Slashdot Mirror
Quickies 2:Electric Bugaloo
Let's start this off with
jsewell's truly amazing story about the rocket car urban legend from the man who claims to have invented it.
Did you do your homework last week? Remember that Slashdot was nominated for
a Webby in Community so go do their little login dance and vote for us if you think that our First Posts, Oog, Trolls and 'God Slashdot Really Sucks These Days' messages are cool. Maybe we'll even fly CowboyNeal out to give an acceptance speech if we win ;)
Glowing Spleen sent us an optical illusion that
really bugs me. I had to check if it wasn't an animated GIF.
A few for the do it yourselfers:
Slash T.M.F.D.W.
sent us a real mech and
Ryan J. Evans sent in the
worlds largest playable tetris.
If you don't actually want to build something, but want to play anyway, try SodaPlay and you can mess with these crazy animated 2D springy models. Its surprisingly addictive.
After all that building, you might need
Jeremy's Microbatch Ice Cream
(thanks alangmead) and its "Wired" flavor, a caffinated vanilla ice cream. Between that and the Triple Espresso flavor. Wonder what happens if you keep it in this
Bio-Plastic Wrap that detects contaminated food (sent in by Accipiter)
You can't use plastic wrap to preserve human heads, but
ChunkyGoodness noted that Chet Fleming has US Patent number 4666425 for keeping them alive.
Dugh Daren sent us a hilarious
essay from Space.com on Star War's most annoying characters that I found extremely funny.
brunning pointed us to
perhaps the most pressing bug in all of Microsoft's software.
kwsNI pointed us to an extremely disturbing article about Pandas on Viagra in China.
Blake sent in a filter based on "Being John Malkovitch." Read
Slashdot in Malkovitch Mode.
And finally, we need a stupid lawsuit:
east_bay_pete told us about a commercial that featured a cockroach scampering over the screen ... people are suing because they keep breaking TVs trying to kill the CGI Roach!
Actually, I don't remember the exact cost, but CGI rendering was MUCH more expensive back then.
Why not just play the tape backwards?
I am afraid it make too much sense from a Campbellian analysis. The fool, or the Sacred Fool, is a powerfull archetype in mythology. We see this with the Tarot Deck, which starts with 0,The Fool. The Major Arcana is considered to be a path, and the common representation of The Fool is of a simple youth carrying his belongings on a stick, being distracted by a dog's barking, and about to take a step into the Abyss.
Jar-Jar is too much of the "simple youth" to be anything but The Fool of Episode I. And if he continues the journey, he will become one with the Universe...a Jedi.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Wow, some people just can't take a joke.
There was an X-Files episode where they had a bug crawl across the screen, I thought it was very well-done.
And who breaks a TV trying to swat a bug? Or sues over it?
I wish I could say "I'm a moron, give me money!" and have it work. Especially since I need the money for college...
...and they say *we* can't figure out what reality is...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Restaurants banning cell phones:
/ news/archive/2000/04/17/state0018EDT0234.D TL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=
EDA tools finally ported to Linux after 3 years of user protests:
http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20000417S0090
Then again you could just read about electronic valves for diesel engines on slashdot.
OK, sorry to burst your bubbles here, but this is a few years old, and this guy seems to have ripped it from the cDc (Cult of the Dead Cow) now, personally, I think the cDc should get credit for this story, since they are the original 'posters' of this pile of flaming boo-hah. (did I say that?) But I digress.. anyway.. Here's the ORIGINAL text/html http://www.cultdeadcow.com/cDc_files/ cDc-363/ Rock on cDc and all you dead cow lovers out there!
!ooM moo, mo-fuckah Moo!
It was one thing when someone other than CmdrTaco was double posting something, but now he's doing it too which means he doesn't even pay attention to his site!
Moderators: go ahead and troll/offtopic/etc this; you're just violating the rule that you shouldn't decrement a score if you don't agree with the message content
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
"Drop-down lists of prospective subjects, verbs and objects in English allow one to concoct novel Irish curses from a three-part menu."
Jefferson City, Missouri's Lincoln University offers this amusing little interactive time sponge here and The Register explains it here.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
so is the website a fraud or what?
unc_
---
The disturbing part about the reaction to the Orkin commercial (I.E., the idiots who are throwing things through their TVs) is this:
That roach is on the screen for about 3 seconds before the Orkin man appears.
It's during those 3 seconds that people are getting it through their heads that they need to throw something through the TV, finding something, and throwing it through the TV.
What the hell is wrong with people?
Here's another place, probably faster, where you can find the, err... "roach clip".
