After playing DOOM3 for about 8 hours, and being heavily reminded of the tense atmosphere that system shock 2 provided [and the amazing use of sound as an emotional hook] I ended up re-installing ss2 to re-experience my memories of it.
iD Software does amazing work in pushing the limits of computing hardware for interactive entertainment. This latest title does an awesome job taking advantage of sound and lighting to generate an immersive atmosphere. That being said, I didn't get into the Doom3 storyline, and with the plethora of inane content on a lot of the data pads, it was kind've painful. I think the mechanism for story telling is great, but iD just pulled it off poorly.
System Shock 2 was an amazing, immersive game. The sounds in it don't compare to Doom3 in my opinion; however they do work very well, and were a groundbreaking for for me when I first experienced them. The appeal of SS2 was in the immersive environment, but unlike Doom3 which did so by placing a premium on environmental sound effects, the story, method of story telling, and open-ended partial-RPG style of the game were what made it the game that I love so much.
That all being said, I decided a few weeks ago that my ideal game would be if the DOOM3 team teamed up with the team that made System Shock 2, and build something that took the amazing immersive elements of both the technical and aureal that iD did so well, with the story telling and, to borrow a term, "emergent" environment from Irrational.
I'm looking forward to this announcement tomorrow, and hope to hear something along the lines of the Doom3 engine being licensed for the next in the System Shock series.
You can be sure that the software license for Mathematica contains a limitation of liability clause, indicating that the results should NOT be implicitly trusted for calculations where saftey is a concern. It's boilerplate on pretty much any software license.
I would also assume that the battlebots organizers would be the ones held liable, which is why they requested the documentation in the first place. If someone sues them for damaged eyes because of the laser use, they have this document to show that they had every reason to believe it was safe, and they were not negligent in assuring audience saftey.
Which I believe is a good idea, but ultimately the responsibility falls to the rider. If I go to a haunted house and stick my hand in a box, and am frightened out of my wits by what I feel, do I have a valid complaint in saying "you should've warned me it was going to freak me out!".
Even if I didn't realize that I was at a haunted house, or that haunted houses are meant to creep you out, I DID stick my hand in a box which I couldn't see in, with no clue as to what was in the box. No one forced my hand. I made the decision as a free liberated adult.
As long as there wasnt malicious intent behind the actions [putting razor blades in the box/removing a section of track on the roller coaster] or gross negligence [leaving food in the box to spoil and spread disease/letting a rollercoaster fall into disrepair] the proprietor of such entertainment services should not be held responsible from problems stemming from normal use.
If the proprietor is so inclined as to provide warnings, then more power to them.
----
I do understand that the concern is over these 'traveling carnivals' with poorly inspected systems, but I firmly believe that society should enforce good laws vigoriously, and not restrict normal freedoms in the proliferation of over-broad legislation meant to quench all situations in which bad events MIGHT happen.
Which brings us to the question, 'why the limit on g-forces'. I'm speculating here, but I believe the problem g-forces themselves cause would be with the circulatory system [jet pilots have systems to pump the blood from their legs back to their heads during high-g maneuvers], and thus the danger would be to the heart.
But once again, other activities which provide more direct stresses to the heart aren't restricted. Are they thinking about regulating coasters just because they're so popular? Why does 'volume' of use always direct public attention and thus regulation! My guess: we live in a political world, and people try to affect as many other people as possible in what they hope will create a net gain of approval.
Does anyone have any links to stories about deaths which have occured from riding roller coasters? Other than having a heart attack, [which means you shouldn't have been riding in the first place] how would riding a roller coaster kill you?
This whole thing about creating a legal g-force limit is once again our government stepping in and saying "you people are too dumb to make your own decisions... we're going to protect you from yourselves". Its similar to the stupid McDonalds Coffee incident. People should be held accountable for their own [sometimes stupid] actions. You don't see the government banning skydiving because some people smacked into the ground and died. You're expected to know and accept the risks.
People need to stop blaming other people for the results of their own actions.
Is this effect similar to that of the levitating frogs? [I dont have a link handy... anyone care to help?]
If so, could the rotating simply be acting to create a focus point of magnetic energy at some point on the axis of rotation, above the superconducting disc? If the object being tested has any magnetic substace in it at all, then a strong magnetic field could cause it to seem less weighted, right?
I also question the use of the Cavandish balance to measure the mass of the item above the spinning disk. We're dealing with a superconductor in a magnetic and electric field... What is preventing this device from causing some strange magnetic effect. What about ionization of the air around this device?
