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I'll just leave this here.

Back in the days Sierra Games were Top of the Line in graphics.

Now I wont deny that the sierra games were fun, but graphically they were anything but top of the line. I do say this with Fond amiga memories though.

1986 Defender of the crown Screenshot

1987 Leisure Suit Larry Screenshot

Back in the days Sierra Games were Top of the Line in graphics.

Now I wont deny that the sierra games were fun, but graphically they were anything but top of the line. I do say this with Fond amiga memories though.

1986 Defender of the crown Screenshot

1987 Leisure Suit Larry Screenshot

Any changes to the infrastructure need to get reviewed by someone in the Wikimedia Operations staff prior to actually going live, and they tend to be pretty careful about letting things through. Here's the list of changes awaiting review, along with discussion of each proposed change in many cases.

Here it is.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GIMP_2.7.3_splash.png

Windows RT : as in... Windows Russia Today?

No, it's the "arty" flavor of Windows 8, meant to compete with the Mac.

Windows RT : as in... Windows Russia Today?

Voyagers 1 and 2 took advantage of a rare planetary alignment which won't happen again until around 2150. Originally both spacecraft were supposed to visit all four outer planets, but Voyager 1 was sacrificed to get a closer look at Titan, which had recently been discovered to have an atmosphere. Without such an alignment, they wouldn't have been anywhere near as ambitious and quite possibly might not have even been built. Pioneer 11 didn't have such a favorable alignment and had to make an almost 180 degree direction change to go from Jupiter to Saturn.

So it wasn't that we were more ambitious about space exploration back in the 1970s when the Voyagers were launched. We just knew we were up against a hard deadline for an opportunity which wouldn't come again for 175 years, and scrambled to take advantage of it before the window closed.

Hmm. Quite a few spots they could visit, in terms of brightness, anyway. I love this photo; Johannesburg was particularly surprising for me when I first saw it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/World_Night_Lights_Map.jpg

HDD storage has grown at an exponential rate.

Darn all typos and abbreviations. The North Koreans obviously meant to refer to their Missal doctrines...

Oh yeah? Arizona just declared pregnancy starts first day of gestation, which is two weeks prior to actual conception.

Personally, I think anyone who uses religion as an active part of their political platform, and freely talks about how it affects their decisions, should be disqualified and removed if they're in office. Religion has no place anywhere near politics. The first sentence of the first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [...]

Seriously. wtf.

Scott Adams?

Perhaps you meant Douglas Adams, who died a few years ago.
Scott Adams, while witty enough in his Dilbert cartoons, is no substitute. Among other things, he believes in non-causal phenomena.

Now Dan Dennett or Robert Sapolski or Sam Harris would likely be good presidential material, at least from the governance of people perspective (if you could arm-twist them into submitting to such an ordeal). Alas, they are far too rational to be acceptable to the electorate, especially if pitted against the usual rabid fruitcake who gets elected. Anyway, they'd probably have to lie unconscionably to pass the required stupidity tests called Primaries in the US.

Scott Adams?

Perhaps you meant Douglas Adams, who died a few years ago.
Scott Adams, while witty enough in his Dilbert cartoons, is no substitute. Among other things, he believes in non-causal phenomena.

Now Dan Dennett or Robert Sapolski or Sam Harris would likely be good presidential material, at least from the governance of people perspective (if you could arm-twist them into submitting to such an ordeal). Alas, they are far too rational to be acceptable to the electorate, especially if pitted against the usual rabid fruitcake who gets elected. Anyway, they'd probably have to lie unconscionably to pass the required stupidity tests called Primaries in the US.

Scott Adams?

Perhaps you meant Douglas Adams, who died a few years ago.
Scott Adams, while witty enough in his Dilbert cartoons, is no substitute. Among other things, he believes in non-causal phenomena.

Now Dan Dennett or Robert Sapolski or Sam Harris would likely be good presidential material, at least from the governance of people perspective (if you could arm-twist them into submitting to such an ordeal). Alas, they are far too rational to be acceptable to the electorate, especially if pitted against the usual rabid fruitcake who gets elected. Anyway, they'd probably have to lie unconscionably to pass the required stupidity tests called Primaries in the US.

