I read The Hobbit and thought it was just okay, which made me not read the rest of the LotR books. I also watched the LotR movies and to be honest thought they sucked. Despite their length, they largely failed to communicate who everyone was, their relationships to each other and their motivations. I felt like the films were made for people who already knew everything that was going on. There were endless conversations that appeared to be about nothing. Nearly 50% of the films were slow motions shots of, again, nothing. The entire thing was a painfully long "wtf" moment. I didn't care who lived or died and there were no feelings of loss or triumph. The closest thing to emotion I felt was the scene with the "who said it would be a man" bit. Anyway, if the books are actually good, they should do a Game of Thrones style series where proper time is taken to establish the characters and why things are happening. I'll never watch another LotR movie again.
As soon as you said "how they handle Doctor Smith" I thought "Gary Oldman", who is my favorite actor. I read on and, holy shit, you then suggested Gary Oldman for the role. Maybe we should start a petition.:)
I can and will circumvent any technological or legal obstacles they can dream of, and they can all go fuck themselves. At some point they're going to run out of dimwits who don't know how to use encryption, VPN, tor, i2p, freenet, bittorrent, etc., and their entire consumer base will have collapsed with a mighty "ARRR!!!" How's that for an end game, you short-sighted, unimaginative, greedy bitches?
How can anyone at a level where they can (and do) make contributions to the Linux kernel not know what they're getting themselves in to. This is like walking into a biker bar dressed like Richard Simmons and complaining that the Hell's Angels are looking at you funny and walking out upset. Torvalds is infamous for tearing people new assholes for submitting imperfect patches, among other things. He's probably not alone in that attitude. I'm not trying to justify or explain the attitude, but shit, people should know it exists by now and be prepared for it.
is the new smoking. If soft drink manufacturers switched back to cane sugar it would help evade stigmatization. Additionally, the cost benefit of using corn syrup has weakened because of the higher price of corn as a result of ethanol production. And cane sugar tastes better; some niche soft drinks have already made the switch and I've tried them.
My thesis is that humans are a violent species, and that they enjoy killing each other. A lot of people say I am wrong. Not much else, just that I am wrong.
War seems like a good way to solve a problem, even fun and exciting to watch, until it's your ass (or your son or daughter's) they call up to go. Easy to go to war when you sit at a desk and people you've never locked eyes with go off to kill and die.
Most people aren't violent and would get physically sick if they had to kill someone (though the primitive bloodlust instinct remains in us all). I think the problem is a lack of empathy and personal consequence for those in a position to send soldiers off to die to "fix" their problems. Drones make it even easier, these days.
Why should there be a banner? If you go to Twitter to get your breaking news, you're a maroon.
Because when the goon squad is making its way through your village you should really wait for the AP release before evacuating your family. Twitter is useful for on the ground, at the moment, eye-witness accounts of shit happening. The first news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden broke on Twitter from people hearing the helicopters outside their homes.
For everyone else talking shit about Twitter or calling for it to be nuked from orbit, please take your head out of your ass for a moment and realize it's just a tool, and it's up to you how you use it. You can follow some idiot in Hollywood and complain about how idiotic it is, or you can follow @NASA, @NASA_Skylab, @NASA_SLS, @elonmusk, @SpaceX, @ComsumerReports, @TEDTalks, @mental_floss, @History_Pics, @techreview (MIT), etc.
Twitter is fucking awesome. All it really needs is a "Switch Account" button to easily switch between "personal" and "professional" accounts and some minor usability tweaks.
"A biofilm is any group of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other on a surface. These adherent cells are frequently embedded within a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Biofilm extracellular polymeric substance, which is also referred to as slime (although not everything described as slime is a biofilm), is a polymeric conglomeration generally composed of extracellular DNA, proteins, and polysaccharides. Biofilms may form on living or non-living surfaces and can be prevalent in natural, industrial and hospital settings."
Another PSA: Don't drink the water in Venezuela; its inhabitants are measured in centimeters.
Would it be more efficient to launch an impactor from Earth to change the asteroid's trajectory or to launch a rocket (using the same rocket that would launch the impactor) carrying a second rocket that would attach to the asteroid and burn to similarly change its trajectory? An impactor would need to be calculated precisely in advance, while attaching a rocket would allow some room for error since its burn could be controlled remotely. The actual feat of getting the rocket to land and securely mount itself would be a challenge however. I don't think "blowing it up" is a good idea, but diversion if possible seems the least-risky and most-effective method.
In the book, they locked open the teleporter network to thousands of Psychlo worlds, then set a nuke off on the homeworld. The fireball washed over the teleportation fields of other teleporter platforms and ignited thousands of planets in giant nuclear fireballs.
