The Scavenger Hunt is open to anyone who wants to play. That means people from other schools, people who aren't in school, people from Mars, we don't care. Any help is welcome, and especially so if help can bring his or her own tools.
It's not really about the money. A lot of money for the film came out of pocket, and they're trying to recoup as much as they can. No one is expecting to get rich off of this, trust me. We just hope people enjoy it.
I was on one of the top teams(Pierce) for my first three years, and a cameraman for the documentary this past year. Scav Hunt is one of the most enjoyable things I've ever had the luck to be part of. Four and a half days of caffeine, power tools, lewd behavior, and insanity.
Examples:
The above-mentioned breeder reactor. A bunch of advanced physics students cobbled, jury-rigged, and "borrowed" the necessary components. It was of the type used to make medical radio-isotopes, and therefore didn't receive full points, but it was real and scary as hell. The builders were known for wanting to build their own high-energy weapons for personal use.
"Fisher-Price Baby's First Flamethrower", a device that had to appeal to children and be operable by a three-year old. I'm quite proud of my work on that. Somewhere, we have the photos of that thing shooting out gouts of flame like a scene from a WW2 movie.
Sharlene, our "Chewing Gum Cannon". A device to launch a kilo of chewed gum. Points for distance and shortest time to launch. We used shells and produced a mortar with a range of 75 yards, easy.
A simulated air strike on Slobodan Milosevic. Involved more fireworks going off at one time than I ever want to see again. I have adrenalin-imprinted memories of running very fast in the opposite direction from the initial blast crater, roman candles scorching the air as they passed my head. The cops showed up and laughed until they had tears streaming down their faces.
If you're ever in Chicago on Mother's Day(the Day of Judgment every year), head down to the University to see what's been built/found/destroyed.
Just find a team. There are usually meetings starting in the beginning of May, the locations and times for which are posted, and everyone(including non-students) is welcome. Most teams are associated with a specific dorm, but F.I.S.T.(Federation of Independent ScavHunt Teams) is a successful loose coalition.
Asimov, especially the original "Foundation" trilogy.
Clarke's "2001"
Heinlein's "Stranger In a Strange Land"
Niven's "Ringworld"
Among more modern works, I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman("Neverwhere", "Sandman", "American Gods"), William Gibson("Neuromancer", "All Tomorrow's Parties") and Neil Stephenson("Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon")
What I like about them differs. Asimov does large stories and themes well. There aren't any big characters in "Foundation", but the story is so beautifully put together, spanning hundreds of years. "Stranger In a Strange Land" is barely science fiction, dealing almost exclusively with people's perceptions and beliefs. Gaiman has an excellent knowledge of classical myth and legend and how to weave it into more modern stories. Gibson deals with themes and problems that are just starting to become an issue today. Stephenson's books vary in type and character, but most are pretty good. "Snow Crash" is a pretty out-there half cyberpunk/half action-flick novel, it's a great quick read. "Cryptonomicon" has two separate but related storylines fifty years apart, and he plays them off each other very well.
There's nothing specific to any one of these authors or their novels that I can single out, aside from good writing skills. Their novels are enjoyable and intelligent, which is all I require from any genre.
Re:I see some errors in this reasoning
on
Pipeline Mass Transit?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
True, but they're also hard to produce, brittle, and very, very expensive.
Magnetic field strength falls off very quickly: "From single conductor sources, magnetic field strengths decrease directly proportional to the distance from the source (1/D). From multiple conductor sources, magnetic field strengths decrease as the square of the distance (1/D). And, from coils or loops, magnetic field strengths decrease as the cube of the distance (1/D)" (grabbed this quote here.)
Someone further down was talking about superconductors; while in theory much more energy efficient, there are none currently that don't require massive cooling systems to lower them to the necessary temperatures. The cost of laying out miles of superconductors below ground is mind-boggling.
A neodynium magnet is incredibly powerful for its size(I've managed to squash a thumb between two hard drive magnets while being stupid), but the field strength fall-off means that a huge mass would be required. It might even be cheaper to build a superconducting system after all.
For one, how does removing air remove friction? It means that there is no atmospheric friction, yes, but there is still contact with the walls or ground of the tube.
"During most of the trip the capsules coast; using no power."
Um, no. It either has to be running on wheels or constantly supported by electromagnets the entire time. If the first, there is a constant requirement of energy to continue moving a massive object against ground friction. If the second, well, maglev isn't cheap. Even if, as suggested, "linear generators recover most of the electrical energy used to accelerate the capsules", that is certainly not a lossless process.
