"I'm excited to see a product which may spur sales (and availability!) of 77mm CD-R media, which when last I checked at Recorded Media Supply were available only in fairly large quantities (hundred lots) and cost considerably more than their bigger cousins."
You can sometimes get these things at computer shows. I picked one up from a KGP Productions PC Show a few months ago. Cost me something like $3-4 for one piece.
The only problem I see with this camera is the 77mm CD-R media -- Sony's going to hear from a lot of people who tried to stick them in their slot-loading drives. Many of these drives will jam when given 77mm media. They can also cause problems with tray-loading drives, if they're not centered on the tray properly the litte CDs can get jammed inside.
I've always wanted to see commercially available third party sets using genuine Lego parts. For instance, right now we have Star Wars Lego sets available, but I'd like to see Lego replicas of some of the more obscure ships in Science Fiction (Like maybe a Space Battleship Yamato, or a Narn Heavy Cruiser). Unlike mass-market X-wings sets, there isn't enough demand for Lego itself to produce these, but smaller companies might be willing to do it.
When I first heard "Bulk Lego pieces", I was hoping that they would be cheap and varied enough to allow third parties to economically buy and repackage bricks to make such kits available. Alas, the actual selection available is far too small. So, as for the present, right now all we can do is to guess what parts we'll need, and then go out and buy a heap of sets.
I'm not sure about this, but wasn't the Pyramid3D supposed to be produced jointly with Alliance Semiconductor? That was (I think) the company that designed the 2D core for the 3dfx that was incorporated into the infamous Voodoo Rush (3dfx later went back and created their own core for the Banshee).
Then, after the Pyramid3D died, Alliance announced some sort of plan to develop their own graphics chipset, but nothing ever materialized.
Correction -- Whoops, ZZT isn't open source, it's shareware that was later released into the public domain. In addition, there isn't any source code available, Tim Sweeney lost it.
In Epic MegaGames ASCII-graphics based game Town of ZZT, there was a hidden room containing one item. Upon finding the item (represented by the character "&"), you received the message:
Finally! My nanomachine construction plans have been long stymied by the lack of a printer capable of outputting full-size blueprints. Only problem with this nanoplotter is, I can't seem to figure out how to change the pens.
It is entirely possible that the objective of this research is not for use with submarines which may be involved in combat, but other vessels. For instance, wouldn't it be wonderful if the research submarine Alvin could carry a webcam down next time they visited an undersea vent? OK, at 2400 it's not going to update very often, but still...
Hey! A use for all those old Macs...
on
Macs In Space!
·
· Score: 1
"...will the these suckers count as orbiting weapons?"
I don't know about the G4s, but I'll bet a Mac SE, accelerated to high velocity, would make a great Kinetic Kill weapon.
"If the display booths of companies at a trade show in Taipei is any measure, Taiwanese manufacturers of Internet appliances are enthusiastically adopting Linux-based operating systems..."
Basically, the article says that Linux is the most popular candidate for IA devices; that Transmeta CEO Dave Ditzel has been in Taiwan, pushing the Crusoe; and that IBM is reportedly planning a Crusoe-based notebook. Of particular note, Taiwan companies also find Linux's foreign language capabilities to be of prime importance.
I'd have to say the true redeeming feature of Battlefield Earth will be its release on DVD. Someday, perhaps in our not-too-distant future, AOL could conceivably end production of CD-ROMs (after every Bubba dumb enough to sign on already has done so).
On that day, millions of unsold Battlefield Earth DVDs will be released from secret government warehouses, to ensure that the American people shall never want for coasters.
Back in the 1920's, a species of lamprey invaded the Great Lakes following the construction of a canal. The lamprey population exploded, destroying populations of other fish, especially trout (Which they feed on by sucking on to like leeches). Since then, they've been brought under control by use of chemical lampricides and other means such as special dams or releases of sterile males.
"...I have a room full of ulttra-sparcs crunching away day and night and I can't get anywhere. I can't even prove for sure that gravity exists..."
The solution is trivial. 1. Carry Ultra-Sparc to building rooftop. 2. Drop Ultra-Sparc off building rooftop. 3. If results are disputed, request that critic stand at base of building. Repeat steps 1 & 2.
