The video iPod must have tv/audio out, because when I was searching around for wearable displays, I found this... And it actually looks like it might do the job fairly reasonably. For the geeks who love to fill up their video iPods with podcasts generated by their MythTV box so they have entertainment on the train to work, this might help a bit... Plus what geek wouldn't want to look like Geordi LaForge on the way to work? Pitty the stupid name of their company though.
I'm really interested to learn how well this device works, but I haven't found a review by someone who actually owns one...
Indeed. I used to work at a print shop. The management didn't like the receiving guy, so they had their headhunters watch him and double check everything he did, and I hear that they eventually fired him for miscounting a couple of sheets of decal material out of thousands--principally because one of the headhunters was distracting him in the first place!
Long story short, he got a nice settlement, the headhunter got fired as part of the deal, and the company is now doing it's best to go belly-up... Good for him, I think, because they sure gave him shit. But I guess that's what you get when you're so inept that you have to hire someone to run your company for you.
The brain changes are really interesting. They seem to make people more prone to risk-taking and sexual behavior, which would of course encourage spread of the disease.
Well, that clinches it... So who engineered this virus? Was it sent back in time from the year 2134, where George Bush Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr. is president of the world, in the hopes of wiping out the Bush family simply because everyone got tired of hearing the word "junior" five times in a row everytime the president was addressed--but it all went horribly,horribly wrong? I think it might just be!
Not all snow makers use compressed air; in fact, i've been told that it's the old way to do it, and it's less cost effective than the so-called airless snow guns, but some resorts still use them because it's not cost effective for them to upgrade at the moment... Afterall they have huge infrastructure already in place. The airless snow makers use a fan to blow the mist of water about, which then freezes.
Plus, there's nothing that says the power required for the pumps, fans, etc. can't come from the powerful wind in the area. In that instance, the net increase of energy in the area is pretty much zero.
If their goal is to cool the ocean's surface, they can't exactly use the ocean to cool the engine, compressor, and compressed air, can they? Sure they can, as long as the energy consumed in the evaporation of the water is greater than the energy put out by the machinery.
but wouldn't the radiation have to be ionising[sic] for this to work?
All 'ionizing radiation means' is that the radiation is strong enough to break the strong bonds between atoms causing the subject of the radiation to become ionized. Basically if the energy of a photon is high enough (the higher the frequency, the higher the energy), an electron can be kicked out of whatever material it strikes, or so I understand.
Normally, when a lower energy, non-ionizing photon strikes some object, it elevates the energy of the electrons in the atoms that compose the material, and during a brief moment the electrons jump away from the nucleus for a, and they fall back to their normal positions. In the process of doing this, heat is released into the object. Some of that heat energy will be radiated away as infrared radiation because when electrons fall back closer to the atom, photons are released, causing electromagnetic waves.
The frequency your microwave uses is many orders of magnitude less energetic than the light impacting your eyeballs, and both are non-ionizing, excepting the UV you receive when you're outside.
I think my explanation is pretty close to how it's thought to work, but anyone with more understanding of this subject is more than encouraged to correct me.
Re:No, Google is only dictating how you Do No Evil
on
Google Delists BMW-Germany
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Actually, this search reveals that bmw.de is not listed on Google, period, and that's definitely BMW's official site for Germany... Of course, they haven't de-listed bmw.com, which does link to their German language site.
I see absolutely no reason to blame Google in this instance. Redirecting certain users based on the client they are using to different content is directly against the spirit of the 'net... Redirecting to different data based on the users' client can be good for only a couple of things: 1) joke sites that tell IE users to switch to some other browser 2) intelligent redirecting to a page with mostly the same content, but formatted to be friendly to portable devices.
Pagerank whoring aside, I still think BMW's web designer was in the wrong--as if there could be any confusion about bmw.de in the first place, I'm sure there's a half bazillion German websites linking to that site, putting it at place #1 by default. I guess that it's just a matter of Google breaking their foot off in BMW's ass for being stupid.
I'd normally agree with you, but it must be said that there are some exceptions to the rule that movie based games suck.
I would have never bought it on my own for the reason above, but I got a video card packaged with The Chronicles of Riddick game, and I enjoyed it. It was well thought out and well put together, save for the need to have the CD in the drive, and a couple minor bugs... But most importantly, it was fun and immersive, and unlike most FPS games where you need to collect items to get past obstacles, it felt like you were really doing something whilst sneaking around, because I think the characters were so easy to empathize with (you want out of prison about as much as Riddick) and the game was relatively open ended for the genre (i.e. there's more than one way to do pretty much everything)
I'm not saying that it's the best game ever, or even of the year, but it was certianly a decent game, and very enjoyable.
Women are just like you: They'd rather avoid a confrontation and hurt feelings than be brutally honest. What you call womaneese I call the univeral language of a polite letdown. Trust me, they are doing you a favor by not crushing you, or even worse, leading you on.
You're right, a good woman realize men aren't pilars of stone, but is there anything polite at all about giving out fake numbers, wearing fake wedding bands, accepting a number from a guy dopey enough to give his own out with no intent at all of calling him? Is it polite for a woman to give out their number, accept a date a week away and cancel that date 4 hours before zero hour--or worse yet, not cancel it at all, but not show up? Is it polite to mooch off of a man when a woman has no intention of a relationship? This is exactly what some women do. No. There is nothing polite about falsely rasing a person's hopes, to have them dashed later. I can understand giving out false information to avoid having to deal with really creepy men (perverts, etc), because I'm sure women have to deal with such men all the time. It's undoubtedly easier to appease the creep in the short term, especially if you never expect to see him again...
Is it any less hurtful to a man with honorable intentions? I'd rather take honesty any day of the week than looking forward to a date and instead of calling some old lady's house to ask for a girl who's not there. It's a ton easier and less hurtful just to say "I have a boyfriend", and if the man's really insistant, to say "He's over there" while pointing vaugely at a group of men.
They want what you want as well: Excitement, passion, and someone they can respect. Would you want a woman who is affraid to tell you what they think? Would you want a woman who thinks sex is somthing incredibly important, and that they would never suggest it because doing so might offend you? Would you want a woman who has no self identity?