It took a number of readings of this to pick out what I believe is a single, fatal technical flaw:
... so the railroad car wheel assemblies are welded directly to the auto frame, not to the auto axle assemblies. Now here's where he describes how the brakes were attached to the rocket car:
First the author writes:
Attaching the cut-away rail car bases to the Chevy frame was pretty easy too. Jimmy stressed the importance of getting the two sets of wheels precisely aligned, but it wasn't that hard. The old Chevy frame had plenty of places for bolts and welds, so picking spots where the wheels would line up was a snap. And since the Impala was already up on blocks, it was no problem to slide the wheel frames underneath and lift them into place with a floor jack, then weld away.
Ok
Beck's idea was simple, elegant, and easy to put into practice. I'd install the air shocks on the Rocket Car normally, just as if the car would be riding on pavement instead of rails. But I'd also bolt a pair of wooden beams onto the belly of the car, runners that were placed exactly between the front and rear train wheels. Each runner would be thick enough to reach almost all the way down to the tracks, and the bottom would be covered with rubber cut from old tires.
Look at figures two and three. See the problem? The figure shows the car body moving up and down relative to the railroad car wheel assemblies, yet earlier he said that the wheel assemblies were welded to the frame, so they shouldn't have been able to move up and down at all.
Other then that, a masterful telling of the rocket car story!
For a tileable version of the dot image, grab these:
http://www.academus.net/dotty.gif
or
http://www.academus.net/dotty.png
Mycroft-X
Slight physics problem with the earth rotation theory (I know I know it was a cartoon and I am being pedantic.)
The earth would have to be rotating 17 times faster than it is now to have enough momentum to overcome gravity when it suddenly stopped rotating.
Never mind the HUGE impact it would have on the core/plates/oceans etc.
Also, the earth would get EXTREMELY hot due to the conservation of energy. (Carl Sagan notes in "Broca's Brain" that the Earth would reach amazing tempuratures if it suddenly stopped, and in fact, if it slowed over a period of 24 hours it would release enough energy to make the oceans BOIL!!)
There, how is that for a bizzare quickie response?
:)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
It's similar to the Hermann's grid illusion...
I think so too. My guess is that the Hermann's grid effect is enhanced by the presence of edges surrounding the spots that appear darker. It is well known that edges affect how we perceive shades of grey, see for instance this one for an example of what can happen if the edges aren't there.
I have to check out that article in Vision Research. Anyway, thanks for the links.
remember that first April Fools post that was just in dumb gibberish?
.. but i figured what i did was sophomoric enough that i deserved to be moderated down, even if not as "offtopic".
:) Anyway i'm just glad the Malkovichizer got quickied. And i'm REALLY glad the Constructor applet got quickied. I found that last week and it's the coolest thing i've ever seen.. :)
well, i replied to it with a post that had been run through the Malkovich script.
I got moderated down as "offtopic".
I wanted to scream out, HOW CAN IT BE MORE ON-TOPIC THAN THAT?? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE MORE ONTOPIC TO A GIBBERISH STORY THAN A GIBBERISH POST??
so now somehow i feel bitter that had at the time i simply submitted the malkovichizer as a story, i could have gotten the satisfaction of having a quickie printed instead of a karma loss.. but i assumed it had already been posted. (i saw it mentioned in the astralwerks newslwetter..)
Oh well. I'm probably totally unjustified..
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
> They know exactly what the problem is and the software solution would be, clearly, to make the earth image rotate the other way. But, it seems to me that they are looking for "other options"
"other options".. hmm...
We can only hope that in their "research" they don't come across that old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode where the evil businessmen attempted to take over the world by making the rotation of the earth stop, thus causing all people on earth to fling off into space due to inertia. The businessmen, who had built an underground shelter so they could survive the massive inertial holocaust, would then come out and, being the only people left on planet earth, would be able to enjoy all of its natural resources all to themselves. The episode contained not only this startling idea, but also the same degree detailed scientific explanation of how such a scheme would be implemented that all Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes contained. What if it were to occur to the Microsoft executives that they could carry out such a plan?
(I'm also pretty sure there was an episode of Rescue Rangers with a similar plotline, and possibly one [jeopardy?] of Pinkie and the Brain, but i don't remember for certain.)
All i know for certain is, we must take all measures possible to ensure this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode, this recipe for destruction, does not fall into the hands of Microsoft. If it does, then the only hope for planet earth may be.. Jackie Chan.
-mcc-baka
--- WWJD ---
(What Would Jackie Chan Do?)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
OK.. i realize complaining about my own post being moderated UP is a little odd, but good LORD!
