I can't help but think that this must be some sort of mistake. Maybe this is some guy who found Richard Clarke's ID card, and is claiming to be Richard Clarke. Or maybe Richard Clarke had a brain hemmorhage last week, and doesn't know it. I mean, really. Don't you exect the BSA lobbyists to be on the phone to Dub telling him to reign in that "loose cannon"? (Just like the drug companies did for Clinton's Surgeon General when she had the gall to say that maybe we ought to look into legalizing Marijuana for medical use).
. . . and if they'd offer 56k DSL, for $15/mo. No web hosting, (though I can run my own webserver), no email, (though I can run my own sendmail server), no blocked ports, always on, I'd frickin JUMP on it.
I'm not a high-bandwidth user, but I'd fucking gouge my eyes out if I had to go back to dialup, with all that flaky modem crap. (waiting for the modem to try to dial, having a dedicated line, hoping the modem doesn't drop the connection, hoping that the dialup software doesn't hang, etc). Sure, every once and a while, 384k is nice - but do I really NEED it all the time? Do I need to be paying $49/mo for bandwidth I only need maybe one night a month? The rest of the time, I'm just doing casual surfing and email. I'm not spewing MP3's or anything - I'm not downloading ISO's - so I don't really need that much bandwidth. But I sure do like all of DSL's other qualities. It's just gotten so damn expensive. It started out $29/mo.
This IS a good thing, as long as they don't gouge the fuck out of us - their previous stance was: cap and limit DSL to try to browbeat "power users" into a $600/mo. T1.
That's fucking outrageous for someone who just wants to run a small webserver or do a little P2P, or their own sendmail server.
This is much more fair, as long as they don't say; kick T1 up to $1000/mo, high grade (business) DSL to $600/mo (because they can), midrange (power user) DSL to $300/mo, and home-user DSL to $100/mo. Which is where it looks like it's headed, since even the home-users aren't going to suffer some of the limitations that the Cable assholes slap on customers at $49/mo.
What's annoying is having a Celestron with an automatic tracker, but for some reason freaks out when you try to get it to do an auto-seek or an alignment. And a customer service department that seems to be perpetually out golfing or something. (I've never gotten a live rep on the phone).
My impression with GnuGo - very slow. On my 450 MHz G4. It's just a matter of CPU horsepower? So if I get a Dual 1GHz, it'll be able to beat me in my lifetime?
Re:Let's Get Back Our Access to the Courts
on
Copyright as Cudgel
·
· Score: 2
So? Green party members will be susceptible to bribery from: Solar Cell manufacturers Farm Lobbies (who stand to profit from increased biodeisel use) Alternative CFC manufacturers etc.
Supporting this conspiracy theory (which has been around much longer than you'd care to think) is the fact that OS X's Cocoa API is based on the old OpenStep API - which, at one point WAS implemented under Solaris. I don't think it was ever productized, but in theory anyway, writing a program to OpenStep meant that you could RUN the thing on NT, Solaris, and NextStep.
There was a *DIM* hope back in the old days, when Apple first purchased NeXT, that this cross-platform capability (using platform-specific runtime libraries, not really a Virtual Machine) would be preserved, and then people might start considering developing in OpenStep/Objective-C, so they could hit all three platforms.
What were we thinking? That would make too much sense.
Re:Let's Get Back Our Access to the Courts
on
Copyright as Cudgel
·
· Score: 2
Bullshit. Does NOT matter what party you're from, you're susceptible to greed if you're a human being. It's just the invisible hand slipping money under the table. Power is worth money.
What is needed is a system to prevent such abuses. Public officials need all their finances to be set up in blind trusts. Public officials should have an oversight board (4th branch?) which keeps an eye on their finances and makes sure they're not getting money that they can't account for - and makes sure that there are no conflicts of interest, and in the cases where they are, forces them to recuse themselves from whatever process they're involved in. Campaign finance reform laws need to be passed that have some teeth. Big, sharp teeth with serrated edges and venom channels.
We KNOW that people are corrupt and suceptible to greed. It's the broken system that allows it.
Living a bit farther north of So Cal, we don't really have very spectacular sunsets (at least not compared to say, Phoenix, which is partially from the smog, but a great deal just due to dust).
