convex polygons at least have some mathematical properties that make them easier to handle. For example you can more easily determine wether a given point is inside the polygon or not.
The only point current slashdot tags have are as a off-hand on-liner, a sort of impromptu poll. The mumbled voice of the masses, if you will. There is a perceived need for this sort of "quick comment", and the tags serve this need, albeit poorly.
The original purpose of the tags, to allow easier searches, the finding of related stories, etc, would be much better served by a proper search function on slashdot.
Why the hell do we need a "story" tag for example? Frankly, the idea to search for all stories about microsoft, sco, linux, whatever, by using manually added tags instead of simply searching the text of the stories for these words seems quite stupid.
Ok, am I being thick here, but why can't some enterprising soul (or organisation), use the algorhythm to take control of the bots and then gets them to purge or go inactive?
I would guess because of public key cryptography. If these bots were made smartly, they will only accept signed commands, so you need the private key.
A bit of trivia: space walker's microphones are muted for the first 30 seconds of their first space walk. Reason is this: in space, no one can hear you scream. And with the mic off, neither can Houston.
[[citation needed]]
Being unable to call for help if something goes wrong sounds like a major danger, no way nasa would do this.
Linux distributions do not ship with a 32-bit browser or a comprehensive 32-bit emulation layer by default.
Why don't they anyway?
Given that many if not most users will want to install some plugins, installing a 32-bit browser by default would seem logical.
The browser would only have 2 gb address space, and it could not make use of new 64-bit registers or processor extensions. Both seem like a very minor disadvantage for a browser, especially compared to being able to run 32 bit precompiled plugins.
Is this just one of these ideological things where the actual advantages for the user are disregarded?
That would make sure that your clone is consistent, and since you cannot continue working with the pc while the cloning is in progress (that would certainly make it inconsistent), there is not much disadvantage in rebooting.
If you want to get fancy, install a second OS, and make a script that upon booting that OS automatically clones the first OS and then reboots. Any linux can do this easily.
Since you also have a second drive, the burning to dvd can happen later.
They cannot figure out why the planet and sun are such an anomaly (high velocity indicating origin outside of the milky way, no sign of interstellar debris, unusual high activity of the sun)
They argue about landing on the planet, even thought their ships hull gets damaged by an unknown force
In the end they decide not to risk it, and go back to civilisation, and only then are told that their hull must have been damaged by antimatter, that therefore the whole system was made of antimatter, and that they would have died attempting to land
IIRC they never go back to this planet, is there a followup story?
Scientists should hold themselves to a higher standard than the "principle of Epicurus", i.e. accept all hypotheses not yet falsified. They shoud believe whatever the evidence reveals to have the *highest* probability, not just pick their personal favorite theory that hasn't specifically been ruled out yet.
They did that quite extensively. Noone has come up with a really satisfactory Theory Of Everything yet, so it is time to broaden the search.
Whatever the greatness of Penrose's discovery, he threw it all away when he started advocating the quantum gravity theory of uncomputable physics as the basis for creativity. Right or wrong, he's advocating a theory which a) does not have enough evidence to come anywhere close to favoring it over more deserving theories, and b) was chosen so that it would be lots of work to falsify.
You could say that about pretty much every interpretation of quantum theory. Many worlds, Kopenhagen, etc. All pretty much unverifiably with todays methods. All compatible with existing data. All contradicting common sense in their way.
Heck, string theory is much worse in that regard, and still I would not like a world where scientists proposing some variant of string theory are said to have "thrown everything away".
The TFA states that carbon nanotubes would require a 4x increase in strength compared to present-day materials, and that the past 5 years of research have already brought about a 100-fold improvement... sounds to me like many stunning advances have already happened and we're well on track to fully-stunned status.
I thought a millionfold increase in length was also required?
Does not matter how strong they are if you cannot make them long enough.
The cap sounds pretty reasonable, but the warmings and disconnects are weird to say the least.
