Nah. It'd just remind us how much better sex with real people is - give me the flabby bodies, stretch marks, zits and bad morning hair of the real world over the bland, generic perfection of a digital Realdoll any day.
This scheme would unfortunately destroy an important indicator of technical prowess, because NOBODY'S VCR would ever flash "12:00" again. How could you more easily discern whether aunt Mabel/uncle Frank is scared of anything more electronic than a toaster, except by a quick peek at the VCR?
Youe references to "wal-mart shoppers" betray a belief that "the great unwashed" with their pathetic small televisions don't "deserve" to watch this DVD. Speaking as somebody with a moderately sized television, pan & scan does alter the original cinematography, but the increased image size makes up for it in everything but close-up shots. At any rate, I don't see why a single DVD shouldn't offer both, except that maybe they think if I get a bigger TV, I'll buy their DVD again... yeah right!
From my brief stint in the Canadian Army Reserve, I can say that this doesn't apply universally to army food. Canadian IMP's (individual meal packs) are pretty yummy. Even the mac & cheese, which for some reason tends to be a "breakfast", is more edible than KD, and things like the beef stew, chicken a la king, etc. are great! The extras vary widely in quality, from the appalling instant coffee, to the downright weird but quite edible "petit pain" (bread, that's the French label) which we figured would last forever if not opened.
Maybe it's spyware. Maybe it "phones home" to _them_ with all your web use stats, and e-mail addresses on your system, all the while supposedly "protecting" you. PC Phone Home, indeed...
There's an A10 Warthog in the background, but the other flying vehicle appears to be an "Orca" VTOL from "Command & Conquer". I suspect somebody's been taking extended breaks in the lab...
Considering the likely level of sophistication of battlefield robotics in the next few decades (ie. ROV tanks and other vehicles, small recon buggies etc.), there will still be a need for specialized and "discreet" soldiers like the Green Berets & SEALs. These are after all, men (so far, men) who are more deadly with only a kabar knife and a loincloth than most people would be with a rocket launcher, and are trained to penetrate far behind enemy lines. Automate *that*! Even the "Terminators" lacked... any subtlety whatsoever:-)
Creative accounting to cheat an author out of any money from the movie based on their book?! I'm sorry, but what separates that kind of behaviour from swindling retirees out of their pensions? Nothing, in terms of morality. Pirate "Forrest Gump", and distribute copies to all your friends! Why not - you're only stealing from thieves and con artists, not the original content creator. Buy a copy of the novel to go with your VHS tape dub or DIVX copy, if you really want to help "level the scales"!
Speaking as a molecular biologist, this just isn't true. Taxonomy isn't just "looking at" organisms and "trying" to classify them. It's a skilled and unfortunately dwindling special area of biology which is essential for characterizing the evolutionary relationships between living things. Molecular techniques are one part of a good taxonomist's toolkit, but certainly not the last word. For instance, how do you classify extinct organisms based on fossils? "Fossil DNA" is usually, to be blunt, in shitty condition, fragmented and rare. For existing organisms, gene sequences and physical traits complement each other as classification mechanisms.
I hate to break it to you, but I doubt most students outside of IT and engineering have even heard of "free software". I don't think my housemates in biology/ecology/geography have ever heard of Linux, and they certainly wouldn't run it (Windoze works _fine_ for them). At any rate, I hope everyone uses GPL software someday (I don't... yet) but I think that students have yet to try it en masse.
The "Magic School Bus" game (or Spelling Bears or whatever is cool these days) doesn't teach you anything that goes directly against what you're being told elsewhere. Your teachers say "Be nice. Share." Your parents say "Don't hurt other people" (if you have nice parents). If you go against that because of something you saw _in a freaking VIDEO GAME_ (or on TV, or whatever), it's likely that you're messed up in the head in ways that make hurting others more or less inevitable - wheither you play video games or not.
Oh, so if I use sensible (& nonviolent) countermeasures to protect myself from police intent on denying my right to peaceful assembly, I'm a "hooligan"? I don't think so. The police are rapidly becoming the shock troops for a corporate-plutocratic society, just like they used to be the shock troops for an apartheid one in the American south. They'll continue to develop technological means of denying your civil rights, just like they used fire hoses and dogs on marching African-Americans back in the dark days of the civil rights movement. We can't take that "lying down" (or sitting on our asses in slippery goo as the case may be).