An interesting note about Gov. Ridge -- He's currently one of several choices under consideration to be the Republican VP candidate.
Like Bush, his strong points seem to be that he doesn't have any strong points someone could object to. The economy is good (like everywhere else in the US), he's cut business taxes, pushed welfare reform, yadda yadda. He's also managed to stay mostly clean of the morass that our other Republicans in Pennsylvania's state government have found themselves in, such as various corruption charges, Serafini's felony perjury conviction (fellow Republicans blocked an attempt to kick him out, too), Druce's alleged fatal hit-and-run, etc.
While I'm not a big fan of Salon, they recently did a real nice hatchet job on the guy, in an article titled Bland Ambition. Worthwhile reading.
Wings of Honnemaise is a film that requires both patience and attention to detail to be appreciated. I've seen both the dub and sub (repeatedly), and I'd have to say both are excellent.
The dub is by no means an exact translation -- there are dialogue changes that sometimes alter the meaning of a scene deliberately (Although I've heard Gainax was quite pleased with the dub). Nonetheless, I recommend either version of the film.
Fist of the North Star earns a Stuponitron Helmet
on
Essential Anime
·
· Score: 2
Fist of the North Star is one of those flicks that's so bad it flips the counter over and actually becomes good. It's best viewed together with friends, preferably of the MST3K persuasion. It's got a ridiculous storyline, huge over-muscled guys, over the top dialogue, and fountains of blood spraying everywhere. Who could ask for anything more? YATATATATATA! You... Are Already Dead!
Not Practically invisible
on
Orbitsville
·
· Score: 1
"...Since the sun is inside the sphere, the whole thing is practically invisible to explorers..."
The star still radiates the same amount of energy whether or not it is inside a Dyson sphere. With a much greater surface area, you get a much lower surface temperature, but you still must emit that energy (I'll guess much of it as infrared).
Most folks here are probably familiar with the "Prisoner's Dilemma" puzzle, and how the simple tit-for-tat strategy is one of the most successful. However, there is a variant of the puzzle that assumes that communication is "imperfect", and that there is some probability that a Prisoner's response will be misread. In that situation, tit-for-tat games degenerate into an endless cycle of retaliation. Of course, I don't see it happening today, but imagine if retaliation is ever automated (Black ICE?).
"...responds to squeezing, tapping, and stroking..."
Finally, a good excuse for when your parents walk in your room and find you stroking your overclocked gigahertz Athlon (in its customized Kryotech case), as you gently slip that Voodoo5-6000 into the AGP slot...
What? Don't look at me like that!
Lain creators and band will be appearing at Otakon
on
Essential Anime
·
· Score: 2
"Lain Perhaps the best Anime I've seen thus far. The story of a young girl, a drug culture, the future of the net, etc etc. It'll leave your jaw on the floor. It makes the internet look unreal but somehow believable at the same time."
Somewhat OT plug from an Otakon staffer: Otakon 2000 will be hosting a number of guests associated with Serial Experiments Lain:
"...We would also like to take this opportunity to announce our first two guests of honor, Mr. Yoshitoshi ABe and Mr. Yasuyuki Ueda. Mr. ABe would best be known to us in the US as the character designer for serial experiments lain. Joining him will be Mr. Yasuyuki Ueda of production 2nd, the creator of lain. The pair are currently working on a new series together, and hope to have a preview ready by O2K..."
In addition, the band bôa, writers and performers of the Lain opening song Duvet will also be appearing at Otakon. Of course, as the largest anime convention on the east coast, Otakon will host numerous other guests, premiers, and a huge dealers room. The convention will take place August 4-6, at the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland, USA. For more information, see our website, or call (814) 867-3478.
I knew had to be some heavy-duty equipment back there -- nothing else but a 4,000 node Beowulf cluster could power the awsome "Mentalplex" search engine. It's unfortunate that the search also requires the combined mental powers of 4,000 users. Which might be why I can't seem to get the Mentalplex to find anything but pr0n and mp3s.:).
On the surface, it sounds like a SDRAM price hike would be good for RDRAM, as it would close (slightly) the price gap between the two sorts of memory. In reality, though, this is bad for Rambus. There are plenty of other issues with Rambus (die size, yield, packaging, royalties, etc...), but the biggest one in simple economics.