I can't disagree with what you say, and that's the point I was getting around to in my previous post, before I forgot what I was getiing at (ooh shiny!)... But the thing is, I think that the mass media has confused everyone regarding what women want, including women. Society has turned men into pussies, and lead many women to believe that's what they want. When the guy gets dumped, he's thinking "But I did everything they told me to do", and the woman's thinking "God that was boring!" I was in this boat for a while, before I was enlightened by a woman who finally decided to be brutally honest, as you say. I've got to thank her, she screwed my head on the right way, and my life has been much better because of it.
You misunderstand, and furthermore, you read into things which are not there! I don't hate women. Did I ever say I did? No. Did I say that all women are whores? No. I sure don't know where that 'quote' came from, because it's not even close to paraphrasing. I hold no resentment towards women. I think most women are great people, just like most men, even if they are a bit misled. No... I adore, admire and respect women.
What I did was hyperbolize to make a point, being that most heterosexual women DO NOT think like men, and I thought that perhaps my tongue in cheek attitude would be a good indicator of this. I guess I overestimated my satirical ability. I do, however, hold resentment to is popular culture, and some of the women and men behind popular culture (particularly in the US) who say that men need to tell their women everthing, and the fact that they've convinced women that they need to know everything. They've brainwashed men to believe they need to do things that, quite frankly, divest men of their manliness and in the process they've created a generation of mostly spineless, unexciting men to whom women are completely unattracted, unintrigued, and bored with, and as a result men are stumped by women; men think women say one thing and go off and do another, because that is in effect what's happening! They've convinced men to emotionally castrate themselves, to tell women everything they feel, convinced them that their mate needs to be their best friend, and otherwise undo millions of years of evolution; they've convinced everyone that women want fairytell lives, to live in surburbia and live happily everafter driving kids to soccer practice in minivans, and that if their man dosen't willfully provide these thing--it's time for counseling.
This is why women can't find a good man who can give them excitement and passion, and they end up seeking excitement and passion with assholes. I'm not even resentful at the assholes out there; they're filling a void left by the rest of us. I am, however, resentful of this new generation of wimpy men who feel they need to give women their phone number instead of ask for the womans'! I resent the males out there who wonder why they don't get a second date when they spill their heart out on the first date! How can anyone be attracted to this? They can't! I abhor men who have no respect for themselves and fall all over women like the mass media tells them to do. It's pathetic. Women love the cat & mouse game. The thing is, men have got to make the woman think the man is the mouse, yet be subtly assertive.
A real man is a challenge, and has some character. Note: macho guys (the assholes) aren't real men. They don't respect women, or indeed people in general, they're just jealous 13 year olds in an adult body. In addition, abusers of women should be dragged into the street and shot and buried in a shallow grave, plain and simple. I've read the ladder thoery, and while there may be some insight, it's mostly a bullshit rant. I think that any man with an actual personality and a set of balls can get a good, attractive woman, if they weren't beaten down by popular culture, that is. I don't know if you've seen the US version of survivor, but there was this one guy, Rupert Boneham a few seasons back. He's not the prettiest of me, and he looks somewhat like a reincarnation of Socrates... Yet unlike the rest of the men on the show he had some character and personality, and despite his looks, women across the country were falling for him, in part because, I think, it's been so goddamned long since anyone has seen a male on TV that didn't act like he was a eunuch!
I don't know how it is over in Poland (you link to a polish domain), maybe men are still men there. If so, congradulations, you're doing better than us. Don't call me a misogynist, though, because nothing could be further from the truth. If you don't like what I have to say, you can call me an asshole, ignorant, stupid, whatever; I don't care. I do however
When did you (or indeed anyone else) determine that there was a direct correlation between what women say they want, what they think they want (you know, deep down inside), and what they actually end up doing?
You have to realize: women and men don't speak the same language. Maybe we speak English, Spanish, German, Russian or what have you, but it dosen't matter where you are, all women speak Womanese. It's not that they're not being honest with you, it's that you're just not listening to what they're saying. When you ask for a number, and they ask for yours instead "because they don't have a phone", it means "Oh goody, another number to put in my showcase of losers so I can show the grandkids how hot grandma once was".
When they say "We need to talk" it means "I need to complain" When they say "Maybe", they mean "No." When they say "We were both wrong", they naturally mean "You were wrong, and if I have anything to do with you in ten years, I'm going to wave it in your face every chance I get!"
When they say "I like nice guys", it really means, "I want to go screw a biker!", and when they say "I don't want to date you because that would mess up our friendship" they really mean "You're nice, but you're a poor, ugly wuss and I'd rather talk to you about the bikers that will be gangbanging me later tonight."
The single biggest one though, and it's clearly the one you missed out on, when they say "Honesty is inportant to me!" they mean "Tell me only what I want to hear; I don't care if you've been with a three hundred women, I like you anyways (but I might not like you so much if you told me) just don't hurt my feelings."
This asshole's mistake wasn't only in not telling the truth, but it was not telling the truth to a vast audience, and misrepresenting reality on such a wide scale. If you're having an orgy on a lighted billboard that's surrounded by a million onlookers, it only stands to reason that you're going to get busted for it eventually. He and his publisher made their millions, and Oprah fans nationwide want to kick him in the nuts. I guess it all balances out.
Criminey, did you even see from the hollywood-allegory dept.? References to pop culture are traditionally supposed to be funny here, so who the hell whipped your ass with the +3 stick of seriousness and unfunnay?
Bush's brain encoding is ASCII? No way, man! I know for a fact that that his brain encoding is Unicode. Do you seriously believe that any twenty-first century president would run on ASCII? Hah, what a chump!
The only problem is that his brain is little endian, and whoever wrote PresidentOS 3.0rc1 failed to take that into consideration when they installed it; obviously, this accounts for the incomprehensibility and chronic memory leaks... However the engineers were in a hurry, so it's understandable, no? I understand this issue is to be fixed in release candidate 2.