Great minds think alike... that was the *first* thing I thought when I saw the pics. To be fair, stuffed animals are required by law to be (to a certain extent) fire-resistant. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have the thing in my house. For the record, I voted for "sick" and "cool". Cool because, fire hazard or no, it's cool. Sick because the cables come out of its paws.
The thesis has been done for over a year. Since it was a M.Sc. thesis I used science journal style references (Smith et al., 1999) and an alphabetically-by-author listed literature cited section. Not a challenge, really. The worst thing about Word was its insistence on "autoformatting" my section headings, invariably the wrong way.
BTW, I don't know what print nazi school you were thinking of, but at mine nobody needed a "professional printing service" to produce a properly formatted thesis. That's why we have "desktop publishing", anybody with a computer more advanced than a Mac Classic can produce a thesis that's perfectly acceptable at Queen's. Good thing too, with tuition there, that's about all you can afford;-)
I can only imagine these things, lots of fun, until somebody loses an eye. At least when Mabel from HR walks into one of these things and needs facial surgery, she'll sue your employer and not you.
I bought Office 97 with a student license a few years ago, for $99 CDN. It came with *no* documentation, only a CD and an MS "certificate of authenticity". If it had not been available for that price, I simply would have sought it illegally, because on a grad student's stipend, $399 is not an option, period. Sadly, the student licenses mysteriously disappeared shortly thereafter - the campus IT store said "MS stopped offering them, it was a marketing trial".
Wordpad, while functional for ordinary student reports, really isn't up to the task of producing a professional quality M.Sc. thesis, with tables and figures. MS Works should be the basis of a false advertising suit, because it doesn't:-) Well, ok, it works, but in my limited experience it's surprisingly incompatible with Office (which was used in my lab)!
I don't think Counterstrike is really representative of all online gaming. If it was, every flat surface in EQ would be covered in pornographic spray logos.
Don't be a MUD snob. I know it's difficult, we are all snobs about something, but it's not a 13 year old's fault if they haven't played some ancient text game that you liked so much. Hell, I've never played a MUD (I'm 27yo), though I've heard some were *great*. But they weren't necessarily good because they didn't rely on graphics. They were good, because like some cutting edge 3D games, they were designed and coded with care and concern for gameplay.
Am I going to have to change to the Sony-owned radio channel to hear the latest music???
See, that's the problem. If the major labels and "content providers" (scroo you, a song is art, not "content". Even Britney is _bad_ art, the musical equivalent of "Dogs Playing Poker" painted on velvet, but not "content") run the whole show, then you won't be able to hear anything that they're not trying to pump at the moment. You really will be stuck listening to the Latest Music, whatever's hot for the next 10 minutes. In the night of your tortured soul, you'll go looking for Nick Cave, but all you'll find will be Creed...
So by extension, if this device gives the equivalent of wall-socket power, you should be able to recharge the battery while you work (like plugging in your laptop and working), thus obviating the "this wastes 1/5 of your time" argument posted several times above. After all, if N minutes of pedaling gives you 4N minutes of charge, then the battery is charging faster than it's draining, right?
I'm not sure why they bothered to extend their predictions past 2040 then...
Also, no mention of a space elevator. Kind of odd, considering some of the wild claims made about AI and nanotechnology. I suspect we'll be able to build a "skyhook" before any AI's are getting their PhD's...
"Pr0n software for the Apple ]["???
on
Harddrive Speakers
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Wow, I can only imagine how arousing THAT must have been...
*monochrome green naked woman, or possibly a tree sloth, it's hard to tell, moves across the screen at 4 fps*
Ok, this was one of _the_ most intelligent things I've ever read on Slashdot. The mark of a True Hacker, who is probably only posting as an AC to disguise his or her well-known and notorious Real Name.
I also believe War is perpetrated on The People by a powerful elite (in every nation-state).
Bang on! There's an old socialist saying about war: "a gun is a stick with a worker at each end". And the US"S"R no more served the worker than the US did, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Would that ruin sex with normal people?