A year or two ago, the big carrot that Rambus had to offer to manufacturers was a potentially profitable product. SDRAM prices were in the dumps, so nobody was making any money no matter how much they could churn out. Fast forward to present day, and just about every fab is guaranteed a nice fat profit, just for producing a commodity chip. The only way to justify the risk and cost of switching production from SDRAM to RDRAM is if RDRAM fetches a huge margin. Hence low supplies and sky-high prices for Rambus.
Intel has been pushing manufacturers to "voluntarily" cut their margins and drop prices on RDRAM. For once, though, it seems the memory makers have the upper hand, and there have been no takers so far.
"This is what we freak out about now? This is a sad sad day..."
Ten cents is a huge amount of money. Geeze, doesn't anyone remember the tortured screams last time gasoline prices went up.10 in the US? "Give us cheap gas for our gigantic three-ton SUVs, you greedy OPEC bastards!" Dangit, they could have wrecked our economy, and then how would we afford our Ford Expeditions and GM Yukons?
3DFX One-Ups nVidia: "Fuck Off and Die" San Francisco, CA - In a formal press release read to major gaming sites, 3DFX has "one upped" the video card war by telling nVidia to "fuck off and die".
3DFX, known for its revolutionary line of "Voodoo" based video cards, has been under fire recently for losing its competitive edge to nVidia, who's GeForce 2 line of cards is speculated to be slightly faster than the upcoming Voodoo 5.
"Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of sidestepping the issues and trying to be 'Mister Nice Guy'. I hate nVidia and every fucking asshole that works there," quipped Brian Burke, 3DFX's PR spokesperson. "I hate their engineers, distributors, advertisers, executives, and janitors. I especially despise Derek Perez, who I formally challenge to a knife fight in the parking lot after this meeting..."
Anybody who thinks the 3dfx vs. nVidia wars are getting increasingly ridiculous should go read the rest of this article, at SomethingAwful.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm excited to see a product which may spur sales (and availability!) of 77mm CD-R media, which when last I checked at Recorded Media Supply were available only in fairly large quantities (hundred lots) and cost considerably more than their bigger cousins."
You can sometimes get these things at computer shows. I picked one up from a KGP Productions PC Show a few months ago. Cost me something like $3-4 for one piece.
The only problem I see with this camera is the 77mm CD-R media -- Sony's going to hear from a lot of people who tried to stick them in their slot-loading drives. Many of these drives will jam when given 77mm media. They can also cause problems with tray-loading drives, if they're not centered on the tray properly the litte CDs can get jammed inside.
I've always wanted to see commercially available third party sets using genuine Lego parts. For instance, right now we have Star Wars Lego sets available, but I'd like to see Lego replicas of some of the more obscure ships in Science Fiction (Like maybe a Space Battleship Yamato, or a Narn Heavy Cruiser). Unlike mass-market X-wings sets, there isn't enough demand for Lego itself to produce these, but smaller companies might be willing to do it.
When I first heard "Bulk Lego pieces", I was hoping that they would be cheap and varied enough to allow third parties to economically buy and repackage bricks to make such kits available. Alas, the actual selection available is far too small. So, as for the present, right now all we can do is to guess what parts we'll need, and then go out and buy a heap of sets.
I'm not sure about this, but wasn't the Pyramid3D supposed to be produced jointly with Alliance Semiconductor? That was (I think) the company that designed the 2D core for the 3dfx that was incorporated into the infamous Voodoo Rush (3dfx later went back and created their own core for the Banshee).
Then, after the Pyramid3D died, Alliance announced some sort of plan to develop their own graphics chipset, but nothing ever materialized.
Correction -- Whoops, ZZT isn't open source, it's shareware that was later released into the public domain. In addition, there isn't any source code available, Tim Sweeney lost it.
In Epic MegaGames ASCII-graphics based game Town of ZZT, there was a hidden room containing one item. Upon finding the item (represented by the character "&"), you received the message:
"You have found an Ampersand!"
Finally! My nanomachine construction plans have been long stymied by the lack of a printer capable of outputting full-size blueprints. Only problem with this nanoplotter is, I can't seem to figure out how to change the pens.
:)
Plus I can't seem to find Windows drivers...