So for some reason doing something you enjoy is a waste of your life?... I feel the time I spend playing relaxes me and keeps me happy. How is that a waste of my life?
Yeah, heh... Most hardcore meth addicts I've ever met would argue that they weren't wasting their lives--if they could stop picking at the imaginary ants crawling all over them long enough to do so, that is! Of course, it's all made worthwhile by the high, and the looking forward to the next high. They don't realize that they look like they were just exhumed and most likely crave brains to the rest of us, because they can't look outside of the box they live in.
Hell, most normally functioning people can't willfully look outside of their own situation, so it comes as no surprise that people with fucked up brain chemistry can't see how screwed up they are. Any number of things can fuck your brain over, and video games are certainly up there among the best. Take for example Anorexia, and chronic over eating... Two disorders which are polar opposites are surprisingly both linked to increased production of dopamine and endorphins, and the same thing is also found in game addicts, and addicts of any kind. The feeling of calming and happiness will be experienced by all of these people when they do their respective things. The body and brain are terrifically complex systems, nobody has it all wrapped up, and my experience in the area is purely casual.
RPG games are the absolute worst type of game, though, simply because of how the game is played. You're encouraged to play for many hours every week, and your avatar receives rewards somehow proportional to the time you play. I think that eventually this action comes to work directly on the reward centers of the brain... And worse yet, the higher level character you get, the rarer items are, and therefore also the rarer the high you receive, making you crave the next item that much more... It's just like any drug, I think... You always need more and more to get the same high you had the previous times, until the drug is all consuming. I know from experience. Diablo2 was a bad thing for me, and for far too long. Eventually I just got so frustrated that I gave up!
Playing games is okay in moderation, just like most everything. However, when anything profoundly affects your relationships, daily life, work, exercise habits, etc. it's likely that you've got a problem. As Jeff Foxworthy might say: If you're at work in the morning, and all you can think about is getting home to get some game time... You might be and addict.
Of course the savings from more efficient computers in a server farm environment will be as much, if not more from reduced air conditioning loads alone than it will be from power consumed by the computer... That's a good thing--two birds with one stone, so to say. Likewise for large office buildings.
What is going to happen if they decide to go after all of the cell phone and PDA providers if they feel the patent covers those devices as well?
Um, well I can tell you that if they're successful in shutting down all the cell phones, the sky will clear of clouds, angels will descend to Earth whilst playing Stairway to Heaven on their harps, Muslims around the world will find the nearest Jew to kiss square on the lips, Michael Jackson will turn black and become talented again, dolphins will gather in the Atlantic Ocean and spell out "Congratulations!" at to be visible by the naked eye from LEO, squirrels will bring us popcorn and assorted nuts for a change of pace, and George Bush's head will explode in a shower of candies that will suffocate the entire District of Columbia and some of northern Virginia, and children everywhere will rejoice... And I just may be able to finally enjoy a movie in a theatre without suffering some #$^*@&'s cell phone!!!
Dang, if you were in the middle of that ship you could look either way and it would disappear into the horizon, unless it was also absurdly tall, of course!
When they start building ships to take into account the curvature of the Earth, I'll officially be scared.
But the fact is that I feel like I am being forced into this system, and even my company is being forced into this system that is pure evil (see my essay A Violent Protest Against Patnets). Because like most tech companies, we don't get patnets to collect royalities, we get patents to retaliate in the event of lawsuits and we get them to enter into cross license agreements with pools of large companies to get access to other inventions without being sued. Just because I am supposedly benefiting from patents now, doesn't mean that I should be a liar about how evil they truely are. If patents are allowed to be brought to their logical conclusion, it will result in the genocide of billions.
Yeah, I read your essay, and all that came to mind was: You wouldn't happen to be a fan of This Guy would you? Because, you see, much like what you wrote, I think that deep down he really does have some insightful things to say, and I wish people would think about some of these things more often, but then he covers that insight with a steaming hot pile of hyperbole, blanket generalizations and other overt appeals to emotion, as to make his insight unpalatable to read except to those whom agree with him most. On top of that, he's really quite skilled at creating statements which at best are difficult to argue against, and are at worst begging the question--because he defines his (usually one) premise to create a circular argument, and he'll incessantly browbeat the less intellectual person with his argument (if it can be called that) and successfully throw them off course; usually he does this in front of an audience where he's got the upper hand because he is a decent orator, and most people aren't... His is the lowest form of intellectual bullying, in my opinion... Of course, when he encounters a person who can see through the bullshit he throws around as a sort of smoke screen, the situation changes; he becomes even more hostile and is all too happy to move on to a simpler opponent, and barring that, he will do everything in his power to change the topic as rapidly as possible because he knows the person with logic and reason on their side will widdle his illogic down eventually--and as the verbal equivalent to Mohammad Ali, he'd be stupid to let them do that, correct? Yep!
Anywho... To me, patents are tools, and as such, they aren't any more or less inherently evil than a screwdriver, a hammer, money, or anything else that can be used to one's advantage. Supposing one could take some basic tools and materials to fashion a weapon--that doesn't make the tools evil. The weapon isn't even necessarily evil--especially if it's used to protect some poor defenseless orphans from child molesters--but then I'm not one to think that inanimate objects can possess attributes such as good or evil... Unless, perhaps, they're enchanted, or possessed objects, sent from on-high. Without getting into a huge philosophical battle, I reason that only sentient beings can have the qualities of good and evil, but I'm quite willing to extend the qualifications for "sentient being" quite further than most people. For example, I know my cat is sentient. He told me so, and quite frankly I see no reason to doubt him. However, the moment I encounter an evil potato, for instance, I'll be sure to fill you in.