Nah. It'd just remind us how much better sex with real people is - give me the flabby bodies, stretch marks, zits and bad morning hair of the real world over the bland, generic perfection of a digital Realdoll any day.
This scheme would unfortunately destroy an important indicator of technical prowess, because NOBODY'S VCR would ever flash "12:00" again. How could you more easily discern whether aunt Mabel/uncle Frank is scared of anything more electronic than a toaster, except by a quick peek at the VCR?
Youe references to "wal-mart shoppers" betray a belief that "the great unwashed" with their pathetic small televisions don't "deserve" to watch this DVD. Speaking as somebody with a moderately sized television, pan & scan does alter the original cinematography, but the increased image size makes up for it in everything but close-up shots. At any rate, I don't see why a single DVD shouldn't offer both, except that maybe they think if I get a bigger TV, I'll buy their DVD again... yeah right!
From my brief stint in the Canadian Army Reserve, I can say that this doesn't apply universally to army food. Canadian IMP's (individual meal packs) are pretty yummy. Even the mac & cheese, which for some reason tends to be a "breakfast", is more edible than KD, and things like the beef stew, chicken a la king, etc. are great! The extras vary widely in quality, from the appalling instant coffee, to the downright weird but quite edible "petit pain" (bread, that's the French label) which we figured would last forever if not opened.
Maybe it's spyware. Maybe it "phones home" to _them_ with all your web use stats, and e-mail addresses on your system, all the while supposedly "protecting" you. PC Phone Home, indeed...
There's an A10 Warthog in the background, but the other flying vehicle appears to be an "Orca" VTOL from "Command & Conquer". I suspect somebody's been taking extended breaks in the lab...
Considering the likely level of sophistication of battlefield robotics in the next few decades (ie. ROV tanks and other vehicles, small recon buggies etc.), there will still be a need for specialized and "discreet" soldiers like the Green Berets & SEALs. These are after all, men (so far, men) who are more deadly with only a kabar knife and a loincloth than most people would be with a rocket launcher, and are trained to penetrate far behind enemy lines. Automate *that*! Even the "Terminators" lacked... any subtlety whatsoever :-)
Creative accounting to cheat an author out of any money from the movie based on their book?! I'm sorry, but what separates that kind of behaviour from swindling retirees out of their pensions? Nothing, in terms of morality. Pirate "Forrest Gump", and distribute copies to all your friends! Why not - you're only stealing from thieves and con artists, not the original content creator. Buy a copy of the novel to go with your VHS tape dub or DIVX copy, if you really want to help "level the scales"!
Speaking as a molecular biologist, this just isn't true. Taxonomy isn't just "looking at" organisms and "trying" to classify them. It's a skilled and unfortunately dwindling special area of biology which is essential for characterizing the evolutionary relationships between living things. Molecular techniques are one part of a good taxonomist's toolkit, but certainly not the last word. For instance, how do you classify extinct organisms based on fossils? "Fossil DNA" is usually, to be blunt, in shitty condition, fragmented and rare. For existing organisms, gene sequences and physical traits complement each other as classification mechanisms.
I hate to break it to you, but I doubt most students outside of IT and engineering have even heard of "free software". I don't think my housemates in biology/ecology/geography have ever heard of Linux, and they certainly wouldn't run it (Windoze works _fine_ for them). At any rate, I hope everyone uses GPL software someday (I don't... yet) but I think that students have yet to try it en masse.
The "Magic School Bus" game (or Spelling Bears or whatever is cool these days) doesn't teach you anything that goes directly against what you're being told elsewhere. Your teachers say "Be nice. Share." Your parents say "Don't hurt other people" (if you have nice parents). If you go against that because of something you saw _in a freaking VIDEO GAME_ (or on TV, or whatever), it's likely that you're messed up in the head in ways that make hurting others more or less inevitable - wheither you play video games or not.
Oh, so if I use sensible (& nonviolent) countermeasures to protect myself from police intent on denying my right to peaceful assembly, I'm a "hooligan"? I don't think so. The police are rapidly becoming the shock troops for a corporate-plutocratic society, just like they used to be the shock troops for an apartheid one in the American south. They'll continue to develop technological means of denying your civil rights, just like they used fire hoses and dogs on marching African-Americans back in the dark days of the civil rights movement. We can't take that "lying down" (or sitting on our asses in slippery goo as the case may be).
