I think it was because of Deities and Demigods that I read Moorcock and Lovecraft.
I remember that Erik Mona published in Dragon a couple of years ago a list of words that he learned because of D&D. It was a huge list.
How many products can you point back to and say they taught you most of your vocabulary? For some words, I have no clue where I learned them...but I have fond memories of my mom being happy that I was using words like Charisma, dexterity, constitution, etc. It has influenced my life profoundly. Gary, Thank you. Thank you.
March 4th, or DM's Day...very fitting for the original DM.
I picked up Deities and Demigods when I was in the 3rd grade or 27 years ago. I wasn't a reader until then. It got me hooked on reading specifically Fantasy and Science Fiction. The undertones of math in D&D probably helped too.
Basically Gary, thank you for influencing me for 27 years and going. I probably would be as smart, but you opened worlds to me.
What people say and what they actually do are often vastly different things.
My favorite 'what people say vs what they do' involves the classic beer drinking in village where anthropologist survey what the people say they drink and then look at the city dump...
every time the city dump has more beer than the survey says it should....
Change their behavior? come on...these are teenagers...they'll just look for another way...say a friends computer or a shared computer. I'm willing to bet that it is = to a gambling urge and the moment something that the want comes out that they can't get any other way but by downloading...they will download. And they should.
If you want to get paid for your stuff, you better make sure all those that would pay for it legally have the option to...
case in point...regions on dvds. If say a blockbuster movie was released in DVD in the US but not in, say, ASIA...do you really think everyone of that 70% (that wanted it) will wait for it to be released?
The media groups need to embrace 'online'. They need to release product 'online'. They need to market it 'online'. They need to get everyone so hooked on getting their information 'online' that people 'offline' are looked at as pathetic. Then the media groups can release to the world...launch Ad campaigns to the world...and never have to worry about this region stuff again!
Staying awake with the kids is my number one issue....basically I have to stay awake longer than them and basically get up with them.
Of course there are activities that I want to do that I can't when the kids are awake...so I end up staying awake longer just to do them....heck...last night I stayed up to watch the first volume of Death Note on DVD. I can't exactly let my 7 or 4 year olds see something that is rated for >=14yr olds.
This is a prototype, sails have had millennia to develop. Presumably efficency will increase
that and this tech is less manpower intensive than sails.
I could see robots doing this in the future. If the ship has trouble (or is attacked), it could take pictures/video powered by solar panels and beam them via satellite for rescue or Interpol.
There are fees associated with maintaining patents (due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years), and failure to pay them on schedule results in cancellation of the patent.
What would be nice is increasing the fees at an exponential rate, so yeah you can keep that patent but it had better be bringing in the dough...
offtopic a bit> I just watched the NOVA Ape Genius and one of the things it mentions that we, as humans, differ from Chimps is the ability to teach others...to pass on our knowledge. Wouldn't it be nice if patents were changed so that there was an end date (in my lifetime?) a date that meant the knowledge had to be passed...
I'm sure there are extreme cases in which a person's genetics plays a major role.
I'm a mild case for genetics. My grandfather committed suicide, my dad & mom are in prison, and I've been on anti-depressants off/on since the I was in middle school.
Back in middle school I couldn't sleep. I'd toss and turn and never sleep well*. They put me on antidepressants and I finally slept. (something that has not changed since even when I stopped taking them - I think it trained my brain to sleep) I went from being a B/C student to straight As. I was put into honor classes. My life turned around.
And then I grew a bit and my brain chemistry changed and the drugs no longer worked. I dropped out of high school.
Then as an adult the drugs had advanced and I started taking again. I've accomplished more while under drugs, but I haven't achieved the highs points as when I was off them. My creativity is constrained.
I think about suicide often, but I dismiss it just like my dad does. We don't want to end like my grand father. It doesn't stop the feelings or desire, but dying is the last thing I want to do;)
I'm not sure I'd want to stop these feelings. Control them yes, but they do give me a kind of strength, a kind of understanding. I wouldn't want to lose them. I just don't want to suffer because of them.
*side note about my dad and sleep. He only slept 4 hours. He'd work as a lawyer in the morning, build pcs in the afternoon, sleep for 4 hours, and then work on mainframes at NASA (Clear Lake, TX) through the night.