Personally, I'd rather *not* have pretty sunsets, if it meant that I wouldn't have to deal with smog. When I drive down to LA, as soon as I get past Thousand Oaks, my eyes start to burn. Can't imagine living there.
My impression isn't that "CGI isn't there yet" - it's more like, Lucas was a cheap bastard and made a shoddy product. Really, the CGI in EI and EII weren't even up to snuff with some of the things in Terminator II.
Although, in principle, I do agree that CGI isn't there yet - it's getting closer, but Lucas could have done MUCH better, and the difference is so great, I can't believe that it wasn't simply a cost-cutting measure.
Compare the tool: Hammer/Anvil to the tool: Hydraulic Press - The task - shaping sheetmetal.
The Hammer and Anvil are VASTLY more flexible in many (but not all) ways, and require a MUCH more highly trained, talented, and skilled worker to operate, and MUCH more time to create the end product.
The Hydraulic Press is extremely more flexible in SOME ways, much less flexible in many others, and requires a person who can press a big red button (sometimes, not even that). It can create it's end product in about 2 seconds.
The best tool for the job depends on what you're making. If you're making 100,000 stamped car doors, then yes, the hydraulic press is probably ideal for you. If you're making a replica of a 16th century spanish conquistador breastplate, then the hammer/anvil is the answer.
hands down, the deciding factor is "best tool for the job".
Here, you have the comparison of two tools, I think it's a pretty good analogy.
Pretty much any supersonic plane uses a technique of shock-wave deflection. Look at the F4, where the intakes meet the fuselage. The deflectors are clearly visable.
1. I've studied Escher, and I'm utterly convinced that he knew exactly what elliptical curves were. He may not have understood it in a mathematically analytical sense, more of as a intuitive sense.
2. His work was primarily in lithography. You don't worry too much about the fine precision of "dull tools" like pencils and pens. Traditional lithography is done on a large limestone slab, with a grease pencil, yes, but you can sharpen the pencil and achieve very fine lines, because it's very soft - and ultimately, you're more limited by the grain of the paper in your resolution than anything else. (next, the grease pencil acts as a resist, and the stone is chemically etched, and then ink applied. The raised, or non-etched bits of the stone surface press ink into the paper, the depressed bits do not.) Escher also worked a lot in woodcut and engraving - those techniques are fairly obvious, and in woodcut, at least, you are pretty limited in resolution, as far as the grain of the wood goes. In any case, drawing out the center, as it goes, is not impossible - because EVERY object you draw has infinitely small detail on it. Part of the technique of a good artist is knowing when to suggest detail and when to actually render it, and at what point, actually rendering it will yeild an effect that is not desirable. Had Escher chosen to render this portion of the drawing, it would have been a simple matter of rendering the details down to a certain point, and thereafter, simply suggesting it - knowing that, nobody's going to be examining the central part of the drawing with a microscope. The human eye only sees so much. It's more likely that he concluded that the human eye of the viewer would have been drawn to this central point, and the problem would have been that attention would be needlessly focussed on the details there, instead of the outer portions of the drawing.
3. Escher was Dutch. I know we've all seen enough racial profiling in the past year, but the stereotype holds true - you'll be hard pressed to find a lazy, or even "laid back" (to use the politically correct term) Dutchman. Enough with the generalizing - just a brief study of the individual's life, and you'll know that he was a very intense, hard working man, and a very prolific artist. Looking at some of his studies and sketches, and how he drafted out and worked on these designs, they were incredibly labor intensive. He could have chosen to draw in any style he wanted, and he chose this mathematically precise style because it was fun to him. Anyone who suggests that Escher was in any way lazy or allowed a work to be "uncompleted" simply does not know the first damn thing about the man.
I was hired back in the tech boom, back when people would hire someone who had the skill to turn a computer on, just because they were so desperate. I never did finish my degree.
I can say that at my company, I'm highly valued for my 10 years of experience, and my skills. But when I've attempted to find jobs elsewhere, I have trouble getting people interested in paying me more than half of what I'm making now. It's just a huge credibility jump for them, despite the fact that I've been in the same position in the same company, obviously not sucking at my job, getting fairly well paid - but without that piece of paper, you're just a pariah.