Maybe your company, and many like it use patents in a stupid way, it's not the patent's fault, though... It's not the patent's fault that grandma can't afford her medication, and it's not the patent's fault that HIV sufferers in Africa cant get medication to help their suffering... No. It's the fault of antisocial behavior and general apathy on the part of the companies, the countries, and the people on which the prior are built upon. Having patents doesn't make anyone any more antisocial than they already were anymore than having doughnuts does. You can spread the pastry goodness around, or you can say to a homeless man digging through a dumpster: "Hey
No, actually, I posted that comment using a Commodore C64C hooked up to Ethernet using a combination of custom hardware and software, but nothing too luxurious, as I typically enjoy reading and posting to slashdot using nothing more than the standard GET and POST methods, of course, by manual entry into a custom hacked telnet client... I also enjoy the fact that/.'s html looks like shit, but because I'm that masochistic on Sundays.
On Mondays I afford myself the luxury of using this BeBox I pulled out of a dumpster, but I try not to splurge, so it's just the 66Mhz model, and I use my standard telnet method, but I also afford myself the little luxury of multiple terminals via the window interface.
Sanity! You're a madman! Can't we all just get along?!
So, do you own any patents? Have you ever invented something that could have been patented, and further, have you ever invented something that could benefit people at large...and then published it so that anyone could use it?
I'm a small time inventor. I've patented five of my inventions. I've sold two of those patents outright, and I have a licensing deal that brings in 3.5% of the profits on another product... I can say from experience that most large companies want nothing to do with you until you've been granted a patent.
For my first patent, the licensed one, I needed $15,000 for research and materials, over the course of 6 months... I didn't have credit, and I didn't have a job that could pull down that sort of dough in the time that I needed to do my thing... And I needed to get started ASAP before someone else had my idea. So in the mean time, I sold a ton of shit on eBay to bring in about $8,000. I went to yard sales, bught stuff I thought I could sell, I consigned stuff for neighbors. I had another three or so grand in the bank, and that kept me going, and beyond that, my family finally bought into my vision, and they invested the remainder. And that is what a patent is to a small inventor: an investment. It's just like a 401k, it's just like a pension, except that it's also a gamble. Maybe nobody wants to deal with you, maybe your patent will not be granted, maybe it's not a marketable item, and maybe someone figures out how to do it better...
I had NDAs drafted for businesses I dealt with, I documented the shit out of my work. and that was fine and all... But none of those would have held any weight if I wasn't documenting the shit out of everything, and also wasn't working on a patent... In fact, if it had been leaked, and I wasn't granted a patent, there would be no case, and it could be potentially very confusing to a judge, in the event that there was a problem. In this way, patents force inventors to get all of their ducks in a row.
You vote to eliminate patents... In the process you'll eliminate independent inventors and large monopolistic cooperations will rule the day! It will be like the old Ma Bell days all over again, the companies will be in monolithic union, like Stone Henge and bipartisan politics in the US, holding each other up just because that's what they've got to do to survive... And there will be no good reason some company in China won't just come in with an exact replica of their inventions, under cut them till there's nothing left, and they'll be the ones laughing, won't they?!
The one thing most useful thing I've learned in my 25 years is that "Where you stand depends on where you sit", as my Economics professor liked to say... That said, the patent office deserves some reform. Half of the stuff that goes through there is hardly qualifying of the description "invention", but not everything is devoid of value... Sort of like this place.
If you answer yes to my above questions, then I'll consider you a person of integrity and you'll be deserving of my respect, because I've done all but the very last, though I do intend to use my inventiveness directly along with my philanthropy on a future project. I've you've got inventions you make a living on, and you still think the system needs to be trashed, then you're certianly a revolutionary because you'll have something to lose, and I find that honorable. If you answer no and continue to hold your position then you're just a vacuous, contentious, embittered windbag, bellowing on and on because you haven't got your way yet... In that case, get laid and invent something that's marketable, so you'll stop being so bitter... Jesus.
I agree in part... Fans can make the game good because it's being done out of love... They can also do a terrible job bedcause they don't have the time to invest into it, don't have the technical and artistic expertise, can't assemble a grouple of people who do have the talent, or they can get the people but can't get them to cooperate. Of course, commercial projects can bring all of those things together, if done correctly.
Personally, I think a properly done Stargate game based on the BattleField2 platform would simply kick ass 7 ways from Wednesday... Think about it! The scope of the battles wouldn't be too huge, but large enough. The flags that everyone needs to capture could be things like the Stargate on that level, ring transporters, or other Ancient technology, so the conquest game mode that's already in place would be ideal.
Teamwork is already based around small groups of soldiers, just like the SG teams. The Jaffa also seem to use the squad based team pretty often. Throw in some staff blasters, the Zat weapons (sp), death gliders, the Gould bombers, make up some Gould armor units with heavy weapons, some light weight ground units the Jaffa use to run around in, and you're good to go! The Earth units can use that fighter developed from Gould technology, maybe another small fighter plane capable of fitting into the gate, helicopters made so that they can traverse the gate, beefed up tanks (maybe with shields and enhanced weapons borrowed from the Asguard, etc.
The modifications could be pretty superficial, and as long as the game play was well balanced it would be very, very entertaining. Plus any race in the Stargate universe would be able to take part (expansion packs). I think it would be a smash hit.
Yeah, my pure silver audio cables make a world of difference... However, I had some of my buddies over and they said that one of my friends' Bose system sounded just as good as mine, and they thought I was crazy for spending an amount on cables alone that could have bought a new Honda Civic... Can you imagine the gall? Can you?!?!?! Of course, I couldn't let an insult that spiteful go unpunished, so I kicked one of my so called "friends" in the balls, busted the others' nose, and emptied my shotgun into the others' Lexus... Yep, I've come to accept the fact that the average person might not tell the difference, but that won't stop me from throwing a Molotov Cocktail into his house after he says so!
So, irrigate yourself undauntedly, my good friend with a predilection for expensive vino... Drink on!...'cause if you don't... WHO WILL?!
Well, to be honest, I was in a sort of zen state, practicing Yoga. I was currently in the wheel pose when suddenly... Well, yeah... So I was thinking of Jon Stewart:)
Slashdot Mirror
The video iPod must have tv/audio out, because when I was searching around for wearable displays, I found this ... And it actually looks like it might do the job fairly reasonably. For the geeks who love to fill up their video iPods with podcasts generated by their MythTV box so they have entertainment on the train to work, this might help a bit... Plus what geek wouldn't want to look like Geordi LaForge on the way to work? Pitty the stupid name of their company though.
