Slashdot Mirror
Quickie Fu
Sit back and get jiggy with tonights Quickies:
First up, jamiemccarthy sent us
a Magic 8-Ball that claims to be operated by Legos.
And if you're into those remote control legos,
Paddy noted that there is new stuff on the lego website.
Todays stranges item comes from Chris Henesy
who sent us official NASA procedure for Viking Raids.
Michael Van Vertloo sent us linkage to a webcam from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depositoryso you conspiracy theorists can keep an eye on it.
Bogatyr noted that there now is actually a website selling stuff from the matrix. No, not the minigun, but sunglasses and stuff.
tj2sent us linkage to an interview where George Lucas blaims the internet for Jar Jar sucking so badly.
Mike sent us a page that tracks Strange things sold on ebay.
Finally, markhb sent us
a Washington Post
profile of Marc Andreeson
where he talks about assorted things, and even plugs Slashdot as one of his favorite sites (thanks Marc!)
And finally, to bookend this Fresh block of quickies,
harb sent us lyrics to
the classic (cough) Will Smith Song "Men in Black" for Linux geeks.
Unfortunatly, they forgot to defend against the Dreaded Slashdot Effect. All I'm getting is: `No Object Data'. Dang.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Look, here's the REAL reason Jar-Jar sounded Jamaican, and it's actually totally innocent.
You see, the man who voiced Jar-Jar grew up in Jamaica. He was actually using his own natural voice, with only slight exaggeration (which he deemed appropriate for a comic sidekick).
This is true to an extant. It's mostly because its harder to gain credibility as a or judge credibility in a person who is degreed in a field tangential to what they want to specialize in. I've got some anecdotal evidence in the form of friends who either didn't go to college at all or went to college to study the liberal arts but who do work in IT. The web browser would've been created regardless of Mark's background. He may or may not have been a part of it. The concept of the web wasn't created by him, just an implementation of a tool for navigating through it.
As for why its harder for people with other degrees to break into computer science its mostly because before your resume is even looked at by a hiring manager or a technical person its pre-screened by a person trained to look for buzz words. They usually look at academic credentials first.
I asked it. It said "YES, definitely". So it isn't a fake...
I am stunned and thrilled by the Magic 8-Ball. I stand here today grateful that thanks to the miracle of the Internet and simple robotics. I can waste minutes of a boring work day asking about my raise and getting actual answers about it.
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
So. George Lucas is, with no thought of the scandal and controversy this will no doubt bring down on his head, taking a firm position in favor of fun.
Yeah george, most people don't think children should play with toys. But not you. You're the exceptional hero man who thinks children should play with toys. Wow. That's really something. I suppose most people also feel it is perfectly okay to steal puppies and beat them, but you are similarly opposed to that, right?
George Lucas. Prefers good to evil, and thinks fun is a good thing for children to have. He is truly, truly truly in the minority for holding these views, but he is not afraid to voice them, so great is his integrity.
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
I asked:
"Is x^n+xy+y^n factorable for n>2?"
I got:
"My response is no"
Thats one smart 8Ball.
And the robot says: "In the begining was man. Man created all things. Man, with his infinite skill, created machines
When thousands of total strangers across the internet say "Yeah, I also thought Jar-Jar sounded Jamaican, then you know something's not right. Okay, so Lucas didn't intentionally try to make fun of Jamaicans in his movie, but a man in his position should've been more careful screening for this sort of thing.
Has anyone tried that defense in court yet?
Lucas is just miffed because he gave us action figures and found out too late that we wanted a movie instead. And that we have a medium where we can express our views, rather than just shelling out for whatever the spin doctors and pizza boxes tell us to.
I don't plan on seeing the next one, unless I hear (on the Internet!) that he's delivered some interesting characters and a plot for them to participate in.
Nor will I buy any collectibles, for this one or any other.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Heehee... The only thing wrong is that the "reply to this" link is not in the right font size, Other than that, funniest thing I've seen all day, dude!
Only reason I even caught this is I was running at -1 today.
Is so!
The spin and shake takes 3 seconds, I allow an additional 5 for settling, but it usually settles much faster. The first second of shaking is a 360 degree roll, the remaining two are jiggling back and forth through about 70 degrees, so the destiny icosahedron is already up by the glass when the shaking stops, it just has to get off the edge.
And for fingers, the 8 ball does need to get dusted now and again and sometimes when people are in front of my desk talking to me they will give it a jostle when its on an edge. Destiny assistants.
I'm glad the 8 ball could be of assistance with your, uh, question.
The 8-ball cycle time can handle 400+ desitinys per hour, needless to say it is pegged. 36 minutes after slashdot posting the queue was 65 people deep, the system load went over the watchdog limit and the ever vigilant watchdog rebooted the server. Bad dog. Bad.
The 8-ball is going to start shunning people at a queue depth of 30 to protect itself.
As a side note, IE 4.0 does not support the animated JPEG files it sends. Not that anyone here ever installed IE willingly...
Hrmm...lets see...I run Linux to do all my work, but I use Windows and I need the web, its IE all the way. Quick and stable, unlike Netscape. I wish NS could produce such a product. Remeber, Slashdot is "News for Nerds." Not Linux/*BSD nerds, not Windows nerds, not Mac nerds...just nerds. Save your generalizations for #linux.
Sorry about the random harshish response, but lately the slashdot community has been very intolerant of non-Linux people. Its really quite a shame too...this forum has much possibility of people coming together to have real intellectual discussions, but instead we have trolls who think that their preferences are The One True Way(tm).
--------------------------
You should see the forms the Vikings have to fill out :)
SP
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire
Interesting how propaganda has toned down, at least temporarily, their references to JFK in light of what's happened to his son, but the Dealey Plaza Museum (live webcam from the book depository) is still going strong, and if anything, that's much creepier than what goes on at propaganda.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
The settle time is too short compared to a control 8-ball, and in one of the jpgs, I saw a finger.
As a side note, IE 4.0 does not support the animated JPEG files it sends. Not that anyone here ever installed IE willingly ...
rbb
OB 8-ball story: Once, I asked it if I was going to have sex that year. (It was a slow year.) It said YES. That very night, Boom.
The 8-ball NEVER LIES!
Too bad I missed that eBay item! It was always my goal to get a sweatshop started in my early twenties. I really had my eye on the kid with the large melon.
;)
Oh well, maybe a similar item will come up for bid
"You tried you best and faile miserably. The lesson is, never try," Homer J. Simpson
All you Jar Jar bashers are forgetting one very important point (as annoying as he may be to most of us). Star Wars is made for K-I-D-S. Not old people like us bashing him. Kids like Jar Jar, and I think as a kid I would have been pretty dissappointed if I was always hearing my parents and practically all adults going about how much that fucking Chewbacca kept annoying them and how they hated him so. It's a kids movie, try to keep that in mind next you time you watch it, and watch it through childs eyes, thats the way it was meant to be watched.
"The obvious is that which is least understood and most difficult to prove." -- A fortune cookie