The really sucky bit is DELL servers - You HAVE to install their version of WIndows. You can't just take a straight out of the box WIndows install, and add the vendor-specific drivers one by one. Something always gets fucked up along the way. Interrupt or IO port conflicts. But pop in the "bend over for mister Dell" CD, and it installs just fine. All the extra crap that Dell wants you to have on your PC so that it's properly "branded" - as if looking at the Dell logo on the BIOS screen and the front of the box isn't enough to remind you the brand of machine you're using.
Nobody will accept Ziff Davis doing games. At least nobody will be willing to accept that they are impartial. Considering how many of "our own" seem to be bought, Ziff Davis would give the impression that they are pre-bought and just waiting to close the deals.
Oh, but that's life in the big bad free market. I wish people would just leave these poor guys, and all newsmedia alone. All they're trying to do is make a buck. If publishing biased articles is more profitable than news, then - gosh there must be no market for news then. That's what the invisible hand is for. Passing people money under the table.
Not as much mass->energy conversion goes on as most people would think. I don't believe that a nuclear weapon has been constructed that was more than.001 percent efficient. The mass gets blasted apart too quickly to maintain criticality long enough for a complete conversion.
Yes yes, there was an x-files episode where once the government started beaming messages into your head, unless you travelled in a westerly direction at 100 miles per hour, your head would explode, or something like that. One of the more bizzarre plotlines.
Re:Training with Video Games
on
Gaming Zone?
·
· Score: 2
yeah, it's difficult for some of them to learn to turn right once in a while.
Re:Alpha states and TV
on
Gaming Zone?
·
· Score: 2
Yes, there are games that are good for getting into the zone, and there are games that are not so good.
Galaga is DEFINATELY one of the good games. Everyone I know who "clicks" with Galaga (including me) - can get totally hypnotized by this game. Sinistar was not so good. (but still fun). Sinistar made me feel like my adrenal gland was running dry after the first level.
and there's no chance at all that you're just with a bunch of players that were better than you? Come on, we can't ALL be the best Quake gods in the world. Everyone here seems to be saying that they are - "once I'm in the zone, I'm invincible" - unless you also run into another player who's in the zone, and BETTER than you, all other things, lag, cheats, equal.
I think you need to make a BIG distinction here between what's being referred to as "flow state" or "in the zone" - and the other phenomenon known as "runner's high". One is psychological, and the other is physiological. Not to imply that you were setting up confusion - just that a lot of people seem to think that that's what "runner's high" is. Personally, I can very easily get into the psychological state, while running, biking, or fighting, where you're able to shut out all but what you're doing, and this "zone" (I call it "in the groove" - six of one) really helps on the focus so that you can simply execute whatever it is you're doing with less flaws. For me, once in the zone, distractions and especially interruptions become extremely frustrating. Do not bother me when I'm in the zone.
As far as "runner's high" goes - I *only* attain that state when I'm running. It's very rare that I can do it while bicycling, I'm not at all sure why. And, I have to have been running for at least 15-20 minutes, even longer, and I have to be pushing pretty hard, and I can't always get into it. It's definately a physical thing, and I think it has to do with things like oxygen debt over long periods of time, etc. It's a great feeling, and once it clicks, it's like, I can just run all day. It's a pity, because I'd much rather cycle all day than run all day (bad ankles). But for some reason, cycling just doesn't do it for me.
There aren't enough planets, and enough time to get people to these other planets to even make a tiny dent in the "population problem".
Even if we do colonize other worlds, we'll still have to implement solutions 1, 2, or (much more likely) 3 - not just at home but on the other worlds as well.
Just ask the Gentleman from Arizona (Senator John McCain) - ANY time you use ANY language to ANY representative that even remotely implies they're on the take (in the form of campaign contributions) - their brains automatically shut off - they stop listening and taking you seriously at that point. Whether it's true or not - it's an excellent way to get branded as a "person we don't pay attention to". Unfortunately.