Second, how do you maintain a seal on a tube the length of a subway tunnel? That's a huge surface area, and not particularly easy to make either waterproof or airtight, even underground. And what happens if there is a breach in a passenger car? Your passengers will suddenly find themselves in an oxygen-less environment. Even a cabin depressurization on an aircraft at 10 km doesn't subject the passengers to total vacuum.
This proposal doesn't strike me as being fully thought out.
One method of removing heavy metals from a heavily polluted area(old factory site, for example) is to plant the entire grounds with trees. Soft pines are often used, for example. As the trees grow and absorb minerals through their roots, they take up almost all of the polluting metals over time and store them in their needles and bark.
There are companies that can be hired to plant and maintain small "cleaning forests" over a period of ten to twenty years, to make sure no one else is harvesting the lumber, and to treat or remove trees that become ill. It's actually very useful, a cheap, efficient(compared to digging up the soil and chemically treating it), and very clean method of getting dangerous substances out of the ground.
The licensing scheme is not the same as it always was, and there is documentation of this fact at The Internet Archive.
The recorded page from August of 2000 stated that:
"No license fee is expected for desktop software mp3 decoders/players that are distributed free-of-charge via the Internet for personal use of end-users."
The page from the same date for third-party encoders is pretty much the same as they said, though- so LAME, blade, etc., seem to have been afoul of this for a while. Which is pretty awful, since they're great software.
The record at the Archive was brought up in a previous article, so I'll give credit to that individual whose name I don't have on hand. And Flarelock, for the "1984" post above, that's a nice touch.
Yes, you've probably never heard of it. It's a an MP3/CD player, takes CDs, CD-R, and CD-RW, the sound quality is great, and it never skips. Ever. I've taken this thing on fast bike rides along the Chicago waterfront, bumping over curbs, passing people on the grass, jumping up and down. You can shake it around like a maraca, it doesn't skip. It has upgradeable firmware, is very solidly constructed(I've managed to drop mine quite a few times), and it's cheap- $99 at www.merconnet.com.
I've been a beta tester for Steam since mid-January, and I've been immensely pleased with the software and the gameplay. In order to play any game, you have to go through an initial download of compressed files, and it all takes up about half a gigabyte on your hard drive. This can take a while, but it's a one-shot deal, so I'd pick up a book or make myself dinner for twenty minutes. After this first delay, all updates are handled automatically at login, and they're transparent- unless you bother to check, you're never going to notice that some small patch has been installed to the software.
Login is a simple name(e-mail address, really) and password. This may certainly change, but that's how it stands now. There are no ads beyond a mention of Speakeasy.net, the company hosting the Steam servers, I gather.
The interface for game selection is excellent, as is the "Tracker" software, a combination IM/Gamespy Arcade applet that helps you find servers. The software does seem to improve on a near-daily basis, with fixes to minor bugs, improving ping times, etc. The staff has been great about communication on both the forums and through e-mail.
And one of the best things about Steam was watching all those people who have based their entire game of Counterstrike around bunny-hopping fall flat on their faces. CS 1.4 was first demoed over Steam, and it removed bunny hopping. Bloody crack rabbits getting capped left and right, swearing about how horrible the game is now. Brings tears of laughter to my eyes...
For the software side of things, I use DVD Genie, which works with a number of different players, including WinDVD.
However, you also need to have a DVD-ROM drive that is region-agnostic. You can check this with DVD Genie, one of the tabs in the program allows for this. If the drive is RPC-1(Region Protection Control, I think), your drive doesn't care what region encoding the disc has, and all you need is DVD Genie. Most drives are RPC-2, though, meaning that it will allow for a certain number of discs from different regions to be played before it "locks" on the final one, usually the fifth switch. Many can be changed to RPC-1 by installing different firmware(I did this with the drives on both my desktop and my notebook.). The best place I know to find region-free firmware is The Firmware Page.
Yes, the same sequence is repeated. The first time is right after the fan is unplugged, from 1:09-1:13. The second is after the "9 Minutes Later", from 1:30-1:35. The two are identical.
Yes, an old computer isn't as useful as a brand-spanking new 1 GHz+ box. Doesn't mean it can't be used. Use it as a web-browsing box, a file server, or even better, let your kid learn the advantages that a command line can offer as opposed to a GUI. I grew up on command-line machines, I still think that a CL offers advantages in certain circumstances. If the box works and can run an OS and browser, there's no reason to discard it yet.
Slashdot Mirror
The Scavenger Hunt is open to anyone who wants to play. That means people from other schools, people who aren't in school, people from Mars, we don't care. Any help is welcome, and especially so if help can bring his or her own tools.