I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but holy shit that sounds awesome.
Guilty as charged.:) I think randomness is the result of interactions we can't observe, that's it's an illusion we're generally more than happy to accept. I don't let it ruin my day or anything (I love the idea of free will and all), but my intuition tells me deep inside that it's probably not so. A shame our lifespans are so short, as it would be terribly interesting to see what science a few hundred years from now would have to say about it.
I don't think randomness truly exists; otherwise I'd agree with that. I don't think things behave because they "want" to. There's either an outside influence or they continue as expected.
What we know about explosions at any scale tells us nothing about the Big Bang, which was not an explosion.
The Big Bang was an expansion of space, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not useful to consider similarities between explosions and expansions. The fact that matter and energy in the universe are not perfectly uniform and symmetrical is evidence that the Big Bang, even the singularity itself if there was one, was not uniform or symmetrical. If it was then there had to be an outside influence creating the asymmetry.
You'd think based on what we know about smaller scale explosions that the universe would be spherical, but even explosions in a vacuum aren't perfectly spherical. The shape of the shrapnel field and gasses depends on exactly how the explosion occurs. Until we know how dark matter and dark energy affect regular matter and energy with respect to accelerating it there's no obvious way to determine what the shape of the universe would be 13+ billion years after its creation. Subtle imperfections in the initial, generally spherical, shape of the universe might be amplified by their interaction with dark matter and energy, resulting in the initial sphere becoming highly irregular as it expands in size.
I think the question could be attacked from two sides. We can examine the current shape of the universe (shitty, because we can only see what is possibly just a small piece of it which may prove insufficient to extrapolate an accurate bigger picture) and ask, "If it looks like this now, what must it have looked like in the beginning," or we can attempt to understand through mathematics and theory what happened in the beginning and then extrapolate what it must look like now. Either way, I don't think we'll have a generally-agreed-upon answer anytime soon. Dark matter/energy is a giant hole in our understanding of how/why things move in the universe, so first thing first, figure that one out then worry about the size and shape of the universe.
From the NSA to the TSA, it appears the tin-foil-hat-wearing nutjobs were right all along. What's next? Contrails really do contain mind-controlling chemicals? The moon landing really was...PUNCH TO FACE...nevermind...
The ISS crew stays in their tin can for six month stints and seem to get along fine (from what we know, anyhow). A trip to Mars would take about six months. We know from interviewing prisoners what complete isolation will do to someone (and it's not good), so assuming a crew to Mars had at least four people I'm not sure there's a significant problem to solve here. Obviously the crew would have to be vetted and have prior experience in this type of situation (such as on the ISS), but as long as they're not sending random volunteers (ahem, certain other attempt to get to Mars) I think they'll do just fine.
...and then you'll get a run of situations where someone spikes whatever the competitors are drinking at the tournament... so that 95% of the contestants end up disqualified, making the advantage that much easier.
The ones who are left are likely drinking mind-enhancing fluids anyway.
Or even likelier, hiring third parties to swing batons at competitors' fingers and hands, rendering them physically unable to move the chess pieces and unable to focus due to the pain. Or playing footsie with them under the table to break their concentration. Or building up a resistance to a nerve toxin over decades, then releasing a small amount into the room to kill everyone but their self. If I were going to cheat at professional chess competitions, I'd probably invent an FTL drive and ask the Vulcans if I could borrow Spock, as he's pretty good at chess. If that failed, I could intentionally become assimilated by the Borg and introduce a virus into their hive mind that both gave me free will and ran Chessmaster 9000. Failing that, I'd probably just have to nuke the entire planet from orbit, then carefully plant evidence that I'd won every chess competition ever held during my lifetime. Any future sentient species a few billion years down the road would be like, "Man, that guy was fucking boss at chess."
That certainly helps me understand how this could happen without arousing too much suspicion. At least one possible cheating vector has now been identified, if not eliminated. The down side is that it's hard to believe this guy was the only one taking advantage of that sort of strategy, and there's no way to tell who else cheated. Reminds me of the steroid scandal in baseball way back; the whole sport's been stained, with everyone's stats in question.
Why the frak would they let a competitor get up and leave the playing area at all, much less after every single move? Were they playing in someone's garage drinking cheap beer and no one gave a shit? They should treat these competitions more like a casino, where cheating is expected and overcompensated for by paranoid surveillance, especially when money's on the line.
Slashdot Mirror
I think he was referring to Gary Oldman since he had already played Dr. Smith in the 1998 movie.
https://youtu.be/s1qiDrNHjXI?t...