If you are over your alloted bandwith for a month, would it not be logical to block you for the rest of the month only, or even give you an option to buy more?
The warning and disconnect seems more like a scare tactic, "do not even dare to come close to this limit"
The fear is that the LHC is doing one thing differently - any black holes created in the upper atmosphere would have a velocity approaching that of light, and pass harmlessly through the earth, grabbing a proton or two on the way. At the LHC, it's possible that some of the holes created would have a much lower velocity - less than escape velocity. Those holes wouldn't just leave earth, they'd stick around.
Here is my take on that. Those microscopic black holes due to background radiation would not be generated only on earth. they would be regularly generated on jupiter, the sun, any star, any neutron star. While most would obviously pass trough their host body unhindered, at least some should be captured. Specifically neutron stars, I do not see how a black hole could just pass trough that.
The spectacular im-/explosion resulting from the collapse should be hard to miss, on the scale of a supernova. We never have observed a neutron star collapsing, and we have seen novas only at specific states of a stars developement. No other explosions in our vicinity that could be attributed to large planets either.
So one possible label to replace all these no-liabilty clauses would be: LBLx12: "No guarantees, except those granted by Law" Could even have a nice symbol: [broken wheel inside red circle]
That is easy to understand, no eula could avoid more liability anyway, so regulate businesses to use this label in lieu of any other phrase with identical meaning.
Companies that want to take over more liabilities could use the phrase LBLx13: "No guarantees, except those granted by Law, AND x1, x2, x3"
Since no eula could possibly avoid more liability, rule any EULA that does attempt to claim more as customer deception & fraud
Slashdot Mirror
Knytt_Stories
Peaceful 2d jump&run with great art and level design
review
The bigest difference was that you could only select one unit at a time.
I remember the physical pain caused by ordering a larger group of tanks to attack
"You (click on top of screen) go (click on left of screen) there (click on botton of screen)" x 20 for each move
convex polygons at least have some mathematical properties that make them easier to handle.
For example you can more easily determine wether a given point is inside the polygon or not.
I thought so too.
It should even be possible to use postscript as the storage format for this compressed picture
The only point current slashdot tags have are as a off-hand on-liner, a sort of impromptu poll. The mumbled voice of the masses, if you will.
There is a perceived need for this sort of "quick comment", and the tags serve this need, albeit poorly.
The original purpose of the tags, to allow easier searches, the finding of related stories, etc, would be much better served by a proper search function on slashdot.
Why the hell do we need a "story" tag for example?
Frankly, the idea to search for all stories about microsoft, sco, linux, whatever, by using manually added tags instead of simply searching the text of the stories for these words seems quite stupid.
Local peer Discovery works only within a lan, the corresponding broadcast messages are not routed over the internet
I would guess because of public key cryptography. If these bots were made smartly, they will only accept signed commands, so you need the private key.
I guess that at least some of the domain names are already taken.
Now each of these could have been parked by the spammers to prepare for this situation, or they could belong to someone innocent.
How do you decide which it is?
Forget the background, how did they add so much sharpness to the blurry original?
Is it actually possible to get such a big improvement, or is the left picture just a blurry reproduction of a sharper original?
If there is a tool that can do that, I'd have some pics myself I would want to touch up.
[[citation needed]]
Being unable to call for help if something goes wrong sounds like a major danger, no way nasa would do this.
Aren't most linux distros able to run 32 bit software on a 64 bit platform? IIRC that this was possible on ubuntu, so the libs should already be there
Why don't they anyway?
Given that many if not most users will want to install some plugins, installing a 32-bit browser by default would seem logical.
The browser would only have 2 gb address space, and it could not make use of new 64-bit registers or processor extensions.
Both seem like a very minor disadvantage for a browser, especially compared to being able to run 32 bit precompiled plugins.
Is this just one of these ideological things where the actual advantages for the user are disregarded?
Just boot from a liveCD, then clone the drive?