It's not really about the money. A lot of money for the film came out of pocket, and they're trying to recoup as much as they can. No one is expecting to get rich off of this, trust me. We just hope people enjoy it.
Moacir is still a judge. He's a good one, too, so I've never minded.
I was on one of the top teams(Pierce) for my first three years, and a cameraman for the documentary this past year. Scav Hunt is one of the most enjoyable things I've ever had the luck to be part of. Four and a half days of caffeine, power tools, lewd behavior, and insanity.
Examples:
The above-mentioned breeder reactor. A bunch of advanced physics students cobbled, jury-rigged, and "borrowed" the necessary components. It was of the type used to make medical radio-isotopes, and therefore didn't receive full points, but it was real and scary as hell. The builders were known for wanting to build their own high-energy weapons for personal use.
"Fisher-Price Baby's First Flamethrower", a device that had to appeal to children and be operable by a three-year old. I'm quite proud of my work on that. Somewhere, we have the photos of that thing shooting out gouts of flame like a scene from a WW2 movie.
Sharlene, our "Chewing Gum Cannon". A device to launch a kilo of chewed gum. Points for distance and shortest time to launch. We used shells and produced a mortar with a range of 75 yards, easy.
A simulated air strike on Slobodan Milosevic. Involved more fireworks going off at one time than I ever want to see again. I have adrenalin-imprinted memories of running very fast in the opposite direction from the initial blast crater, roman candles scorching the air as they passed my head. The cops showed up and laughed until they had tears streaming down their faces.
If you're ever in Chicago on Mother's Day(the Day of Judgment every year), head down to the University to see what's been built/found/destroyed.
Just find a team. There are usually meetings starting in the beginning of May, the locations and times for which are posted, and everyone(including non-students) is welcome. Most teams are associated with a specific dorm, but F.I.S.T.(Federation of Independent ScavHunt Teams) is a successful loose coalition.
I really love the classics:
Asimov, especially the original "Foundation" trilogy.
Clarke's "2001"
Heinlein's "Stranger In a Strange Land"
Niven's "Ringworld"
Among more modern works, I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman("Neverwhere", "Sandman", "American Gods"), William Gibson("Neuromancer", "All Tomorrow's Parties") and Neil Stephenson("Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon")
What I like about them differs. Asimov does large stories and themes well. There aren't any big characters in "Foundation", but the story is so beautifully put together, spanning hundreds of years. "Stranger In a Strange Land" is barely science fiction, dealing almost exclusively with people's perceptions and beliefs. Gaiman has an excellent knowledge of classical myth and legend and how to weave it into more modern stories. Gibson deals with themes and problems that are just starting to become an issue today. Stephenson's books vary in type and character, but most are pretty good. "Snow Crash" is a pretty out-there half cyberpunk/half action-flick novel, it's a great quick read. "Cryptonomicon" has two separate but related storylines fifty years apart, and he plays them off each other very well.
There's nothing specific to any one of these authors or their novels that I can single out, aside from good writing skills. Their novels are enjoyable and intelligent, which is all I require from any genre.
True, but they're also hard to produce, brittle, and very, very expensive.
Magnetic field strength falls off very quickly: "From single conductor sources, magnetic field strengths decrease directly proportional to the distance from the source (1/D). From multiple conductor sources, magnetic field strengths decrease as the square of the distance (1/D). And, from coils or loops, magnetic field strengths decrease as the cube of the distance (1/D)" (grabbed this quote here.)
Someone further down was talking about superconductors; while in theory much more energy efficient, there are none currently that don't require massive cooling systems to lower them to the necessary temperatures. The cost of laying out miles of superconductors below ground is mind-boggling.
A neodynium magnet is incredibly powerful for its size(I've managed to squash a thumb between two hard drive magnets while being stupid), but the field strength fall-off means that a huge mass would be required. It might even be cheaper to build a superconducting system after all.
For one, how does removing air remove friction? It means that there is no atmospheric friction, yes, but there is still contact with the walls or ground of the tube.
"During most of the trip the capsules coast; using no power."
Um, no. It either has to be running on wheels or constantly supported by electromagnets the entire time. If the first, there is a constant requirement of energy to continue moving a massive object against ground friction. If the second, well, maglev isn't cheap. Even if, as suggested, "linear generators recover most of the electrical energy used to accelerate the capsules", that is certainly not a lossless process.
Second, how do you maintain a seal on a tube the length of a subway tunnel? That's a huge surface area, and not particularly easy to make either waterproof or airtight, even underground. And what happens if there is a breach in a passenger car? Your passengers will suddenly find themselves in an oxygen-less environment. Even a cabin depressurization on an aircraft at 10 km doesn't subject the passengers to total vacuum.