It is entirely possible that the objective of this research is not for use with submarines which may be involved in combat, but other vessels. For instance, wouldn't it be wonderful if the research submarine Alvin could carry a webcam down next time they visited an undersea vent? OK, at 2400 it's not going to update very often, but still...
"...will the these suckers count as orbiting weapons?"
I don't know about the G4s, but I'll bet a Mac SE, accelerated to high velocity, would make a great Kinetic Kill weapon.
Alright! Now if we can just get this to converge with those little portable GPS units...
"...You are in a maze of twisty little suburban developments, all alike..."
Well, if you can't afford to buy/maintain your own table, there's always the computer version...
Pinball page at Softseek: List of a whole bunch of downloadable pinball games.
Epic MegaGames Pinball: My personal favorite. Especially the Android table.
Here's an article (in english) from the Taipei Times, "Linux the most popular flavor among IA makers":
"If the display booths of companies at a trade show in Taipei is any measure, Taiwanese manufacturers of Internet appliances are enthusiastically adopting Linux-based operating systems..."
Basically, the article says that Linux is the most popular candidate for IA devices; that Transmeta CEO Dave Ditzel has been in Taiwan, pushing the Crusoe; and that IBM is reportedly planning a Crusoe-based notebook. Of particular note, Taiwan companies also find Linux's foreign language capabilities to be of prime importance.
I'd have to say the true redeeming feature of Battlefield Earth will be its release on DVD. Someday, perhaps in our not-too-distant future, AOL could conceivably end production of CD-ROMs (after every Bubba dumb enough to sign on already has done so).
On that day, millions of unsold Battlefield Earth DVDs will be released from secret government warehouses, to ensure that the American people shall never want for coasters.
Back in the 1920's, a species of lamprey invaded the Great Lakes following the construction of a canal. The lamprey population exploded, destroying populations of other fish, especially trout (Which they feed on by sucking on to like leeches). Since then, they've been brought under control by use of chemical lampricides and other means such as special dams or releases of sterile males.
For some more info and pictures of Lampreys, see this page at Fish of the Great Lakes.
"...I have a room full of ulttra-sparcs crunching away day and night and I can't get anywhere. I can't even prove for sure that gravity exists..."
The solution is trivial.
1. Carry Ultra-Sparc to building rooftop.
2. Drop Ultra-Sparc off building rooftop.
3. If results are disputed, request that critic stand at base of building. Repeat steps 1 & 2.
Like Bush, his strong points seem to be that he doesn't have any strong points someone could object to. The economy is good (like everywhere else in the US), he's cut business taxes, pushed welfare reform, yadda yadda. He's also managed to stay mostly clean of the morass that our other Republicans in Pennsylvania's state government have found themselves in, such as various corruption charges, Serafini's felony perjury conviction (fellow Republicans blocked an attempt to kick him out, too), Druce's alleged fatal hit-and-run, etc.
While I'm not a big fan of Salon, they recently did a real nice hatchet job on the guy, in an article titled Bland Ambition. Worthwhile reading.
"Don't blame me! I voted for Kodos!"
Wings of Honnemaise is a film that requires both patience and attention to detail to be appreciated. I've seen both the dub and sub (repeatedly), and I'd have to say both are excellent.
The dub is by no means an exact translation -- there are dialogue changes that sometimes alter the meaning of a scene deliberately (Although I've heard Gainax was quite pleased with the dub). Nonetheless, I recommend either version of the film.
Fist of the North Star is one of those flicks that's so bad it flips the counter over and actually becomes good. It's best viewed together with friends, preferably of the MST3K persuasion. It's got a ridiculous storyline, huge over-muscled guys, over the top dialogue, and fountains of blood spraying everywhere. Who could ask for anything more? YATATATATATA! You... Are Already Dead!
"...Since the sun is inside the sphere, the whole thing is practically invisible to explorers..."
The star still radiates the same amount of energy whether or not it is inside a Dyson sphere. With a much greater surface area, you get a much lower surface temperature, but you still must emit that energy (I'll guess much of it as infrared).
...will leave us all blind and toothless.