Great minds think alike... that was the *first* thing I thought when I saw the pics. To be fair, stuffed animals are required by law to be (to a certain extent) fire-resistant. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have the thing in my house. For the record, I voted for "sick" and "cool". Cool because, fire hazard or no, it's cool. Sick because the cables come out of its paws.
It'd have better acting than the original too!
The thesis has been done for over a year. Since it was a M.Sc. thesis I used science journal style references (Smith et al., 1999) and an alphabetically-by-author listed literature cited section. Not a challenge, really. The worst thing about Word was its insistence on "autoformatting" my section headings, invariably the wrong way.
;-)
BTW, I don't know what print nazi school you were thinking of, but at mine nobody needed a "professional printing service" to produce a properly formatted thesis. That's why we have "desktop publishing", anybody with a computer more advanced than a Mac Classic can produce a thesis that's perfectly acceptable at Queen's. Good thing too, with tuition there, that's about all you can afford
I can only imagine these things, lots of fun, until somebody loses an eye. At least when Mabel from HR walks into one of these things and needs facial surgery, she'll sue your employer and not you.
I bought Office 97 with a student license a few years ago, for $99 CDN. It came with *no* documentation, only a CD and an MS "certificate of authenticity". If it had not been available for that price, I simply would have sought it illegally, because on a grad student's stipend, $399 is not an option, period. Sadly, the student licenses mysteriously disappeared shortly thereafter - the campus IT store said "MS stopped offering them, it was a marketing trial".
:-) Well, ok, it works, but in my limited experience it's surprisingly incompatible with Office (which was used in my lab)!
Wordpad, while functional for ordinary student reports, really isn't up to the task of producing a professional quality M.Sc. thesis, with tables and figures. MS Works should be the basis of a false advertising suit, because it doesn't
I don't think Counterstrike is really representative of all online gaming. If it was, every flat surface in EQ would be covered in pornographic spray logos.
Don't be a MUD snob. I know it's difficult, we are all snobs about something, but it's not a 13 year old's fault if they haven't played some ancient text game that you liked so much. Hell, I've never played a MUD (I'm 27yo), though I've heard some were *great*. But they weren't necessarily good because they didn't rely on graphics. They were good, because like some cutting edge 3D games, they were designed and coded with care and concern for gameplay.
Am I going to have to change to the Sony-owned radio channel to hear the latest music???
See, that's the problem. If the major labels and "content providers" (scroo you, a song is art, not "content". Even Britney is _bad_ art, the musical equivalent of "Dogs Playing Poker" painted on velvet, but not "content") run the whole show, then you won't be able to hear anything that they're not trying to pump at the moment. You really will be stuck listening to the Latest Music, whatever's hot for the next 10 minutes. In the night of your tortured soul, you'll go looking for Nick Cave, but all you'll find will be Creed...
So by extension, if this device gives the equivalent of wall-socket power, you should be able to recharge the battery while you work (like plugging in your laptop and working), thus obviating the "this wastes 1/5 of your time" argument posted several times above. After all, if N minutes of pedaling gives you 4N minutes of charge, then the battery is charging faster than it's draining, right?
I'm not sure why they bothered to extend their predictions past 2040 then...
Also, no mention of a space elevator. Kind of odd, considering some of the wild claims made about AI and nanotechnology. I suspect we'll be able to build a "skyhook" before any AI's are getting their PhD's...
Wow, I can only imagine how arousing THAT must have been...
*monochrome green naked woman, or possibly a tree sloth, it's hard to tell, moves across the screen at 4 fps*
"GRONK GRONK GRONK"
I'm getting all tingly just thinking about it.
Ok, this was one of _the_ most intelligent things I've ever read on Slashdot. The mark of a True Hacker, who is probably only posting as an AC to disguise his or her well-known and notorious Real Name.
Bang on! There's an old socialist saying about war: "a gun is a stick with a worker at each end". And the US"S"R no more served the worker than the US did, of course.