These are just my inital reactions to the article, and I'm no Physics expert. What are your thoughts, friends?
The page has a bunch of warnings saying that you shouldn't keep the microwave on for more than 10 seconds because the glass container is getting hot... If you do and it melts the glass, will it attack the ceiling of the microwave itself next? =)
Anyone have a spare microwave they don't mind sacrificing to see what happens if you just keep it going?:) (don't forget to document and give us a link!)
That might be true, but its beside the point. I also was having major issues with ComCast after the switch over and spent hours of my time on the phone with both tech support and helping multiple aquaintances who got screwed over, but having bad service/support and alleging your ISP is monitoring your activity in an illegal manner are two totally separate issues.
Now wait a second. Before we all flip out and start bashing ComCast, lets realize a couple things.
Number one, this guy just got transitioned. A lot of people all over the country have been going through the same thing, and not everyone is seeing the same thing as him. As 'hostman' from the MESH (Michigan Engineering Software and Hardware http://misc.eecs.umich.edu/) discussion email list wrote:
"This whole thread got me a bit peeved, so I went home and ran a few tests. I was unable to find any evidence of the packet modification described. It is possible the described issue is not an issue here in A^2, as we 'transitioned' from MediaOne's service, not @Home..."
Secondly, your ISP has the right to monitor traffic to ensure quality of service. Just because the caching part of the server is not currently running, it does not mean that they aren't phasing it into the system. At this point it's just speculation. They might even have more rights to monitor what you're doing, depending on your service agreement. Read it.
Lets get some REAL evidence of what's going on other than this hear-say. Someone show us some modified packet headers, and someone else reproduce those results, and MAYBE I'll believe it then.
The survey also found that 77.2 percent of the developers surveyed chose Red Hat Linux as the distribution for use with a Web server or Web application server. This is more than three times the 21.8 percent who selected SuSE Linux or Mandrake. Caldera OpenLinux and FreeBSD followed, with 21.4 percent and 20.4 percent , respectively, the data showed.
I went hunting for the actual Index Expurgatorius per your suggestion, but came up with slightly different results.
The actual list of banned books is in "Index Librorum Prohibitorum", while "Index Expurgatorius" is a list of books that are allowed, but only in certian forms.
I was bumbling around with usenet a week or two ago, and stumbled across a group called "wsoft" which is based at the University of Michigan (which I happen to be a freshm'n at), and was startled to see that one of their projects is "Scorch", a 3d version of scorched earth. While its not complete yet (I think they mention its approx 50%-60% done), there is a downloadable demo which lets you drive around and fire a standard missile. Take a look, and try not falling into the big watery pits you make in the world. That little gun can displace a lot of dirt when you hold down fire.
http://people.mw.mediaone.net/alive/index.htm
Michigan is going to Gore because Detroit reports late, and as Detroit is MOSTLY black, and on average ~90% of blacks in the nation are voting for Gore. The MI popular vote will swing suddenly and swiftly.
p.s. Calling black people African American is ignoring the fact that many people who are black are not american. If white is white, then black is black. Not that it really matters, I just hate PC terminology because of its _attempt_ to be accurate. Note: this attempt always fails.
Seriously, I would like to once and for all get the notion that FUSION is ANY safer than fission out of your head. First of all to "leonbrooks" I would like to point out that uranium is NOT the same as plutonium. Plutonium is the byproduct of the nuclear fission of Uranium-2##. (I forget the number). Uranium by itself is no big whoop. My mother used to work for Westinghouse on the Nuclear breeder reactors, and she is who explained this to me a while back. The high energy states that result from nuclear reactions will, be it either fission or fusion, will cause any surrounding material to become radioactive. I don't know all the specifics, but think about it. The world was scared by fission when it came out, scared by the nuclear waste, the near-meltdowns... So what does the scientific community do? It declares fission a lost cause and presents Fusion as the holy grail of nuclear reactions. A clean, efficient source of energy. What they dont tell you is that there will still be the same radioactive waste that so scared you with Fission. We've believed fusion to be clean because they said so. They're keeping us in a cage and feeding us what they want us to see as reality. Sure you might not polute our air, but by no means is Fusion any better of a choise than Fission when you compare it to coal. Heck, look at the massive heats involved in fusion, think of the damage that could happen if something went wrong there. (first post ever, yay)
Slashdot Mirror
After playing DOOM3 for about 8 hours, and being heavily reminded of the tense atmosphere that system shock 2 provided [and the amazing use of sound as an emotional hook] I ended up re-installing ss2 to re-experience my memories of it.
iD Software does amazing work in pushing the limits of computing hardware for interactive entertainment. This latest title does an awesome job taking advantage of sound and lighting to generate an immersive atmosphere. That being said, I didn't get into the Doom3 storyline, and with the plethora of inane content on a lot of the data pads, it was kind've painful. I think the mechanism for story telling is great, but iD just pulled it off poorly.