I'm really interested to learn how well this device works, but I haven't found a review by someone who actually owns one...
Indeed. I used to work at a print shop. The management didn't like the receiving guy, so they had their headhunters watch him and double check everything he did, and I hear that they eventually fired him for miscounting a couple of sheets of decal material out of thousands--principally because one of the headhunters was distracting him in the first place!
Long story short, he got a nice settlement, the headhunter got fired as part of the deal, and the company is now doing it's best to go belly-up... Good for him, I think, because they sure gave him shit. But I guess that's what you get when you're so inept that you have to hire someone to run your company for you.
The brain changes are really interesting. They seem to make people more prone to risk-taking and sexual behavior, which would of course encourage spread of the disease.
Well, that clinches it... So who engineered this virus? Was it sent back in time from the year 2134, where George Bush Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr. Jr. is president of the world, in the hopes of wiping out the Bush family simply because everyone got tired of hearing the word "junior" five times in a row everytime the president was addressed--but it all went horribly,horribly wrong? I think it might just be!
Not all snow makers use compressed air; in fact, i've been told that it's the old way to do it, and it's less cost effective than the so-called airless snow guns, but some resorts still use them because it's not cost effective for them to upgrade at the moment... Afterall they have huge infrastructure already in place. The airless snow makers use a fan to blow the mist of water about, which then freezes.
Plus, there's nothing that says the power required for the pumps, fans, etc. can't come from the powerful wind in the area. In that instance, the net increase of energy in the area is pretty much zero.
If their goal is to cool the ocean's surface, they can't exactly use the ocean to cool the engine, compressor, and compressed air, can they? Sure they can, as long as the energy consumed in the evaporation of the water is greater than the energy put out by the machinery.
8,000 barges is a lot of energy.
Eureka! You're absolutely right. That's like... The annual CO2 production of 50ish some odd Mt. Kilaueas combined!? Mmmm...!
So, your answer is that we need to build 8000 nuclear powered barges? Yes! You sir, are a genius!
I mean how many players can you have lined up along the street drinking beer?
:)
I take it that you've never been to Texas?
but wouldn't the radiation have to be ionising[sic] for this to work?
All 'ionizing radiation means' is that the radiation is strong enough to break the strong bonds between atoms causing the subject of the radiation to become ionized. Basically if the energy of a photon is high enough (the higher the frequency, the higher the energy), an electron can be kicked out of whatever material it strikes, or so I understand.
Normally, when a lower energy, non-ionizing photon strikes some object, it elevates the energy of the electrons in the atoms that compose the material, and during a brief moment the electrons jump away from the nucleus for a, and they fall back to their normal positions. In the process of doing this, heat is released into the object. Some of that heat energy will be radiated away as infrared radiation because when electrons fall back closer to the atom, photons are released, causing electromagnetic waves.
The frequency your microwave uses is many orders of magnitude less energetic than the light impacting your eyeballs, and both are non-ionizing, excepting the UV you receive when you're outside.
I think my explanation is pretty close to how it's thought to work, but anyone with more understanding of this subject is more than encouraged to correct me.
Actually, this search reveals that bmw.de is not listed on Google, period, and that's definitely BMW's official site for Germany... Of course, they haven't de-listed bmw.com, which does link to their German language site.
I see absolutely no reason to blame Google in this instance. Redirecting certain users based on the client they are using to different content is directly against the spirit of the 'net... Redirecting to different data based on the users' client can be good for only a couple of things: 1) joke sites that tell IE users to switch to some other browser 2) intelligent redirecting to a page with mostly the same content, but formatted to be friendly to portable devices.
Pagerank whoring aside, I still think BMW's web designer was in the wrong--as if there could be any confusion about bmw.de in the first place, I'm sure there's a half bazillion German websites linking to that site, putting it at place #1 by default. I guess that it's just a matter of Google breaking their foot off in BMW's ass for being stupid.
I'd normally agree with you, but it must be said that there are some exceptions to the rule that movie based games suck.
I would have never bought it on my own for the reason above, but I got a video card packaged with The Chronicles of Riddick game, and I enjoyed it. It was well thought out and well put together, save for the need to have the CD in the drive, and a couple minor bugs... But most importantly, it was fun and immersive, and unlike most FPS games where you need to collect items to get past obstacles, it felt like you were really doing something whilst sneaking around, because I think the characters were so easy to empathize with (you want out of prison about as much as Riddick) and the game was relatively open ended for the genre (i.e. there's more than one way to do pretty much everything)
I'm not saying that it's the best game ever, or even of the year, but it was certianly a decent game, and very enjoyable.
Women are just like you: They'd rather avoid a confrontation and hurt feelings than be brutally honest. What you call womaneese I call the univeral language of a polite letdown. Trust me, they are doing you a favor by not crushing you, or even worse, leading you on.
You're right, a good woman realize men aren't pilars of stone, but is there anything polite at all about giving out fake numbers, wearing fake wedding bands, accepting a number from a guy dopey enough to give his own out with no intent at all of calling him? Is it polite for a woman to give out their number, accept a date a week away and cancel that date 4 hours before zero hour--or worse yet, not cancel it at all, but not show up? Is it polite to mooch off of a man when a woman has no intention of a relationship? This is exactly what some women do. No. There is nothing polite about falsely rasing a person's hopes, to have them dashed later. I can understand giving out false information to avoid having to deal with really creepy men (perverts, etc), because I'm sure women have to deal with such men all the time. It's undoubtedly easier to appease the creep in the short term, especially if you never expect to see him again...
Is it any less hurtful to a man with honorable intentions? I'd rather take honesty any day of the week than looking forward to a date and instead of calling some old lady's house to ask for a girl who's not there. It's a ton easier and less hurtful just to say "I have a boyfriend", and if the man's really insistant, to say "He's over there" while pointing vaugely at a group of men.