Most folks here are probably familiar with the "Prisoner's Dilemma" puzzle, and how the simple tit-for-tat strategy is one of the most successful. However, there is a variant of the puzzle that assumes that communication is "imperfect", and that there is some probability that a Prisoner's response will be misread. In that situation, tit-for-tat games degenerate into an endless cycle of retaliation. Of course, I don't see it happening today, but imagine if retaliation is ever automated (Black ICE?).
"...responds to squeezing, tapping, and stroking..."
Finally, a good excuse for when your parents walk in your room and find you stroking your overclocked gigahertz Athlon (in its customized Kryotech case), as you gently slip that Voodoo5-6000 into the AGP slot...
What? Don't look at me like that!
"Lain Perhaps the best Anime I've seen thus far. The story of a young girl, a drug culture, the future of the net, etc etc. It'll leave your jaw on the floor. It makes the internet look unreal but somehow believable at the same time."
Somewhat OT plug from an Otakon staffer:
Otakon 2000 will be hosting a number of guests associated with Serial Experiments Lain:
"...We would also like to take this opportunity to announce our first two guests of honor, Mr. Yoshitoshi ABe and Mr. Yasuyuki Ueda. Mr. ABe would best be known to us in the US as the character designer for serial experiments lain. Joining him will be Mr. Yasuyuki Ueda of production 2nd, the creator of lain. The pair are currently working on a new series together, and hope to have a preview ready by O2K..."
In addition, the band bôa, writers and performers of the Lain opening song Duvet will also be appearing at Otakon. Of course, as the largest anime convention on the east coast, Otakon will host numerous other guests, premiers, and a huge dealers room. The convention will take place August 4-6, at the Baltimore Convention Center in Maryland, USA. For more information, see our website, or call (814) 867-3478.
"Close the world. Otakunize the nExt..."
I knew had to be some heavy-duty equipment back there -- nothing else but a 4,000 node Beowulf cluster could power the awsome "Mentalplex" search engine. It's unfortunate that the search also requires the combined mental powers of 4,000 users. Which might be why I can't seem to get the Mentalplex to find anything but pr0n and mp3s. :).
.....oooh, swirly..."
"Must... Concentrate!
On the surface, it sounds like a SDRAM price hike would be good for RDRAM, as it would close (slightly) the price gap between the two sorts of memory. In reality, though, this is bad for Rambus. There are plenty of other issues with Rambus (die size, yield, packaging, royalties, etc...), but the biggest one in simple economics.
A year or two ago, the big carrot that Rambus had to offer to manufacturers was a potentially profitable product. SDRAM prices were in the dumps, so nobody was making any money no matter how much they could churn out. Fast forward to present day, and just about every fab is guaranteed a nice fat profit, just for producing a commodity chip. The only way to justify the risk and cost of switching production from SDRAM to RDRAM is if RDRAM fetches a huge margin. Hence low supplies and sky-high prices for Rambus.
Intel has been pushing manufacturers to "voluntarily" cut their margins and drop prices on RDRAM. For once, though, it seems the memory makers have the upper hand, and there have been no takers so far.
"This is what we freak out about now? This is a sad sad day..."
.10 in the US? "Give us cheap gas for our gigantic three-ton SUVs, you greedy OPEC bastards!" Dangit, they could have wrecked our economy, and then how would we afford our Ford Expeditions and GM Yukons?
Ten cents is a huge amount of money. Geeze, doesn't anyone remember the tortured screams last time gasoline prices went up
3DFX One-Ups nVidia: "Fuck Off and Die"
San Francisco, CA - In a formal press release read to major gaming sites, 3DFX has "one upped" the video card war by telling nVidia to "fuck off and die".
3DFX, known for its revolutionary line of "Voodoo" based video cards, has been under fire recently for losing its competitive edge to nVidia, who's GeForce 2 line of cards is speculated to be slightly faster than the upcoming Voodoo 5.
"Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of sidestepping the issues and trying to be 'Mister Nice Guy'. I hate nVidia and every fucking asshole that works there," quipped Brian Burke, 3DFX's PR spokesperson. "I hate their engineers, distributors, advertisers, executives, and janitors. I especially despise Derek Perez, who I formally challenge to a knife fight in the parking lot after this meeting..."
Anybody who thinks the 3dfx vs. nVidia wars are getting increasingly ridiculous should go read the rest of this article, at SomethingAwful.