System Shock 2 was an amazing, immersive game. The sounds in it don't compare to Doom3 in my opinion; however they do work very well, and were a groundbreaking for for me when I first experienced them. The appeal of SS2 was in the immersive environment, but unlike Doom3 which did so by placing a premium on environmental sound effects, the story, method of story telling, and open-ended partial-RPG style of the game were what made it the game that I love so much.
That all being said, I decided a few weeks ago that my ideal game would be if the DOOM3 team teamed up with the team that made System Shock 2, and build something that took the amazing immersive elements of both the technical and aureal that iD did so well, with the story telling and, to borrow a term, "emergent" environment from Irrational.
I'm looking forward to this announcement tomorrow, and hope to hear something along the lines of the Doom3 engine being licensed for the next in the System Shock series.
You can be sure that the software license for Mathematica contains a limitation of liability clause, indicating that the results should NOT be implicitly trusted for calculations where saftey is a concern. It's boilerplate on pretty much any software license.
I would also assume that the battlebots organizers would be the ones held liable, which is why they requested the documentation in the first place. If someone sues them for damaged eyes because of the laser use, they have this document to show that they had every reason to believe it was safe, and they were not negligent in assuring audience saftey.
Defenestration, as defined by the jargon file:
...
5. The act of completely removing Micro$oft Windows from a PC in favor of a better OS (typically Linux).
Which I believe is a good idea, but ultimately the responsibility falls to the rider. If I go to a haunted house and stick my hand in a box, and am frightened out of my wits by what I feel, do I have a valid complaint in saying "you should've warned me it was going to freak me out!".
Even if I didn't realize that I was at a haunted house, or that haunted houses are meant to creep you out, I DID stick my hand in a box which I couldn't see in, with no clue as to what was in the box. No one forced my hand. I made the decision as a free liberated adult.
As long as there wasnt malicious intent behind the actions [putting razor blades in the box/removing a section of track on the roller coaster] or gross negligence [leaving food in the box to spoil and spread disease/letting a rollercoaster fall into disrepair] the proprietor of such entertainment services should not be held responsible from problems stemming from normal use.
If the proprietor is so inclined as to provide warnings, then more power to them.
----
I do understand that the concern is over these 'traveling carnivals' with poorly inspected systems, but I firmly believe that society should enforce good laws vigoriously, and not restrict normal freedoms in the proliferation of over-broad legislation meant to quench all situations in which bad events MIGHT happen.
Which brings us to the question, 'why the limit on g-forces'. I'm speculating here, but I believe the problem g-forces themselves cause would be with the circulatory system [jet pilots have systems to pump the blood from their legs back to their heads during high-g maneuvers], and thus the danger would be to the heart.
But once again, other activities which provide more direct stresses to the heart aren't restricted. Are they thinking about regulating coasters just because they're so popular? Why does 'volume' of use always direct public attention and thus regulation! My guess: we live in a political world, and people try to affect as many other people as possible in what they hope will create a net gain of approval.
Does anyone have any links to stories about deaths which have occured from riding roller coasters? Other than having a heart attack, [which means you shouldn't have been riding in the first place] how would riding a roller coaster kill you?
This whole thing about creating a legal g-force limit is once again our government stepping in and saying "you people are too dumb to make your own decisions... we're going to protect you from yourselves". Its similar to the stupid McDonalds Coffee incident. People should be held accountable for their own [sometimes stupid] actions. You don't see the government banning skydiving because some people smacked into the ground and died. You're expected to know and accept the risks.
People need to stop blaming other people for the results of their own actions.
Is this effect similar to that of the levitating frogs? [I dont have a link handy... anyone care to help?]
If so, could the rotating simply be acting to create a focus point of magnetic energy at some point on the axis of rotation, above the superconducting disc? If the object being tested has any magnetic substace in it at all, then a strong magnetic field could cause it to seem less weighted, right?
I also question the use of the Cavandish balance to measure the mass of the item above the spinning disk. We're dealing with a superconductor in a magnetic and electric field... What is preventing this device from causing some strange magnetic effect. What about ionization of the air around this device?
These are just my inital reactions to the article, and I'm no Physics expert. What are your thoughts, friends?