They want what you want as well: Excitement, passion, and someone they can respect. Would you want a woman who is affraid to tell you what they think? Would you want a woman who thinks sex is somthing incredibly important, and that they would never suggest it because doing so might offend you? Would you want a woman who has no self identity?
I can't disagree with what you say, and that's the point I was getting around to in my previous post, before I forgot what I was getiing at (ooh shiny!)... But the thing is, I think that the mass media has confused everyone regarding what women want, including women. Society has turned men into pussies, and lead many women to believe that's what they want. When the guy gets dumped, he's thinking "But I did everything they told me to do", and the woman's thinking "God that was boring!" I was in this boat for a while, before I was enlightened by a woman who finally decided to be brutally honest, as you say. I've got to thank her, she screwed my head on the right way, and my life has been much better because of it.
You misunderstand, and furthermore, you read into things which are not there! I don't hate women. Did I ever say I did? No. Did I say that all women are whores? No. I sure don't know where that 'quote' came from, because it's not even close to paraphrasing. I hold no resentment towards women. I think most women are great people, just like most men, even if they are a bit misled. No... I adore, admire and respect women.
What I did was hyperbolize to make a point, being that most heterosexual women DO NOT think like men, and I thought that perhaps my tongue in cheek attitude would be a good indicator of this. I guess I overestimated my satirical ability.
I do, however, hold resentment to is popular culture, and some of the women and men behind popular culture (particularly in the US) who say that men need to tell their women everthing, and the fact that they've convinced women that they need to know everything. They've brainwashed men to believe they need to do things that, quite frankly, divest men of their manliness and in the process they've created a generation of mostly spineless, unexciting men to whom women are completely unattracted, unintrigued, and bored with, and as a result men are stumped by women; men think women say one thing and go off and do another, because that is in effect what's happening!
They've convinced men to emotionally castrate themselves, to tell women everything they feel, convinced them that their mate needs to be their best friend, and otherwise undo millions of years of evolution; they've convinced everyone that women want fairytell lives, to live in surburbia and live happily everafter driving kids to soccer practice in minivans, and that if their man dosen't willfully provide these thing--it's time for counseling.
This is why women can't find a good man who can give them excitement and passion, and they end up seeking excitement and passion with assholes. I'm not even resentful at the assholes out there; they're filling a void left by the rest of us. I am, however, resentful of this new generation of wimpy men who feel they need to give women their phone number instead of ask for the womans'! I resent the males out there who wonder why they don't get a second date when they spill their heart out on the first date! How can anyone be attracted to this? They can't! I abhor men who have no respect for themselves and fall all over women like the mass media tells them to do. It's pathetic. Women love the cat & mouse game. The thing is, men have got to make the woman think the man is the mouse, yet be subtly assertive.
A real man is a challenge, and has some character. Note: macho guys (the assholes) aren't real men. They don't respect women, or indeed people in general, they're just jealous 13 year olds in an adult body. In addition, abusers of women should be dragged into the street and shot and buried in a shallow grave, plain and simple. I've read the ladder thoery, and while there may be some insight, it's mostly a bullshit rant. I think that any man with an actual personality and a set of balls can get a good, attractive woman, if they weren't beaten down by popular culture, that is. I don't know if you've seen the US version of survivor, but there was this one guy, Rupert Boneham a few seasons back. He's not the prettiest of me, and he looks somewhat like a reincarnation of Socrates... Yet unlike the rest of the men on the show he had some character and personality, and despite his looks, women across the country were falling for him, in part because, I think, it's been so goddamned long since anyone has seen a male on TV that didn't act like he was a eunuch!
I don't know how it is over in Poland (you link to a polish domain), maybe men are still men there. If so, congradulations, you're doing better than us. Don't call me a misogynist, though, because nothing could be further from the truth. If you don't like what I have to say, you can call me an asshole, ignorant, stupid, whatever; I don't care. I do however
When did you (or indeed anyone else) determine that there was a direct correlation between what women say they want, what they think they want (you know, deep down inside), and what they actually end up doing?
You have to realize: women and men don't speak the same language. Maybe we speak English, Spanish, German, Russian or what have you, but it dosen't matter where you are, all women speak Womanese. It's not that they're not being honest with you, it's that you're just not listening to what they're saying. When you ask for a number, and they ask for yours instead "because they don't have a phone", it means "Oh goody, another number to put in my showcase of losers so I can show the grandkids how hot grandma once was".
When they say "We need to talk" it means "I need to complain" When they say "Maybe", they mean "No." When they say "We were both wrong", they naturally mean "You were wrong, and if I have anything to do with you in ten years, I'm going to wave it in your face every chance I get!"
When they say "I like nice guys", it really means, "I want to go screw a biker!", and when they say "I don't want to date you because that would mess up our friendship" they really mean "You're nice, but you're a poor, ugly wuss and I'd rather talk to you about the bikers that will be gangbanging me later tonight."
The single biggest one though, and it's clearly the one you missed out on, when they say "Honesty is inportant to me!" they mean "Tell me only what I want to hear; I don't care if you've been with a three hundred women, I like you anyways (but I might not like you so much if you told me) just don't hurt my feelings."
This asshole's mistake wasn't only in not telling the truth, but it was not telling the truth to a vast audience, and misrepresenting reality on such a wide scale. If you're having an orgy on a lighted billboard that's surrounded by a million onlookers, it only stands to reason that you're going to get busted for it eventually. He and his publisher made their millions, and Oprah fans nationwide want to kick him in the nuts. I guess it all balances out.
Criminey, did you even see from the hollywood-allegory dept.? References to pop culture are traditionally supposed to be funny here, so who the hell whipped your ass with the +3 stick of seriousness and unfunnay?
Bush's brain encoding is ASCII? No way, man! I know for a fact that that his brain encoding is Unicode. Do you seriously believe that any twenty-first century president would run on ASCII? Hah, what a chump!
The only problem is that his brain is little endian, and whoever wrote PresidentOS 3.0rc1 failed to take that into consideration when they installed it; obviously, this accounts for the incomprehensibility and chronic memory leaks... However the engineers were in a hurry, so it's understandable, no? I understand this issue is to be fixed in release candidate 2.