They rejected the treaty on the ground that they're the United States, and nobody's forcing them to give up their nukes. They just couldn't say that.

Well, considering the US has been giving them up for a long time now and is at last count 8,500, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

So it crashed in Norfolk or Chesapeake... or the ocean?

Virginia Beach is not in a county. Neither are the nearby cities of Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Suffolk. They are all independent cities.

Using "Virginia Beach" to refer to the little strip near the coast hasn't been done since before the 1970s-- I was born there in 1970 and lived there for decades. I have *never* heard "Virginia Beach" used to mean anything other than the entire city.

The plane crashed *in* Virginia Beach.

And... even if you go by the antiquated, pre-annexation of Princess Anne County meaning of Virginia Beach... given where the plane hit, it's *still* in Virginia Beach. The plane crashed almost exactly where the circle indicating "Virginia Beach" is in this map from 1895. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Princessanne.jpg

Um, you were looking for an example of a hydrogen explosion and you picked Fukushima?

Citation needed. If Wikimedia's "OS version, non mobile" stats are any indication, Windows market share has fallen to about 84% on desktops.

I'm 31, and your response honestly reminded me of this.

OK, that gave me a laugh.

BTW, I'm 30 so I'm not that young. I just realise that games haven't reached the level of acceptance that TV has. Go back 20-30 years and TV had the same arguments rallied against it. They were without merit then and are just as merit-less now. Give it another 5-10 years when the median age of gamers is approaching 40 and games will be as accepted as TV.

I'm 31, and your response honestly reminded me of this.

Just to clarify the point you are making: Wikipedia lumps Android traffic under "Linux".

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

iPhone 7,909 M 5.34%
Linux Android 4,979 M 3.36%
Linux Other 1,131 M 0.76%
Linux Ubuntu 970 M 0.66%
(rest negligible)

Conclusion: desktop linux is way smaller than mobile.

I used Lariam during an extended period of travel. My side effects consisted of extremely lucid and wonderful dreams. If the risks weren't so high, I'd recommend this as a recreational drug.

The tricyclic antidepressant Tofranil (imipramine) would make a very good replacement in that regard. The same goes for people suffering from the inefficacy (and/or sexual side-effects) frequently associated with SSRIs for the treatment of depression.

Since when does 8-track cost extra?!

Be very, very careful when pulling a "they can't punish everyone" stunt. Sometimes it turns out that yes, they very much can.

The risk/reward configuration for this type of civil disobedience seems very much like that of prisoner's dilemma.

Clearly you've never tried figure placement in a LaTeX document...

I have, and it works nicer than in Word (which moves images around arbitrarily unless they are contained in deprecated frames, especially in multi-column modes). Try following the instructions here. If you don't want to globally change LaTeX's goodness of fit parameters for floats, then you may find the "!" useful in the placement string.

I've had a Lumia 800 since november and the only two things I'm really missing now is a native app for Google+ (though the mobile web version works fine) and something that can talk to the OBD2 Bluetooth dongle I have for my car.

If you want a secure phone and want it to be from Nokia, then try the Nokia N9. It's a charm, in countries where it's available (yes for Australia, Finland, Italy, Sweden, etc. but not for USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, etc.).

and don't live in a town called Dorking.

Could be worse...

And we can look forward to an aptly-named lager also.
On a side note, I spent a few weeks here, back in the 80s (the job was exhausting work, too).

That's no moon.

You're right, it's really a Godwin!

The new business model:

Free Beer

Coin operated loo

Profit!

Wait. Didn't MS already embrace and extend this niche?

Space that MS and HP can dominate?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/ILoo#i-Loo_controversy

There's a cross between a Zune and a Sony Robot Turd in there somewhere.

Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, are welcomed to practice in China, as long as they denounce any connection with any external of China leadership. Such as Chinese Catholics do not hold the Vatican in any way, shape or form, as their "leadership". Officially there is about a third of the population who are religious. Some estimates put it greater then half of the population. There are some pretty big places of worship in China, that make some of our Western places of worship seem pale in comparison.