This is why campaign finance reform has been an uphill battle for 20+ years, and only when sparked by the public hype over Enron, was it possible to even pass the utterly watered down version they passed last fall.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't help but think that this must be some sort of mistake. Maybe this is some guy who found Richard Clarke's ID card, and is claiming to be Richard Clarke. Or maybe Richard Clarke had a brain hemmorhage last week, and doesn't know it. I mean, really. Don't you exect the BSA lobbyists to be on the phone to Dub telling him to reign in that "loose cannon"? (Just like the drug companies did for Clinton's Surgeon General when she had the gall to say that maybe we ought to look into legalizing Marijuana for medical use).
. . . and if they'd offer 56k DSL, for $15/mo. No web hosting, (though I can run my own webserver), no email, (though I can run my own sendmail server), no blocked ports, always on, I'd frickin JUMP on it.
I'm not a high-bandwidth user, but I'd fucking gouge my eyes out if I had to go back to dialup, with all that flaky modem crap. (waiting for the modem to try to dial, having a dedicated line, hoping the modem doesn't drop the connection, hoping that the dialup software doesn't hang, etc). Sure, every once and a while, 384k is nice - but do I really NEED it all the time? Do I need to be paying $49/mo for bandwidth I only need maybe one night a month? The rest of the time, I'm just doing casual surfing and email. I'm not spewing MP3's or anything - I'm not downloading ISO's - so I don't really need that much bandwidth. But I sure do like all of DSL's other qualities. It's just gotten so damn expensive. It started out $29/mo.
This IS a good thing, as long as they don't gouge the fuck out of us - their previous stance was: cap and limit DSL to try to browbeat "power users" into a $600/mo. T1.
That's fucking outrageous for someone who just wants to run a small webserver or do a little P2P, or their own sendmail server.
This is much more fair, as long as they don't say; kick T1 up to $1000/mo, high grade (business) DSL to $600/mo (because they can), midrange (power user) DSL to $300/mo, and home-user DSL to $100/mo. Which is where it looks like it's headed, since even the home-users aren't going to suffer some of the limitations that the Cable assholes slap on customers at $49/mo.
What's annoying is having a Celestron with an automatic tracker, but for some reason freaks out when you try to get it to do an auto-seek or an alignment. And a customer service department that seems to be perpetually out golfing or something. (I've never gotten a live rep on the phone).
My impression with GnuGo - very slow. On my 450 MHz G4. It's just a matter of CPU horsepower? So if I get a Dual 1GHz, it'll be able to beat me in my lifetime?
So? Green party members will be susceptible to bribery from:
Solar Cell manufacturers
Farm Lobbies (who stand to profit from increased biodeisel use)
Alternative CFC manufacturers
etc.
Supporting this conspiracy theory (which has been around much longer than you'd care to think) is the fact that OS X's Cocoa API is based on the old OpenStep API - which, at one point WAS implemented under Solaris. I don't think it was ever productized, but in theory anyway, writing a program to OpenStep meant that you could RUN the thing on NT, Solaris, and NextStep.
There was a *DIM* hope back in the old days, when Apple first purchased NeXT, that this cross-platform capability (using platform-specific runtime libraries, not really a Virtual Machine) would be preserved, and then people might start considering developing in OpenStep/Objective-C, so they could hit all three platforms.
What were we thinking? That would make too much sense.
Bullshit. Does NOT matter what party you're from, you're susceptible to greed if you're a human being. It's just the invisible hand slipping money under the table. Power is worth money.
What is needed is a system to prevent such abuses.
Public officials need all their finances to be set up in blind trusts.
Public officials should have an oversight board (4th branch?) which keeps an eye on their finances and makes sure they're not getting money that they can't account for - and makes sure that there are no conflicts of interest, and in the cases where they are, forces them to recuse themselves from whatever process they're involved in.
Campaign finance reform laws need to be passed that have some teeth. Big, sharp teeth with serrated edges and venom channels.
We KNOW that people are corrupt and suceptible to greed. It's the broken system that allows it.
Living a bit farther north of So Cal, we don't really have very spectacular sunsets (at least not compared to say, Phoenix, which is partially from the smog, but a great deal just due to dust).