I read The Hobbit and thought it was just okay, which made me not read the rest of the LotR books. I also watched the LotR movies and to be honest thought they sucked. Despite their length, they largely failed to communicate who everyone was, their relationships to each other and their motivations. I felt like the films were made for people who already knew everything that was going on. There were endless conversations that appeared to be about nothing. Nearly 50% of the films were slow motions shots of, again, nothing. The entire thing was a painfully long "wtf" moment. I didn't care who lived or died and there were no feelings of loss or triumph. The closest thing to emotion I felt was the scene with the "who said it would be a man" bit. Anyway, if the books are actually good, they should do a Game of Thrones style series where proper time is taken to establish the characters and why things are happening. I'll never watch another LotR movie again.
As soon as you said "how they handle Doctor Smith" I thought "Gary Oldman", who is my favorite actor. I read on and, holy shit, you then suggested Gary Oldman for the role. Maybe we should start a petition. :)
Slashdot is dead when the only post connecting TFA to Macross sits idle at a score of 1. What the fuck, people?
I can and will circumvent any technological or legal obstacles they can dream of, and they can all go fuck themselves. At some point they're going to run out of dimwits who don't know how to use encryption, VPN, tor, i2p, freenet, bittorrent, etc., and their entire consumer base will have collapsed with a mighty "ARRR!!!" How's that for an end game, you short-sighted, unimaginative, greedy bitches?
How can anyone at a level where they can (and do) make contributions to the Linux kernel not know what they're getting themselves in to. This is like walking into a biker bar dressed like Richard Simmons and complaining that the Hell's Angels are looking at you funny and walking out upset. Torvalds is infamous for tearing people new assholes for submitting imperfect patches, among other things. He's probably not alone in that attitude. I'm not trying to justify or explain the attitude, but shit, people should know it exists by now and be prepared for it.
is the new smoking. If soft drink manufacturers switched back to cane sugar it would help evade stigmatization. Additionally, the cost benefit of using corn syrup has weakened because of the higher price of corn as a result of ethanol production. And cane sugar tastes better; some niche soft drinks have already made the switch and I've tried them.
My thesis is that humans are a violent species, and that they enjoy killing each other. A lot of people say I am wrong. Not much else, just that I am wrong.
War seems like a good way to solve a problem, even fun and exciting to watch, until it's your ass (or your son or daughter's) they call up to go. Easy to go to war when you sit at a desk and people you've never locked eyes with go off to kill and die.
Most people aren't violent and would get physically sick if they had to kill someone (though the primitive bloodlust instinct remains in us all). I think the problem is a lack of empathy and personal consequence for those in a position to send soldiers off to die to "fix" their problems. Drones make it even easier, these days.
Why should there be a banner? If you go to Twitter to get your breaking news, you're a maroon.
Because when the goon squad is making its way through your village you should really wait for the AP release before evacuating your family. Twitter is useful for on the ground, at the moment, eye-witness accounts of shit happening. The first news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden broke on Twitter from people hearing the helicopters outside their homes.
For everyone else talking shit about Twitter or calling for it to be nuked from orbit, please take your head out of your ass for a moment and realize it's just a tool, and it's up to you how you use it. You can follow some idiot in Hollywood and complain about how idiotic it is, or you can follow @NASA, @NASA_Skylab, @NASA_SLS, @elonmusk, @SpaceX, @ComsumerReports, @TEDTalks, @mental_floss, @History_Pics, @techreview (MIT), etc.
Twitter is fucking awesome. All it really needs is a "Switch Account" button to easily switch between "personal" and "professional" accounts and some minor usability tweaks.
Just in case anyone was wondering what the fuck biofilm is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"A biofilm is any group of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other on a surface. These adherent cells are frequently embedded within a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Biofilm extracellular polymeric substance, which is also referred to as slime (although not everything described as slime is a biofilm), is a polymeric conglomeration generally composed of extracellular DNA, proteins, and polysaccharides. Biofilms may form on living or non-living surfaces and can be prevalent in natural, industrial and hospital settings."
Another PSA: Don't drink the water in Venezuela; its inhabitants are measured in centimeters.
It's like VB6 except for being awesome and Linux-exclusive. http://gambas.sourceforge.net/... http://gambaswiki.org/wiki
Would it be more efficient to launch an impactor from Earth to change the asteroid's trajectory or to launch a rocket (using the same rocket that would launch the impactor) carrying a second rocket that would attach to the asteroid and burn to similarly change its trajectory? An impactor would need to be calculated precisely in advance, while attaching a rocket would allow some room for error since its burn could be controlled remotely. The actual feat of getting the rocket to land and securely mount itself would be a challenge however. I don't think "blowing it up" is a good idea, but diversion if possible seems the least-risky and most-effective method.