The page has a bunch of warnings saying that you shouldn't keep the microwave on for more than 10 seconds because the glass container is getting hot... If you do and it melts the glass, will it attack the ceiling of the microwave itself next? =)
:) (don't forget to document and give us a link!)
Anyone have a spare microwave they don't mind sacrificing to see what happens if you just keep it going?
That might be true, but its beside the point. I also was having major issues with ComCast after the switch over and spent hours of my time on the phone with both tech support and helping multiple aquaintances who got screwed over, but having bad service/support and alleging your ISP is monitoring your activity in an illegal manner are two totally separate issues.
Slow Connect != Privacy Invasion
Now wait a second. Before we all flip out and start bashing ComCast, lets realize a couple things.
Number one, this guy just got transitioned. A lot of people all over the country have been going through the same thing, and not everyone is seeing the same thing as him. As 'hostman' from the MESH (Michigan Engineering Software and Hardware http://misc.eecs.umich.edu/) discussion email list wrote:
"This whole thread got me a bit peeved, so I went home and ran a few tests. I was unable to find any evidence of the packet modification described. It is possible the described issue is not an issue here in A^2, as we 'transitioned' from MediaOne's service, not @Home..."
Secondly, your ISP has the right to monitor traffic to ensure quality of service. Just because the caching part of the server is not currently running, it does not mean that they aren't phasing it into the system. At this point it's just speculation. They might even have more rights to monitor what you're doing, depending on your service agreement. Read it.
Lets get some REAL evidence of what's going on other than this hear-say. Someone show us some modified packet headers, and someone else reproduce those results, and MAYBE I'll believe it then.
The article ends with:
The survey also found that 77.2 percent of the developers surveyed chose Red Hat Linux as the distribution for use with a Web server or Web application server. This is more than three times the 21.8 percent who selected SuSE Linux or Mandrake. Caldera OpenLinux and FreeBSD followed, with 21.4 percent and 20.4 percent , respectively, the data showed.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that 140.8%?
er, programmer defined.
Thats a programmed defined data cap, not a limitation of the language. Check out cgi-lib.pl if you don't believe me.
I went hunting for the actual Index Expurgatorius per your suggestion, but came up with slightly different results.
The actual list of banned books is in "Index Librorum Prohibitorum", while "Index Expurgatorius" is a list of books that are allowed, but only in certian forms.
I was bumbling around with usenet a week or two ago, and stumbled across a group called "wsoft" which is based at the University of Michigan (which I happen to be a freshm'n at), and was startled to see that one of their projects is "Scorch", a 3d version of scorched earth. While its not complete yet (I think they mention its approx 50%-60% done), there is a downloadable demo which lets you drive around and fire a standard missile. Take a look, and try not falling into the big watery pits you make in the world. That little gun can displace a lot of dirt when you hold down fire. http://people.mw.mediaone.net/alive/index.htm
Michigan is going to Gore because Detroit reports late, and as Detroit is MOSTLY black, and on average ~90% of blacks in the nation are voting for Gore. The MI popular vote will swing suddenly and swiftly.
p.s. Calling black people African American is ignoring the fact that many people who are black are not american. If white is white, then black is black. Not that it really matters, I just hate PC terminology because of its _attempt_ to be accurate. Note: this attempt always fails.
Okay, read the parent message incorrectly, and didn't hit the preview button. First two mistakes on my first post.
Gotta love newbies! =)
Seriously, I would like to once and for all get the notion that FUSION is ANY safer than fission out of your head. First of all to "leonbrooks" I would like to point out that uranium is NOT the same as plutonium. Plutonium is the byproduct of the nuclear fission of Uranium-2##. (I forget the number). Uranium by itself is no big whoop. My mother used to work for Westinghouse on the Nuclear breeder reactors, and she is who explained this to me a while back. The high energy states that result from nuclear reactions will, be it either fission or fusion, will cause any surrounding material to become radioactive. I don't know all the specifics, but think about it. The world was scared by fission when it came out, scared by the nuclear waste, the near-meltdowns... So what does the scientific community do? It declares fission a lost cause and presents Fusion as the holy grail of nuclear reactions. A clean, efficient source of energy. What they dont tell you is that there will still be the same radioactive waste that so scared you with Fission. We've believed fusion to be clean because they said so. They're keeping us in a cage and feeding us what they want us to see as reality. Sure you might not polute our air, but by no means is Fusion any better of a choise than Fission when you compare it to coal. Heck, look at the massive heats involved in fusion, think of the damage that could happen if something went wrong there. (first post ever, yay)