Personally, I'd rather *not* have pretty sunsets, if it meant that I wouldn't have to deal with smog. When I drive down to LA, as soon as I get past Thousand Oaks, my eyes start to burn. Can't imagine living there.
My impression isn't that "CGI isn't there yet" - it's more like, Lucas was a cheap bastard and made a shoddy product.
Really, the CGI in EI and EII weren't even up to snuff with some of the things in Terminator II.
Although, in principle, I do agree that CGI isn't there yet - it's getting closer, but Lucas could have done MUCH better, and the difference is so great, I can't believe that it wasn't simply a cost-cutting measure.
Compare the tool: Hammer/Anvil to the tool: Hydraulic Press -
The task - shaping sheetmetal.
The Hammer and Anvil are VASTLY more flexible in many (but not all) ways, and require a MUCH more highly trained, talented, and skilled worker to operate, and MUCH more time to create the end product.
The Hydraulic Press is extremely more flexible in SOME ways, much less flexible in many others, and requires a person who can press a big red button (sometimes, not even that). It can create it's end product in about 2 seconds.
The best tool for the job depends on what you're making. If you're making 100,000 stamped car doors, then yes, the hydraulic press is probably ideal for you.
If you're making a replica of a 16th century spanish conquistador breastplate, then the hammer/anvil is the answer.
hands down, the deciding factor is "best tool for the job".
Here, you have the comparison of two tools, I think it's a pretty good analogy.
Pretty much any supersonic plane uses a technique of shock-wave deflection. Look at the F4, where the intakes meet the fuselage. The deflectors are clearly visable.
1. I've studied Escher, and I'm utterly convinced that he knew exactly what elliptical curves were. He may not have understood it in a mathematically analytical sense, more of as a intuitive sense.
2. His work was primarily in lithography. You don't worry too much about the fine precision of "dull tools" like pencils and pens. Traditional lithography is done on a large limestone slab, with a grease pencil, yes, but you can sharpen the pencil and achieve very fine lines, because it's very soft - and ultimately, you're more limited by the grain of the paper in your resolution than anything else.
(next, the grease pencil acts as a resist, and the stone is chemically etched, and then ink applied. The raised, or non-etched bits of the stone surface press ink into the paper, the depressed bits do not.)
Escher also worked a lot in woodcut and engraving - those techniques are fairly obvious, and in woodcut, at least, you are pretty limited in resolution, as far as the grain of the wood goes.
In any case, drawing out the center, as it goes, is not impossible - because EVERY object you draw has infinitely small detail on it. Part of the technique of a good artist is knowing when to suggest detail and when to actually render it, and at what point, actually rendering it will yeild an effect that is not desirable. Had Escher chosen to render this portion of the drawing, it would have been a simple matter of rendering the details down to a certain point, and thereafter, simply suggesting it - knowing that, nobody's going to be examining the central part of the drawing with a microscope. The human eye only sees so much.
It's more likely that he concluded that the human eye of the viewer would have been drawn to this central point, and the problem would have been that attention would be needlessly focussed on the details there, instead of the outer portions of the drawing.
3. Escher was Dutch. I know we've all seen enough racial profiling in the past year, but the stereotype holds true - you'll be hard pressed to find a lazy, or even "laid back" (to use the politically correct term) Dutchman. Enough with the generalizing - just a brief study of the individual's life, and you'll know that he was a very intense, hard working man, and a very prolific artist. Looking at some of his studies and sketches, and how he drafted out and worked on these designs, they were incredibly labor intensive. He could have chosen to draw in any style he wanted, and he chose this mathematically precise style because it was fun to him. Anyone who suggests that Escher was in any way lazy or allowed a work to be "uncompleted" simply does not know the first damn thing about the man.
I was hired back in the tech boom, back when people would hire someone who had the skill to turn a computer on, just because they were so desperate. I never did finish my degree.
I can say that at my company, I'm highly valued for my 10 years of experience, and my skills. But when I've attempted to find jobs elsewhere, I have trouble getting people interested in paying me more than half of what I'm making now. It's just a huge credibility jump for them, despite the fact that I've been in the same position in the same company, obviously not sucking at my job, getting fairly well paid - but without that piece of paper, you're just a pariah.