Where do you get off, moderating my post as "insightful"?? how could you POSSIBLY call that "insightful"?? there isn't one single bit of insight in the damn post! it's just a minor, somewhat interesting anecdote. I have no problem with it being moderated up-- i probably wouldn't have moderated it past score:1 myself had i been the one with the mod access, which is why i didn't put on the score:+1 bonus-- but if you're going to moderate, use ACCURATE moderation!! Don't just assume that because you're pushing the points in the right direction your job is done! The words are there for a _reason_, and "informative", "insightful" and "interesting" are NOT the same thing!!
Moderators just mark everything as "insightful" no matter what it is, and it's starting to irritate me rather heavily. If people aren't going to distinguish between "insightful", "interesting" and "informative" when moderating, then cdmrtaco should just replace them with one single tag instead of three! Or at LEAST add some kind of lesser metamod penalty for "fair in that this should have been modded up, but not as insightful" or "fair in that this should have been modded down, but not as offtopic".. (since NOBODY is ever going to metamod misapplied "insightful" ratings if it's a good post)
and i wouldn't really mind normally.. but the entire POINT of the post i'm complaining about was to complain about moderators not thinking and applying "offtopic" to a post that should have been either "troll", "overrated" or not moderated at all.. and the post itself gets hit by a moderator who doesn't think and applies "insightful" where it should have been either "interesting", "underrated" or not moderated at all..
what is going ON here??
is there no escape from the misapplied moderation?
ok, bitch-time is over. you can all go back to your homes now there's nothing more to see.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That rocket car story is just a hoax, meant to bring about FUD concerning the true rocket car which was recovered in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and is now housed in hangar 18.
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
Just incase you thought the severed-head patent was weird, have a look at this:
IBM's "Penis Locking And Lacerating Vaginal Insert" Patent.
Yes, IBM.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
Was it just me, or was that bit (from Being John Malkovich) only the most bizarre scene in movie history??
(Awesome movie, btw, though the ending kinda sucked)
iSKUNK!
..how long do they plan to research the direction of the Earth's rotation? Are they going to release a Hotfix which will cause it to rotate around a random axis, or more likely not rotate at all? Will they later release a service pack fixing these issues and breaking Lotus Globe Pro(tm)?
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
IIRC, back in the early-mid 80s, NBC's spinning globe graphic for their news intro also spun the "wrong" way. Many people complained bitterly; it was later explained that the art director wanted it to look like the earth as seen from the Space Shuttle.
Microsoft has not copped to the same plea.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Look at the headline:Explorapedia Nature: Earth Rotates in Wrong Direction Now, you could take this either way, but if you had to choose one or the other, I'd say "Earth Rotates the Wrong Directon" sounds more like they're blaming the actual planet, not the software.
The "Summary" is the same: When you run Explorapedia and use the Exploratron to look at the Earth spinning, the Earth rotates in the wrong direction. Again, they aren't definitively saying that it's the Earth on your computer screen that's incorrect.
Next, is the "Status" of the problem. Here's where it gets scary: Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Explorapedia, World of Nature, version 1.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available. They are "researching" the problem? They know exactly what the problem is and the software solution would be, clearly, to make the earth image rotate the other way. But, it seems to me that they are looking for "other options"
========
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
Well, maybe not intentional Larry Niven references, but they are there!
Larry made the same error Microsoft did! (The first edition of Ringworld had the Earth spinning the wrong way. Later versions corrected it. The originals are worth money now.)
And now we find out that Jar Jar Binks is really Teela Brown!
It's a conspiracy, I tell you!
(Either that, or I'm waaaaaayyyy too tired.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Microsoft apparently got "Netscape engineers are weenies!" backwards as well...
Damn. Nice idea. I want to build one now too. :)
:)
25' tall is gonna be a bit difficult to handle. I can see one of these things running down the freeway at 120 mph, but it wouldn't be able to clear the bridges.
Still, I'd love to see the cops trying to call that one in.
A full scale, operational model of ED209 would be nice to have sitting in my front yard tho.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Explorapedia series: World of Nature for Windows, version 1.0
SUMMARY
When you run Explorapedia and use the Exploratron to look at the Earth spinning, the Earth rotates in the wrong direction.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem with the Earth 1.0. Further research indicates that the Earth is round. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.
Keywords : kbhowto mskids kids series explore turn turns spin spins bug error revolves revolving
Version : EARTH:1.0
Platform : SOLAR SYSTEM
---
There are so many fun ideas you can come up with when doing a crossover story -- what if used a plot involving the Teela Brown gene?
Anyhow, the big difference between Jar-Jar and Teela (and between Jar-Jar and <any other major character anywhere>) is that Teela (and Luke and Obi-Wan) eventually grows into a mature person. They all realize that they can be something better.
As a minor supporting role, Jar-Jar hasn't exhibited any of this character growth; he just gets clumsier and clumsier. It'll be interesting to see what happens to him in Ep 2. (Hopefully the Teela Brown gene fails miserably and the little fscker gets pasted, but that's just my opinion.)