About the only information I got was this... We will be announcing pricing and subscription details at the D&D Experience convention in two weeks.
So far I've been unimpressed with their stewardship of Dragon and Dungeon...but they are free now, so I can't complain too much....except that I was getting more gaming material when Dragon and Dungeon were produced by Paizo.....heck the WotC site was publishing more material when Paizo was running Dragon & Dungeon...
Of course I'm willing to bet their pricing for D&D Insider will be nice at first....and then like Comcast, WotC will raise their rates....or maybe we can expect WotC to make D&D more CCG...and we'll be addicted to paying them more...
whatever...color me underwhelmed by their response too...
However, I got tired of seeing fiction that tried to make me believe things that could not be true due to the laws of physics, or due to other aspects of reality.
and how do you know that? Oh somethings are obvious, but I take pleasure in imagining how something could work....give your brain a work out and don't be negative...think of how it could work...not how it doesn't!
Those are the people that make it practical...such as waterbeds...Heinlein conceived the idea in fiction...and it became fact.
The fault of this lies completely in the hands of the parents.
Frontline recently airid an episode called Growing up Online. I'm not sure parents are in control any more at least when it comes to the Internet.
I'm pretty sure I, as a techie, could monitor my kid if I wanted to...but if they knew, as the episode points out, they'll just go to someone's else's house or a library, or an internet cafe to surf, post, & chat.
I think about the best a parent can do today is guide their children....good luck guiding a teenager too as they'll most likely not interpret your guidance in the way you desire.
On the plus side, the DOJ did a study, which Frontline talks about in the Growing Up Online, that kids don't fall for predators normally. That the vast majority of cases where a child has been lured online, the kid knew what s/he was getting into or the age difference between the two was small (the classic 2 year stuff.)
Good answers. I like your answer for the common cold...though images of a tiny predator that's been around for a hundred million years going after STDs is a bit scary...not as much as a STD...but scary.
An artificial womb for all species and a way to preserve all species (the Ark concept)
A way to quickly learn a subject similar to CJ Cherryh's Tape technology used in the Union (see Cyteen). (I'm sure the/. crowd would like female Azi from that universe too)
The replimat as found in the Star Trek universe. I want good meals, not some microwave junk, and I want good tools that are disposable...i.e. the ultimate 3d printer...so good you can eat or use the product.
I want to be able to share memories and emotions with others. Similar to
SF author Paul Melko told SCI FI Wire that his novel Singularity's Ring postulates a future Earth in which computers and networks are not the technological basis of human society.
"Humanity has been genetically altered to form pods--groups of two, three, four or five humans--which can share emotions and thoughts chemically," Melko said in an interview. "These pods now govern a desolate Earth that has been vacated by the technologically advanced entity called the Community," he said. "The main character is a quintet named Apollo, created to pilot a starship in search of what happened to the Community."
I think its creation was a mistake and its continued existence a money-sucking waste of resources.
I think its creation in certain sectors was seen as a corporate merger...in other words, a way to lay people off without getting in trouble for it (in this case politically.)
Give it a few more years and we'll break it apart again....for the same reasons as above.....its all about the reorg.
If they fix something by doing it...well accidents happen...
Slashdot Mirror
You can in Texas...if you switch parties.
I switched last night.
Apparently the funeral will be closed to family and friends, but if anyone finds out where to send flowers, please post on Slashdot.
Gary shaped geek culture and he changed my life.
I'd love to see a tribute to rival stars given to him.
Flowers are always fitting, but I also wonder if it would be fitting for him to send a D20.
of 4th edition.
Nah, he just wanted to go out on His Day. Today is DM's Day!
I think it was because of Deities and Demigods that I read Moorcock and Lovecraft.
I remember that Erik Mona published in Dragon a couple of years ago a list of words that he learned because of D&D. It was a huge list.
How many products can you point back to and say they taught you most of your vocabulary? For some words, I have no clue where I learned them...but I have fond memories of my mom being happy that I was using words like Charisma, dexterity, constitution, etc. It has influenced my life profoundly. Gary, Thank you. Thank you.
March 4th, or DM's Day...very fitting for the original DM.
I picked up Deities and Demigods when I was in the 3rd grade or 27 years ago. I wasn't a reader until then. It got me hooked on reading specifically Fantasy and Science Fiction. The undertones of math in D&D probably helped too.