The really sucky bit is DELL servers -
You HAVE to install their version of WIndows. You can't just take a straight out of the box WIndows install, and add the vendor-specific drivers one by one. Something always gets fucked up along the way. Interrupt or IO port conflicts. But pop in the "bend over for mister Dell" CD, and it installs just fine. All the extra crap that Dell wants you to have on your PC so that it's properly "branded" - as if looking at the Dell logo on the BIOS screen and the front of the box isn't enough to remind you the brand of machine you're using.
Nobody will accept Ziff Davis doing games. At least nobody will be willing to accept that they are impartial. Considering how many of "our own" seem to be bought, Ziff Davis would give the impression that they are pre-bought and just waiting to close the deals.
Oh, but that's life in the big bad free market. I wish people would just leave these poor guys, and all newsmedia alone. All they're trying to do is make a buck. If publishing biased articles is more profitable than news, then - gosh there must be no market for news then. That's what the invisible hand is for. Passing people money under the table.
Not as much mass->energy conversion goes on as most people would think. I don't believe that a nuclear weapon has been constructed that was more than .001 percent efficient. The mass gets blasted apart too quickly to maintain criticality long enough for a complete conversion.
Yes yes, there was an x-files episode where once the government started beaming messages into your head, unless you travelled in a westerly direction at 100 miles per hour, your head would explode, or something like that. One of the more bizzarre plotlines.
yeah, it's difficult for some of them to learn to turn right once in a while.
Yes, there are games that are good for getting into the zone, and there are games that are not so good.
Galaga is DEFINATELY one of the good games. Everyone I know who "clicks" with Galaga (including me) - can get totally hypnotized by this game.
Sinistar was not so good. (but still fun). Sinistar made me feel like my adrenal gland was running dry after the first level.
and there's no chance at all that you're just with a bunch of players that were better than you? Come on, we can't ALL be the best Quake gods in the world. Everyone here seems to be saying that they are - "once I'm in the zone, I'm invincible" - unless you also run into another player who's in the zone, and BETTER than you, all other things, lag, cheats, equal.
I think you need to make a BIG distinction here between what's being referred to as "flow state" or "in the zone" - and the other phenomenon known as "runner's high". One is psychological, and the other is physiological.
Not to imply that you were setting up confusion - just that a lot of people seem to think that that's what "runner's high" is.
Personally, I can very easily get into the psychological state, while running, biking, or fighting, where you're able to shut out all but what you're doing, and this "zone" (I call it "in the groove" - six of one) really helps on the focus so that you can simply execute whatever it is you're doing with less flaws. For me, once in the zone, distractions and especially interruptions become extremely frustrating. Do not bother me when I'm in the zone.
As far as "runner's high" goes - I *only* attain that state when I'm running. It's very rare that I can do it while bicycling, I'm not at all sure why. And, I have to have been running for at least 15-20 minutes, even longer, and I have to be pushing pretty hard, and I can't always get into it. It's definately a physical thing, and I think it has to do with things like oxygen debt over long periods of time, etc. It's a great feeling, and once it clicks, it's like, I can just run all day. It's a pity, because I'd much rather cycle all day than run all day (bad ankles). But for some reason, cycling just doesn't do it for me.
* When I feel FORCED to do something, there's generally a displeasure, resentment, anger, and probably some fear, too.
Yes, definately. An otherwise enjoyable task can be absolutely ruined (as well as the end results) when you simply add a deadline into the mix.
There aren't enough planets, and enough time to get people to these other planets to even make a tiny dent in the "population problem".
Even if we do colonize other worlds, we'll still have to implement solutions 1, 2, or (much more likely) 3 - not just at home but on the other worlds as well.
Just ask the Gentleman from Arizona (Senator John McCain) - ANY time you use ANY language to ANY representative that even remotely implies they're on the take (in the form of campaign contributions) - their brains automatically shut off - they stop listening and taking you seriously at that point. Whether it's true or not - it's an excellent way to get branded as a "person we don't pay attention to".
Unfortunately.
This is why campaign finance reform has been an uphill battle for 20+ years, and only when sparked by the public hype over Enron, was it possible to even pass the utterly watered down version they passed last fall.