P.S.- Yeah, the first edition Ringworld mistake was hilarious. I met Niven once; he tells great stories about his early days. I'd love to get my hands on a first edition Ringworld.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I would figured that they would have just lobbied Congress to develop a nuke large enough to make the Earth spin the "correct" direction.
Of course. Thats what they mean by "We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available."
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
It only hurts when the man pulls out and it doesn't even slash off the shlong, it just painfully hooks into it. At this point I'm sure any successful rapist would do his best to beat the crap out of the woman, he's got nowhere to go at this point and is very, very much in pain and angry. Not to mention if you didn't get VD from him yet, you got it now.
What purpose does it serve to hook a rapist's shlong like a fish? Now that they're stuck together which one negotiates how they're going to get over to the phone to call the police. Or maybe she decides this one is too small and throws it back.
Only problem with this story, whether cDc originated it
or not, is that I first heard it in 1966. The beginning
of this little number has not been traced yet, folks...
Anyone figure out yet? :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Dang it. The link got /.'ed. Does anyone have the page of it? I remember seeing a roach on an old project screen in sixth grade. All the kids were grossing out from the roach feelers and legs. Hehe. It was HUGE too!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"The operating system is known to only install properly off of CD-ROMs that rotate counter-clockwise. All other installs end up with an insecure system that crashes if turned on."
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
~=Keelor
~=Keelor
* Results not typical. Please consult your doctor before you begin using Viagra.
~=Keelor
4,666,425 (*) [GG, RB] -- "Device for Perfusing an Animal Head." Yep, anmachine designed to keep a severed head alive. Sadly, all drawings show the head from the back; the draftsman missed a great opportunity to have some great expressions. Assignee-at-issue is "Dis Corporation," a play on words of "discorporation," to have one's head severed (Or death, if one reads Heinlen).
["Applied for as a joke by 'Chet Fleming,' a nom de plume. Fleming wrote a book about it, which I have a copy of. His device allows one to remove a head of an animal (or human) and hook it up to a prior art heart/lung machine, kidney dialysis, etc., to keep the head alive. Examiners have had great fun with it -- a bulletin board favorite, with the obvious comparisons to 'They Saved Hitler's Brain' (that great B-movie). I understand the Office was embarrassed and may have withdrawn it from issue (apparently not - ed.). The copies in the shoes were stamped 'do not cite as reference.' 'Fleming's' book is 'If We Can Keep A Severed Head Alive...,' published by Polinym Press (ISBN 0-942287-02-9). A friend of mine knew 'Fleming,' who is an engineer and patent attorney (and is probably reading this). I'd love to meet him." - RB].
And the URL: http://www.perpendicular.com/becker/craig/patents. html
-ted
What they don't realized is that for the average kid, we learn sex by watching PORN. So, I think the issue here is not potience [Viagra] although it does help. I think we have to make them watch porn. instead of letting them watch TV, watch Porn.
:).
:).
Now, normal people porn may or may not do it for Pandas. I don't know, but I think it will. mmmmmm, Porn for Pandas. POP
If that doesn't work, we have to hire Bill Gates CGI Inc to make Panda Porn. I'm sure that will get then aroused to mate
On the other hand, if the panda normally mates for 20 seconds and now 20 minutes due to viagra. That means 60x performance increase. It normally takes me 30 minutes, that means by sex sessions will now list, mmm, 30 hours?
Oh Baby
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Here it is! Man, stare at the center of the circle as close as you can for thirty seconds, then swap your hand in front of the monitor. Your hand literally warps like rippling water.
Pretty freaky!
The rest of the site is pretty cool.
You should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
If I was stupid enough to actually break my TV due to a commercial the last thing I would do is be willing to admit it in a court of law. Your Honor I'm an idiot please help me now and then help society by making me get a vesectomy.
It's similar to the Hermann's grid illusion, the one with the white grid on black background, and you see black dots on the intersections. That one's explained at http://www.illusionworks.com /html/hermann_grid.html... it's due to 'lateral inhibition'.
... you stare at it spinning a while, then look away, and everything you see swirls in a spiral. Definately not one to try after a few drinks...
They've got the illusion posted as well (the Scintillating Grid illusion), but all they say is that 'the underlying mechanism behind it is not yet fully understood.'
Still gives me a headache though. Ouch.
Can anyone find that illusion with the concentric rings that rotate in opposite directions?
1978 is pitifully late. My dad told me the story in the early/mid 1960's. His version had the car hitting trees, turning to shrapnel as it hit the second line of trees, etc. I've emailed him to ask where/when he heard it. (He was a Boeing engineer at the time, working on missles.)