So for some reason doing something you enjoy is a waste of your life?... I feel the time I spend playing relaxes me and keeps me happy. How is that a waste of my life?
Yeah, heh... Most hardcore meth addicts I've ever met would argue that they weren't wasting their lives--if they could stop picking at the imaginary ants crawling all over them long enough to do so, that is! Of course, it's all made worthwhile by the high, and the looking forward to the next high. They don't realize that they look like they were just exhumed and most likely crave brains to the rest of us, because they can't look outside of the box they live in.
Hell, most normally functioning people can't willfully look outside of their own situation, so it comes as no surprise that people with fucked up brain chemistry can't see how screwed up they are. Any number of things can fuck your brain over, and video games are certainly up there among the best. Take for example Anorexia, and chronic over eating... Two disorders which are polar opposites are surprisingly both linked to increased production of dopamine and endorphins, and the same thing is also found in game addicts, and addicts of any kind. The feeling of calming and happiness will be experienced by all of these people when they do their respective things. The body and brain are terrifically complex systems, nobody has it all wrapped up, and my experience in the area is purely casual.
RPG games are the absolute worst type of game, though, simply because of how the game is played. You're encouraged to play for many hours every week, and your avatar receives rewards somehow proportional to the time you play. I think that eventually this action comes to work directly on the reward centers of the brain... And worse yet, the higher level character you get, the rarer items are, and therefore also the rarer the high you receive, making you crave the next item that much more... It's just like any drug, I think... You always need more and more to get the same high you had the previous times, until the drug is all consuming. I know from experience. Diablo2 was a bad thing for me, and for far too long. Eventually I just got so frustrated that I gave up!
Playing games is okay in moderation, just like most everything. However, when anything profoundly affects your relationships, daily life, work, exercise habits, etc. it's likely that you've got a problem. As Jeff Foxworthy might say: If you're at work in the morning, and all you can think about is getting home to get some game time... You might be and addict.
Of course the savings from more efficient computers in a server farm environment will be as much, if not more from reduced air conditioning loads alone than it will be from power consumed by the computer... That's a good thing--two birds with one stone, so to say. Likewise for large office buildings.
Now you're dreaming.
*sounds of much wimpering*
Yeah, I know... But a guy can prophesy wishfully, can't he? *sobs*
What is going to happen if they decide to go after all of the cell phone and PDA providers if they feel the patent covers those devices as well?
Um, well I can tell you that if they're successful in shutting down all the cell phones, the sky will clear of clouds, angels will descend to Earth whilst playing Stairway to Heaven on their harps, Muslims around the world will find the nearest Jew to kiss square on the lips, Michael Jackson will turn black and become talented again, dolphins will gather in the Atlantic Ocean and spell out "Congratulations!" at to be visible by the naked eye from LEO, squirrels will bring us popcorn and assorted nuts for a change of pace, and George Bush's head will explode in a shower of candies that will suffocate the entire District of Columbia and some of northern Virginia, and children everywhere will rejoice... And I just may be able to finally enjoy a movie in a theatre without suffering some #$^*@&'s cell phone!!!
Actually it's a 45 nautical mile ship!
Dang, if you were in the middle of that ship you could look either way and it would disappear into the horizon, unless it was also absurdly tall, of course!
When they start building ships to take into account the curvature of the Earth, I'll officially be scared.
But the fact is that I feel like I am being forced into this system, and even my company is being forced into this system that is pure evil (see my essay A Violent Protest Against Patnets). Because like most tech companies, we don't get patnets to collect royalities, we get patents to retaliate in the event of lawsuits and we get them to enter into cross license agreements with pools of large companies to get access to other inventions without being sued. Just because I am supposedly benefiting from patents now, doesn't mean that I should be a liar about how evil they truely are. If patents are allowed to be brought to their logical conclusion, it will result in the genocide of billions.
Yeah, I read your essay, and all that came to mind was: You wouldn't happen to be a fan of This Guy would you? Because, you see, much like what you wrote, I think that deep down he really does have some insightful things to say, and I wish people would think about some of these things more often, but then he covers that insight with a steaming hot pile of hyperbole, blanket generalizations and other overt appeals to emotion, as to make his insight unpalatable to read except to those whom agree with him most.
On top of that, he's really quite skilled at creating statements which at best are difficult to argue against, and are at worst begging the question--because he defines his (usually one) premise to create a circular argument, and he'll incessantly browbeat the less intellectual person with his argument (if it can be called that) and successfully throw them off course; usually he does this in front of an audience where he's got the upper hand because he is a decent orator, and most people aren't... His is the lowest form of intellectual bullying, in my opinion... Of course, when he encounters a person who can see through the bullshit he throws around as a sort of smoke screen, the situation changes; he becomes even more hostile and is all too happy to move on to a simpler opponent, and barring that, he will do everything in his power to change the topic as rapidly as possible because he knows the person with logic and reason on their side will widdle his illogic down eventually--and as the verbal equivalent to Mohammad Ali, he'd be stupid to let them do that, correct? Yep!
Anywho... To me, patents are tools, and as such, they aren't any more or less inherently evil than a screwdriver, a hammer, money, or anything else that can be used to one's advantage. Supposing one could take some basic tools and materials to fashion a weapon--that doesn't make the tools evil. The weapon isn't even necessarily evil--especially if it's used to protect some poor defenseless orphans from child molesters--but then I'm not one to think that inanimate objects can possess attributes such as good or evil... Unless, perhaps, they're enchanted, or possessed objects, sent from on-high. Without getting into a huge philosophical battle, I reason that only sentient beings can have the qualities of good and evil, but I'm quite willing to extend the qualifications for "sentient being" quite further than most people. For example, I know my cat is sentient. He told me so, and quite frankly I see no reason to doubt him. However, the moment I encounter an evil potato, for instance, I'll be sure to fill you in.