Basically Gary, thank you for influencing me for 27 years and going. I probably would be as smart, but you opened worlds to me.
What people say and what they actually do are often vastly different things.
My favorite 'what people say vs what they do' involves the classic beer drinking in village where anthropologist survey what the people say they drink and then look at the city dump...
every time the city dump has more beer than the survey says it should....
Beer...proof that god loves us...
I wish I could mod at this moment...but I posted instead.
Thanks for pointing it out. I love pointing that fact out...that and I like pointing people to upside down world maps
Since North and South are arbitrary, I always like seeing other countries on top...
humbling
Change their behavior? come on...these are teenagers...they'll just look for another way...say a friends computer or a shared computer. I'm willing to bet that it is = to a gambling urge and the moment something that the want comes out that they can't get any other way but by downloading...they will download. And they should.
If you want to get paid for your stuff, you better make sure all those that would pay for it legally have the option to...
case in point...regions on dvds. If say a blockbuster movie was released in DVD in the US but not in, say, ASIA...do you really think everyone of that 70% (that wanted it) will wait for it to be released?
The media groups need to embrace 'online'. They need to release product 'online'. They need to market it 'online'. They need to get everyone so hooked on getting their information 'online' that people 'offline' are looked at as pathetic. Then the media groups can release to the world...launch Ad campaigns to the world...and never have to worry about this region stuff again!
Staying awake with the kids is my number one issue....basically I have to stay awake longer than them and basically get up with them.
Of course there are activities that I want to do that I can't when the kids are awake...so I end up staying awake longer just to do them....heck...last night I stayed up to watch the first volume of Death Note on DVD. I can't exactly let my 7 or 4 year olds see something that is rated for >=14yr olds.
Wash, rise, repeat....= lack of sleep.
This is a prototype, sails have had millennia to develop. Presumably efficency will increase
that and this tech is less manpower intensive than sails.
I could see robots doing this in the future. If the ship has trouble (or is attacked), it could take pictures/video powered by solar panels and beam them via satellite for rescue or Interpol.
There are fees associated with maintaining patents (due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years), and failure to pay them on schedule results in cancellation of the patent.
What would be nice is increasing the fees at an exponential rate, so yeah you can keep that patent but it had better be bringing in the dough...
offtopic a bit> I just watched the NOVA Ape Genius and one of the things it mentions that we, as humans, differ from Chimps is the ability to teach others...to pass on our knowledge. Wouldn't it be nice if patents were changed so that there was an end date (in my lifetime?) a date that meant the knowledge had to be passed...
It might be interesting to collect a list of examples of this sort of blocking
I bought a t-shirt years ago from PeaceFire.org It had a list of sites mistakely banned at one time or another...
the list was things like the republican & democrat websites..
the vatican
breast cancer survivors (as mentioned)
etc...
It was a cool t-shirt to wear...I loved all the people in Washington DC asking me about it when I wore it there.
I'm sure there are extreme cases in which a person's genetics plays a major role.
;)
I'm a mild case for genetics. My grandfather committed suicide, my dad & mom are in prison, and I've been on anti-depressants off/on since the I was in middle school.
Back in middle school I couldn't sleep. I'd toss and turn and never sleep well*. They put me on antidepressants and I finally slept. (something that has not changed since even when I stopped taking them - I think it trained my brain to sleep) I went from being a B/C student to straight As. I was put into honor classes. My life turned around.
And then I grew a bit and my brain chemistry changed and the drugs no longer worked. I dropped out of high school.
Then as an adult the drugs had advanced and I started taking again. I've accomplished more while under drugs, but I haven't achieved the highs points as when I was off them. My creativity is constrained.
I think about suicide often, but I dismiss it just like my dad does. We don't want to end like my grand father. It doesn't stop the feelings or desire, but dying is the last thing I want to do
I'm not sure I'd want to stop these feelings. Control them yes, but they do give me a kind of strength, a kind of understanding. I wouldn't want to lose them. I just don't want to suffer because of them.
*side note about my dad and sleep. He only slept 4 hours. He'd work as a lawyer in the morning, build pcs in the afternoon, sleep for 4 hours, and then work on mainframes at NASA (Clear Lake, TX) through the night.
