dramatic language isn't warranted unless there are actually many places in the US suffering so horribly from lack of real books that this phone and ereader meets a pressing social need. I see little evidence in the real world (via much traveling, talking to people, watching the news, reading the news, listening to the news, reading books and magazines, visiting used bookstores swimming in donations, looking around me at parks/on the bus/at the beach/etc.) that this is actually true.

So it comes across as overly wrought handwringing with no real basis in fact. It should read in the voice of the sad persona of the Mayor of Halloween Town to help people really feel the intended emotion.

If there is some truth to it, another solution might be for some enterprising socially minded entrepeneur to come up with a viable way to move books from where they are in oversupply to places where there's a dearth (and more importantly, demand). Or people could just, you know, order cheap used books from Amazon and have them delivered right to their doorstep.

Song inspired by real radioactive frogs (not turtles or slugs) near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.

http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/B...

Orange is the best color.

It's the maintenance man. He knows I like orange.

Also, and on-topic, Deus Ex is a must-play game.

Came to instigate a reinstallation. Saw that I was beaten to it. Left satisfied.

Everytime someone mentions Deus Ex, someone reinstalls Deus Ex