For example, the government commissioned a 105 meter tall statue of Guan Yin for Buddhists, that you can see here ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/HainanSanya2.jpg ) which is the 4th largest in the world built in 2005. The largest statue in the world being another CCP production at 128 meters and a cost of 18 million USD, was built in 2002 again for Buddhists ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Spring_Temple_Buddha_picturing_Vairocana%2C_in_Lushan_County%2C_Henan%2C_China.jpg.png ) ... which comparison wise makes the Statue of Liberty seem rather small ... ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Height_comparison_of_notable_statues_01.jpg )

Well that your willing to keep the Religion Chinese in origin and that your not going to use it as a front for political protests and ideologies contrary to the Communist Party's rule. Which really is very simple to understand and stay on the good side of the government, at least for most of the religions currently practicing in China.

Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, are welcomed to practice in China, as long as they denounce any connection with any external of China leadership. Such as Chinese Catholics do not hold the Vatican in any way, shape or form, as their "leadership". Officially there is about a third of the population who are religious. Some estimates put it greater then half of the population. There are some pretty big places of worship in China, that make some of our Western places of worship seem pale in comparison.

For example, the government commissioned a 105 meter tall statue of Guan Yin for Buddhists, that you can see here ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/HainanSanya2.jpg ) which is the 4th largest in the world built in 2005. The largest statue in the world being another CCP production at 128 meters and a cost of 18 million USD, was built in 2002 again for Buddhists ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Spring_Temple_Buddha_picturing_Vairocana%2C_in_Lushan_County%2C_Henan%2C_China.jpg.png ) ... which comparison wise makes the Statue of Liberty seem rather small ... ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Height_comparison_of_notable_statues_01.jpg )

Well that your willing to keep the Religion Chinese in origin and that your not going to use it as a front for political protests and ideologies contrary to the Communist Party's rule. Which really is very simple to understand and stay on the good side of the government, at least for most of the religions currently practicing in China.

Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, are welcomed to practice in China, as long as they denounce any connection with any external of China leadership. Such as Chinese Catholics do not hold the Vatican in any way, shape or form, as their "leadership". Officially there is about a third of the population who are religious. Some estimates put it greater then half of the population. There are some pretty big places of worship in China, that make some of our Western places of worship seem pale in comparison.

For example, the government commissioned a 105 meter tall statue of Guan Yin for Buddhists, that you can see here ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/HainanSanya2.jpg ) which is the 4th largest in the world built in 2005. The largest statue in the world being another CCP production at 128 meters and a cost of 18 million USD, was built in 2002 again for Buddhists ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Spring_Temple_Buddha_picturing_Vairocana%2C_in_Lushan_County%2C_Henan%2C_China.jpg.png ) ... which comparison wise makes the Statue of Liberty seem rather small ... ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Height_comparison_of_notable_statues_01.jpg )

Well that your willing to keep the Religion Chinese in origin and that your not going to use it as a front for political protests and ideologies contrary to the Communist Party's rule. Which really is very simple to understand and stay on the good side of the government, at least for most of the religions currently practicing in China.

For all the "I don't get it comments", the issue is that people don't understand or like markup languages. This helps people literally see the connection between the markup and the result. This problem was studied and documented extensively by Wikipedia:
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_and_Experience_Study#What_I_see_Vs._What_I_get

Wikipedia addressed the problem by making a JavaScript GUI editor to hide the markup. IMHO the problem with that approach is that it solves the wrong problem. The problem isn't that the markup is to difficult (although learning more then the basics is), it's that people just don't care to put any effort into understanding it and would rather complain that it's 'to hard'. The solution shouldn't focus on teaching people markup. It should either remove the markup and only allow a GUI, making the encoding inaccessible like document editors do, or use the effort required to understand markup as a barrier to entry.

1080p is a thousand times more descriptive than UXWVGA or what have you, because it tells you both the vertical resolution and the fact that it's progressive scan (the 'p') as opposed to interlaced. TVs only come in a small number of aspect ratios (4:3 and 16:9), so the horizontal resolution is implied by the vertical.