Maybe your company, and many like it use patents in a stupid way, it's not the patent's fault, though... It's not the patent's fault that grandma can't afford her medication, and it's not the patent's fault that HIV sufferers in Africa cant get medication to help their suffering... No. It's the fault of antisocial behavior and general apathy on the part of the companies, the countries, and the people on which the prior are built upon. Having patents doesn't make anyone any more antisocial than they already were anymore than having doughnuts does. You can spread the pastry goodness around, or you can say to a homeless man digging through a dumpster: "Hey
No, actually, I posted that comment using a Commodore C64C hooked up to Ethernet using a combination of custom hardware and software, but nothing too luxurious, as I typically enjoy reading and posting to slashdot using nothing more than the standard GET and POST methods, of course, by manual entry into a custom hacked telnet client... I also enjoy the fact that /.'s html looks like shit, but because I'm that masochistic on Sundays.
On Mondays I afford myself the luxury of using this BeBox I pulled out of a dumpster, but I try not to splurge, so it's just the 66Mhz model, and I use my standard telnet method, but I also afford myself the little luxury of multiple terminals via the window interface.
Sanity! You're a madman! Can't we all just get along?!
So, do you own any patents? Have you ever invented something that could have been patented, and further, have you ever invented something that could benefit people at large...and then published it so that anyone could use it?
I'm a small time inventor. I've patented five of my inventions. I've sold two of those patents outright, and I have a licensing deal that brings in 3.5% of the profits on another product... I can say from experience that most large companies want nothing to do with you until you've been granted a patent.
For my first patent, the licensed one, I needed $15,000 for research and materials, over the course of 6 months... I didn't have credit, and I didn't have a job that could pull down that sort of dough in the time that I needed to do my thing... And I needed to get started ASAP before someone else had my idea. So in the mean time, I sold a ton of shit on eBay to bring in about $8,000. I went to yard sales, bught stuff I thought I could sell, I consigned stuff for neighbors. I had another three or so grand in the bank, and that kept me going, and beyond that, my family finally bought into my vision, and they invested the remainder. And that is what a patent is to a small inventor: an investment. It's just like a 401k, it's just like a pension, except that it's also a gamble. Maybe nobody wants to deal with you, maybe your patent will not be granted, maybe it's not a marketable item, and maybe someone figures out how to do it better...
I had NDAs drafted for businesses I dealt with, I documented the shit out of my work. and that was fine and all... But none of those would have held any weight if I wasn't documenting the shit out of everything, and also wasn't working on a patent... In fact, if it had been leaked, and I wasn't granted a patent, there would be no case, and it could be potentially very confusing to a judge, in the event that there was a problem. In this way, patents force inventors to get all of their ducks in a row.
You vote to eliminate patents... In the process you'll eliminate independent inventors and large monopolistic cooperations will rule the day! It will be like the old Ma Bell days all over again, the companies will be in monolithic union, like Stone Henge and bipartisan politics in the US, holding each other up just because that's what they've got to do to survive... And there will be no good reason some company in China won't just come in with an exact replica of their inventions, under cut them till there's nothing left, and they'll be the ones laughing, won't they?!
The one thing most useful thing I've learned in my 25 years is that "Where you stand depends on where you sit", as my Economics professor liked to say... That said, the patent office deserves some reform. Half of the stuff that goes through there is hardly qualifying of the description "invention", but not everything is devoid of value... Sort of like this place.
If you answer yes to my above questions, then I'll consider you a person of integrity and you'll be deserving of my respect, because I've done all but the very last, though I do intend to use my inventiveness directly along with my philanthropy on a future project. I've you've got inventions you make a living on, and you still think the system needs to be trashed, then you're certianly a revolutionary because you'll have something to lose, and I find that honorable. If you answer no and continue to hold your position then you're just a vacuous, contentious, embittered windbag, bellowing on and on because you haven't got your way yet... In that case, get laid and invent something that's marketable, so you'll stop being so bitter... Jesus.
I agree in part... Fans can make the game good because it's being done out of love... They can also do a terrible job bedcause they don't have the time to invest into it, don't have the technical and artistic expertise, can't assemble a grouple of people who do have the talent, or they can get the people but can't get them to cooperate. Of course, commercial projects can bring all of those things together, if done correctly.
Personally, I think a properly done Stargate game based on the BattleField2 platform would simply kick ass 7 ways from Wednesday... Think about it! The scope of the battles wouldn't be too huge, but large enough. The flags that everyone needs to capture could be things like the Stargate on that level, ring transporters, or other Ancient technology, so the conquest game mode that's already in place would be ideal.
Teamwork is already based around small groups of soldiers, just like the SG teams. The Jaffa also seem to use the squad based team pretty often. Throw in some staff blasters, the Zat weapons (sp), death gliders, the Gould bombers, make up some Gould armor units with heavy weapons, some light weight ground units the Jaffa use to run around in, and you're good to go! The Earth units can use that fighter developed from Gould technology, maybe another small fighter plane capable of fitting into the gate, helicopters made so that they can traverse the gate, beefed up tanks (maybe with shields and enhanced weapons borrowed from the Asguard, etc.
The modifications could be pretty superficial, and as long as the game play was well balanced it would be very, very entertaining. Plus any race in the Stargate universe would be able to take part (expansion packs). I think it would be a smash hit.
Yeah, my pure silver audio cables make a world of difference... However, I had some of my buddies over and they said that one of my friends' Bose system sounded just as good as mine, and they thought I was crazy for spending an amount on cables alone that could have bought a new Honda Civic... Can you imagine the gall? Can you?!?!?! Of course, I couldn't let an insult that spiteful go unpunished, so I kicked one of my so called "friends" in the balls, busted the others' nose, and emptied my shotgun into the others' Lexus... Yep, I've come to accept the fact that the average person might not tell the difference, but that won't stop me from throwing a Molotov Cocktail into his house after he says so!
...'cause if you don't... WHO WILL?!
So, irrigate yourself undauntedly, my good friend with a predilection for expensive vino... Drink on!
Well, to be honest, I was in a sort of zen state, practicing Yoga. I was currently in the wheel pose when suddenly... Well, yeah... So I was thinking of Jon Stewart :)