This proposal doesn't strike me as being fully thought out.
One method of removing heavy metals from a heavily polluted area(old factory site, for example) is to plant the entire grounds with trees. Soft pines are often used, for example. As the trees grow and absorb minerals through their roots, they take up almost all of the polluting metals over time and store them in their needles and bark.
There are companies that can be hired to plant and maintain small "cleaning forests" over a period of ten to twenty years, to make sure no one else is harvesting the lumber, and to treat or remove trees that become ill. It's actually very useful, a cheap, efficient(compared to digging up the soil and chemically treating it), and very clean method of getting dangerous substances out of the ground.
The licensing scheme is not the same as it always was, and there is documentation of this fact at The Internet Archive.
The recorded page from August of 2000 stated that:
"No license fee is expected for desktop software mp3 decoders/players that are distributed free-of-charge via the Internet for personal use of end-users."
The page from the same date for third-party encoders is pretty much the same as they said, though- so LAME, blade, etc., seem to have been afoul of this for a while. Which is pretty awful, since they're great software.
The record at the Archive was brought up in a previous article, so I'll give credit to that individual whose name I don't have on hand. And Flarelock, for the "1984" post above, that's a nice touch.
Yes, you've probably never heard of it. It's a an MP3/CD player, takes CDs, CD-R, and CD-RW, the sound quality is great, and it never skips. Ever. I've taken this thing on fast bike rides along the Chicago waterfront, bumping over curbs, passing people on the grass, jumping up and down. You can shake it around like a maraca, it doesn't skip. It has upgradeable firmware, is very solidly constructed(I've managed to drop mine quite a few times), and it's cheap- $99 at www.merconnet.com.
The link is in error. Could the author please post the correct one?
I've been a beta tester for Steam since mid-January, and I've been immensely pleased with the software and the gameplay. In order to play any game, you have to go through an initial download of compressed files, and it all takes up about half a gigabyte on your hard drive. This can take a while, but it's a one-shot deal, so I'd pick up a book or make myself dinner for twenty minutes. After this first delay, all updates are handled automatically at login, and they're transparent- unless you bother to check, you're never going to notice that some small patch has been installed to the software.
Login is a simple name(e-mail address, really) and password. This may certainly change, but that's how it stands now. There are no ads beyond a mention of Speakeasy.net, the company hosting the Steam servers, I gather.
The interface for game selection is excellent, as is the "Tracker" software, a combination IM/Gamespy Arcade applet that helps you find servers. The software does seem to improve on a near-daily basis, with fixes to minor bugs, improving ping times, etc. The staff has been great about communication on both the forums and through e-mail.
And one of the best things about Steam was watching all those people who have based their entire game of Counterstrike around bunny-hopping fall flat on their faces. CS 1.4 was first demoed over Steam, and it removed bunny hopping. Bloody crack rabbits getting capped left and right, swearing about how horrible the game is now. Brings tears of laughter to my eyes...
The computers I've seen that have a video-out(Composite or S-Video) usually allow for the output to TV to be set to either NTSC or PAL.
For the software side of things, I use DVD Genie, which works with a number of different players, including WinDVD.
However, you also need to have a DVD-ROM drive that is region-agnostic. You can check this with DVD Genie, one of the tabs in the program allows for this. If the drive is RPC-1(Region Protection Control, I think), your drive doesn't care what region encoding the disc has, and all you need is DVD Genie. Most drives are RPC-2, though, meaning that it will allow for a certain number of discs from different regions to be played before it "locks" on the final one, usually the fifth switch. Many can be changed to RPC-1 by installing different firmware(I did this with the drives on both my desktop and my notebook.). The best place I know to find region-free firmware is The Firmware Page.
Good luck to you.
Yes, the same sequence is repeated. The first time is right after the fan is unplugged, from 1:09-1:13. The second is after the "9 Minutes Later", from 1:30-1:35. The two are identical.
I did the same- it's the exact same sequence in Quake3, so either the computer is running a film loop, or something fishy is going on.
Yes, an old computer isn't as useful as a brand-spanking new 1 GHz+ box. Doesn't mean it can't be used. Use it as a web-browsing box, a file server, or even better, let your kid learn the advantages that a command line can offer as opposed to a GUI. I grew up on command-line machines, I still think that a CL offers advantages in certain circumstances. If the box works and can run an OS and browser, there's no reason to discard it yet.
Felt I had to give it a shot. Found this:
http://www.orkneyangora.co.uk/underwear.html and this http://www.ampm-e.com/5223.html