And to boot, the "GA" part, which has alternately stood for "graphics adaptor" (eg. CGA == Color Graphics Adaptor) and "graphics array" (VGA == "Video Graphics Array"), is just stupid. That video card names somehow became a handle for resolutions is just silly, since originally, all these cards were capable of multiple resolutions. (Ok, the MDA wasn't, but then the MDA didn't end in 'GA' now did it?)

I guess this all happened around the time of the second wave of "SuperVGA" cards. The first wave did 800x600, and the newer ones could do 1024x768, and needed some way to distinguish themselves. Once XGA came along, the alphabet soup resolution plague was here to stay.

I mean the creationist counter argument is that it contradicts a bunch of fairy tales written thousands of years ago by sand people.

Why is it OK to use ethnic slurs against Semitic peoples on Slashdot?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Stop the FUD about OSC being a homophobe -- he's responded many times to this allegation and there's no proof of it except in conspiracy-minded idiots' rantings.

I have no preconception one way or the other about OSC; I very seldom read fiction, and came into this discussion with no knowledge of OSC's personal background. If OSC isn't a homophobe, perhaps someone should add some refutations to his Wikipedia entry:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Homosexuality

Brazil is still mostly dependent on fossil fuels. Gasoline there is a 25/75 ethanol/gas blend.

For transportation yes, that's a fact. Most cars produced since 2002 or so can run on 100% ethanol but as current prices stand it is uneconomical. As for the electricity generation, we can say it's quite green: 87% (as of 2007) generated by hydro power https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Energy_policy_of_Brazil

It's economically infeasible to repair technology these days, at least in North America. For example, you buy a TV for $1000. Three years down, it breaks and getting it fixed will probably cost you easily $500. Do you fix it, or buy a new brand new TV with gee-whiz-bangs? Ditto a computer - if the motherboard dies after 3 years, are you going to spend the $400 to fix it, or just buy a newer faster one for more?

And anything under $200 or so is not worth fixing. That 20" monitor? It'll cost $200 for a tech to fix it out of warranty, so just buy a new one.

"Ending is better than mending"? That philosophy sounds eerily familiar...
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Brave_New_World

A skeptic doesn't swallow anything as truth, that includes the belief that homeopathy doesn't work because nobody has proven it yet, do you not know how science works?

Medical science begins with the assumption that a treatment does not work, until shown otherwise. You know scientific experimentation begins with a hypothesis, and that hypothesis is either supported or not supported by the experiment(s). Science does not set out to prove that X does not do Y, that is the null hypothesis, which is unprovable. For further demonstration of this idea, see any of our religion debates.

Any reasonable person would realize pretty soon that I am not a risk.

Sounds like you'd make a perfect proxy bomb.

If you've already been checked and interviewed for expedited entry into the country, why *wouldn't* you be trusted for expedited security screening at an airport?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Proxy_bomb

If the check was done well, it's a lot better security than the theater at the airport. Just ask the Israelis.

What sort of background check gives assurance against proxy bombs? The only technique apparent to me is to confirm that the applicant has not only no blackmailable secrets, no financial problems, (so far, all in accordance with what I know about typical government background checks), but above all, no loved ones; for I imagine that last one is absolutely the most effective motivator for executing a successful proxy bombing.

Posted AC to preserve up-mods. -cffrost

If you follow this link then you should be breaking the law... oh, and google and wikipedia too. In fact, considering how the law is lately being shaped, slashdot owners houses should be raided by swat teams soon for this very link.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ancient_history

the original

Let me guess: You don't own a passport?

Keyboard layout

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/SGU_Destiny_ep5.jpg

Really? Because this graph shows research efficiencies having been achieved of over 40%.

The GE tech rep said it was going to be Linux all the way down as far as GE is concerned

Maybe we should replace Tux with a new mascot, maybe this guy?

Nah, Linux is too fast. hey, Windows doesn't have a mascot and this would fit them better. Maybe GE will reconsider their OS choice?