That would make sure that your clone is consistent, and since you cannot continue working with the pc while the cloning is in progress (that would certainly make it inconsistent), there is not much disadvantage in rebooting.
If you want to get fancy, install a second OS, and make a script that upon booting that OS automatically clones the first OS and then reboots. Any linux can do this easily.
Since you also have a second drive, the burning to dvd can happen later.
looks good, thanks!
"market prices" on the answers I saw seem quite higher than the old google answers thought.
Google Answers was tremendously useful thought IMO.
I never understood why they closed it.
It was far better than comparable services are even now (yahoo answers, expertSexChange)
-Spoiler-
I remember the story differently:
They cannot figure out why the planet and sun are such an anomaly
(high velocity indicating origin outside of the milky way, no sign of interstellar debris, unusual high activity of the sun)
They argue about landing on the planet, even thought their ships hull gets damaged by an unknown force
In the end they decide not to risk it, and go back to civilisation, and only then are told that their hull must have been damaged by antimatter, that therefore the whole system was made of antimatter, and that they would have died attempting to land
IIRC they never go back to this planet, is there a followup story?
Not to mention it will make you look like TRON:
http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/robotsuithal/index.html
What's not to like?
Scientists should hold themselves to a higher standard than the "principle of Epicurus", i.e. accept all hypotheses not yet falsified. They shoud believe whatever the evidence reveals to have the *highest* probability, not just pick their personal favorite theory that hasn't specifically been ruled out yet.
They did that quite extensively. Noone has come up with a really satisfactory Theory Of Everything yet, so it is time to broaden the search.
Whatever the greatness of Penrose's discovery, he threw it all away when he started advocating the quantum gravity theory of uncomputable physics as the basis for creativity. Right or wrong, he's advocating a theory which a) does not have enough evidence to come anywhere close to favoring it over more deserving theories, and b) was chosen so that it would be lots of work to falsify.
You could say that about pretty much every interpretation of quantum theory. Many worlds, Kopenhagen, etc. All pretty much unverifiably with todays methods. All compatible with existing data. All contradicting common sense in their way.
Heck, string theory is much worse in that regard, and still I would not like a world where scientists proposing some variant of string theory are said to have "thrown everything away".
I thought a millionfold increase in length was also required?
Does not matter how strong they are if you cannot make them long enough.
The cap sounds pretty reasonable, but the warmings and disconnects are weird to say the least.
If you are over your alloted bandwith for a month, would it not be logical to block you for the rest of the month only, or even give you an option to buy more?
The warning and disconnect seems more like a scare tactic, "do not even dare to come close to this limit"
10KW of electricity produce 7KW of heat
What happens to the 3KW left?
All em radiation?
That trick has long since stopped working. All these subscription sites with fake google result have switched to detecting the googlebot by IP.
the doomsayers can by definition only be right once
I do not think we have to worry about several dooms in a row.
Here is my take on that. Those microscopic black holes due to background radiation would not be generated only on earth. they would be regularly generated on jupiter, the sun, any star, any neutron star. While most would obviously pass trough their host body unhindered, at least some should be captured. Specifically neutron stars, I do not see how a black hole could just pass trough that.
The spectacular im-/explosion resulting from the collapse should be hard to miss, on the scale of a supernova.
We never have observed a neutron star collapsing, and we have seen novas only at specific states of a stars developement. No other explosions in our vicinity that could be attributed to large planets either.
So one possible label to replace all these no-liabilty clauses would be:
LBLx12: "No guarantees, except those granted by Law"
Could even have a nice symbol: [broken wheel inside red circle]
That is easy to understand, no eula could avoid more liability anyway, so regulate businesses to use this label in lieu of any other phrase with identical meaning.
Companies that want to take over more liabilities could use the phrase
LBLx13: "No guarantees, except those granted by Law, AND x1, x2, x3"
Since no eula could possibly avoid more liability, rule any EULA that does attempt to claim more as customer deception & fraud