In the book, they locked open the teleporter network to thousands of Psychlo worlds, then set a nuke off on the homeworld. The fireball washed over the teleportation fields of other teleporter platforms and ignited thousands of planets in giant nuclear fireballs.
I haven't read the book or seen the movie, but holy shit that sounds awesome.
Blender: http://www.blender.org/manual/
The worst are pretty much anything requiring me to type "man" in a terminal.
Guilty as charged. :) I think randomness is the result of interactions we can't observe, that's it's an illusion we're generally more than happy to accept. I don't let it ruin my day or anything (I love the idea of free will and all), but my intuition tells me deep inside that it's probably not so. A shame our lifespans are so short, as it would be terribly interesting to see what science a few hundred years from now would have to say about it.
I don't think randomness truly exists; otherwise I'd agree with that. I don't think things behave because they "want" to. There's either an outside influence or they continue as expected.
What we know about explosions at any scale tells us nothing about the Big Bang, which was not an explosion.
The Big Bang was an expansion of space, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not useful to consider similarities between explosions and expansions. The fact that matter and energy in the universe are not perfectly uniform and symmetrical is evidence that the Big Bang, even the singularity itself if there was one, was not uniform or symmetrical. If it was then there had to be an outside influence creating the asymmetry.
You'd think based on what we know about smaller scale explosions that the universe would be spherical, but even explosions in a vacuum aren't perfectly spherical. The shape of the shrapnel field and gasses depends on exactly how the explosion occurs. Until we know how dark matter and dark energy affect regular matter and energy with respect to accelerating it there's no obvious way to determine what the shape of the universe would be 13+ billion years after its creation. Subtle imperfections in the initial, generally spherical, shape of the universe might be amplified by their interaction with dark matter and energy, resulting in the initial sphere becoming highly irregular as it expands in size.
I think the question could be attacked from two sides. We can examine the current shape of the universe (shitty, because we can only see what is possibly just a small piece of it which may prove insufficient to extrapolate an accurate bigger picture) and ask, "If it looks like this now, what must it have looked like in the beginning," or we can attempt to understand through mathematics and theory what happened in the beginning and then extrapolate what it must look like now. Either way, I don't think we'll have a generally-agreed-upon answer anytime soon. Dark matter/energy is a giant hole in our understanding of how/why things move in the universe, so first thing first, figure that one out then worry about the size and shape of the universe.
Or Linus, even. Fuck...
is going to run out of fingers.
From the NSA to the TSA, it appears the tin-foil-hat-wearing nutjobs were right all along. What's next? Contrails really do contain mind-controlling chemicals? The moon landing really was...PUNCH TO FACE...nevermind...
The ISS crew stays in their tin can for six month stints and seem to get along fine (from what we know, anyhow). A trip to Mars would take about six months. We know from interviewing prisoners what complete isolation will do to someone (and it's not good), so assuming a crew to Mars had at least four people I'm not sure there's a significant problem to solve here. Obviously the crew would have to be vetted and have prior experience in this type of situation (such as on the ISS), but as long as they're not sending random volunteers (ahem, certain other attempt to get to Mars) I think they'll do just fine.
...and then you'll get a run of situations where someone spikes whatever the competitors are drinking at the tournament... so that 95% of the contestants end up disqualified, making the advantage that much easier.
The ones who are left are likely drinking mind-enhancing fluids anyway.
Or even likelier, hiring third parties to swing batons at competitors' fingers and hands, rendering them physically unable to move the chess pieces and unable to focus due to the pain. Or playing footsie with them under the table to break their concentration. Or building up a resistance to a nerve toxin over decades, then releasing a small amount into the room to kill everyone but their self. If I were going to cheat at professional chess competitions, I'd probably invent an FTL drive and ask the Vulcans if I could borrow Spock, as he's pretty good at chess. If that failed, I could intentionally become assimilated by the Borg and introduce a virus into their hive mind that both gave me free will and ran Chessmaster 9000. Failing that, I'd probably just have to nuke the entire planet from orbit, then carefully plant evidence that I'd won every chess competition ever held during my lifetime. Any future sentient species a few billion years down the road would be like, "Man, that guy was fucking boss at chess."
Lots of time between moves.
That certainly helps me understand how this could happen without arousing too much suspicion. At least one possible cheating vector has now been identified, if not eliminated. The down side is that it's hard to believe this guy was the only one taking advantage of that sort of strategy, and there's no way to tell who else cheated. Reminds me of the steroid scandal in baseball way back; the whole sport's been stained, with everyone's stats in question.
Why the frak would they let a competitor get up and leave the playing area at all, much less after every single move? Were they playing in someone's garage drinking cheap beer and no one gave a shit? They should treat these competitions more like a casino, where cheating is expected and overcompensated for by paranoid surveillance, especially when money's on the line.