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.
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).
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."
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
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
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.
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