The unfortunate truth about vulnerabilities is that those who report them are rarely rewarded, often interrogated, and occasionally imprisoned.
That is because the person reporting the vulnerability is a troublemaker...going against the herd.
Every society honors the live conformist and the dead troublemaker.
About the only information I got was this...
We will be announcing pricing and subscription details at the D&D Experience convention in two weeks.
So far I've been unimpressed with their stewardship of Dragon and Dungeon...but they are free now, so I can't complain too much....except that I was getting more gaming material when Dragon and Dungeon were produced by Paizo.....heck the WotC site was publishing more material when Paizo was running Dragon & Dungeon...
Of course I'm willing to bet their pricing for D&D Insider will be nice at first....and then like Comcast, WotC will raise their rates....or maybe we can expect WotC to make D&D more CCG...and we'll be addicted to paying them more...
whatever...color me underwhelmed by their response too...
They can be grown on any substrate, including hair
Then my back is gonna run the whole house!
Nah...balding men are going to have artificial hair plugs that power their pace makers.
However, I got tired of seeing fiction that tried to make me believe things that could not be true due to the laws of physics, or due to other aspects of reality.
and how do you know that? Oh somethings are obvious, but I take pleasure in imagining how something could work....give your brain a work out and don't be negative...think of how it could work...not how it doesn't!
Those are the people that make it practical...such as waterbeds...Heinlein conceived the idea in fiction...and it became fact.
Plenty of other examples...
The fault of this lies completely in the hands of the parents.
Frontline recently airid an episode called Growing up Online. I'm not sure parents are in control any more at least when it comes to the Internet.
I'm pretty sure I, as a techie, could monitor my kid if I wanted to...but if they knew, as the episode points out, they'll just go to someone's else's house or a library, or an internet cafe to surf, post, & chat.
I think about the best a parent can do today is guide their children....good luck guiding a teenager too as they'll most likely not interpret your guidance in the way you desire.
On the plus side, the DOJ did a study, which Frontline talks about in the Growing Up Online, that kids don't fall for predators normally. That the vast majority of cases where a child has been lured online, the kid knew what s/he was getting into or the age difference between the two was small (the classic 2 year stuff.)
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers"
What kind of Techs run that ISP? Have they never watched Star Wars?
Think of it as the difference between a politician and a serial killer.
yeah, that Dexter is charming....I'd vote for him.
I'm a techie and I would love to switch to Ubuntu.
So far my major issue on making the switch is a media server. I have Dlink DSM-520s and they connect into my computer to play my media files. I tried Linuxmce and like normal from Linux installations ran into driver issues. I've avoided Mythtv because of all the horror stories I've heard with installs.
Still I'd love to make the switch to Ubuntu...but if I can't easily make the switch, how is Joe average computer guy going to make it?
I'm debating my options at the moment.
I get my cable and my internet through Comcast. My phone is Vonage, so it goes over the Comcast line.
I live in League City, Tx and I'm not sure what I am going to do for service.
I can switch to a dish for cable, but I don't like the options I have for internet. DSL? not very fast or good for my Vonage.
For the moment, no changes in my price have occurred, but when they do, I'll switch.
The sad part is I don't even watch cable tv. I get it for the kids.
Care to answer my wish list?
Colonization of other planets (Venus and Mars)
A space solar panel collection system, a basic Dyson Sphere
A space elevator
An artificial womb for all species and a way to preserve all species (the Ark concept)
A way to quickly learn a subject similar to CJ Cherryh's Tape technology used in the Union (see Cyteen). (I'm sure the
The replimat as found in the Star Trek universe. I want good meals, not some microwave junk, and I want good tools that are disposable...i.e. the ultimate 3d printer...so good you can eat or use the product.
I want to be able to share memories and emotions with others. Similar to
I think its creation was a mistake and its continued existence a money-sucking waste of resources.
I think its creation in certain sectors was seen as a corporate merger...in other words, a way to lay people off without getting in trouble for it (in this case politically.)
Give it a few more years and we'll break it apart again....for the same reasons as above.....its all about the reorg.
If they fix something by doing it...well accidents happen...
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed...
cause the answer to question one sounded an awful lot like he was going to gut government space programs to help private sector space programs...