Normally I agree with most of Robs comments, but our opinions diverge here. I think our "Illustrious Leader" [:-)] is being a little inconsistent here - he's happily put stories on about IPOs, stock offerings, the effects of suddenly finding oneself wealthy after IPOs, company takeover news etc....
The fact is that some stock market news is applicable to Slashdot readers and therefore should be reported. Obviously I don't think every last detail should be reported, just as I don't think that minor releases on the development branch of the linux kernel should be reported. But a hefty crash on NASDAQ, which is the home of a number of major technology stocks is most definitely of interest to some or all Slashdot readers. Stock market levels can have major effects on the employment status of us nerds and a high stock market is a Good Thing (TM) as it means people are investing in technology companies, providing employment, which pays our salaries.
Maybe Rob should add a separate topic section for financial news and have an option to put a NASDAQ ticker on our customised Slashdot page!
Re:Washington DC latitude
on
G3 Solar Storm
·
· Score: 1
Ice is less dense than liquid water, but I think the point is that liquid water distributes itself more evenly round the world - thinner icecaps mean the earth is less squashed about the poles, making the earth a slightly less oblate spheroid.
IIRC, this is responsible for an expansion of about 10m/year.
Informative digression on female chest measurements....
The number is the measurement round the body taken just under the breasts. The letters are an expression of 'cup' size, with 'A` = "teaspoon", 'C'= "healthy handful", 'D'+ = "Benny Hill" actress!.
If Jolie was a 55 there she'd be starring an AC/DC ('Whole lot of Rosie') videos rather than Lara Croft.
AFAIK, 'DDD' doesn't exist either, you only have double letters 'DD' max. Lara is probably about a 36/38 D (possibly E) I'm not, however, speaking from personal experience of her assets though....
Re:Washington DC latitude
on
G3 Solar Storm
·
· Score: 2
Useless additional info...
Oops! Circumference of earth is 40,000km rather than 45,000km, since 1m was orinally defined to be 1/10 000 000 of circumference of the earth in 1790 or so. Believe its measured in terms of speed of light nowadays, but metre hasn't changed much, even if the earth is getting larger due to icecaps melting....
Re:Washington DC latitude
on
G3 Solar Storm
·
· Score: 2
More specifically, 38.92056 Latitude, -77.06575 Longitude, 0 Altitude Circumference of earth = 45000km (give or take) 1 degree of lat/long therefore = 125km 1/100000 of degree of lat/long = 1.25m^2
Amazing, all of Washington DC fits in an area of the earth less than 1.25m^2!!Actually, you can't be that specific about the location of Washington DC, which is a big place and can't be defined with such precision (are you using GPS ?). This is one case where less accuracy is better. For cities, coordinates accurate to 2dp (about 1km) are actually a better representation.
If you've provided the exact coordinates of your living room, my cruise missile will be knocking on your door shortly....
IIRC, the injunctions against various parties in the DeCSS cases were to prevent the distribution and posting of the source code on their respective web sites - since source code is now regarded as speech and is now protected by the same rights [until a higher precedent comes along], this case appears to kill stone dead such injunctions.
IANAL, but I always though that "without prejudice" meant that the deal had no effect on future legal wheeling and dealing. i.e. it would mean the settlement in this case did not effect any future legal wheeling and dealing. "With prejudice", would presumably mean that the settlement in this case would affect any future dealing between the two companies involved.
Slashdot happily posted my UK story on DVD regional coding and posts lots of stories from the BBC. It is weighted in favor of American stories, but that is only natural considering its origins and the fact that a substantial proportion of its readers and submitters are American.
Maybe however there should be a 'Yurop' section for articles of special interest to readers on the other side of the pond. The laws of the EU and our national governments have far more impact and interest than US Congress and State legislation.
It is often painfully true that some Americans don't even know where Europe is, let alone talk about it. OTOH, I doubt I could locate a lot of US cities, so maybe we're even on that score.
Nope, I'm not confusing latency with bandwidth, I'm stating that many multiplayer games are adaptive i.e if the bandwidth is available, they'll use more of it for more detail/ smoother play.
Fantome wrote: Most multiplayer games are meant to support atleast 4 people over a 56k modem, and EVERY real game takes up less than 33kbps for a single player, because that's what a 56k modem is limited to in upload. Meaning not much, miniscule, really. Using the 33k number, that's 303 people playing on a 10Mps network. Well, that's just a guess, but it's obvious a worse case scenario. --------------------------------------- I stringly suspect that this ain't necessarily so; games performance on a network is radically different from playing on a modem. Quake on my home 100Mbps LAN has no comparison to modem play. I would strongly suspect most games consume more bandwidth than 56k/ four players if it is operating on a better network. 'course, there's less latency on a network too.
..sadly always seem to lag some way behind current technology and methods, as this one appears to.
Most of them don't appear to be very insightful, almost as though 'those who can't do, write a book'. I often feel you can learn far more about game design by looking at someone else's coding methods, for example in Quake now the code has been Open Sourced.
It's not totally true in Engalnd either - as I said, I'm referring to tradition, not actuality.
[Personal note: I "hinted" to my fiancee that she should propose to me, which she did, via a "Will You Marry Me?" Easter Egg:-) I accepted, by means of a return "Yes" Easter Egg! ]
In the UK, tradition holds that a woman can only ask a man to marry her on leap days i.e whenever February 29th occurs.
a) Is this also true in the US of A ? b) has anyone been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to ask/ do the asking and c) what was the reply ?
Incidentally, guys, if you refuse, a further tradition says that you have to buy her some silk gloves as compensation. [Cheap way of getting out of commitment IMHO:-) ]
For one thing, I suspect CD sales may be down due to other diversions. I bought a lot less music last year, probably because I spent more time on the Internet and on computer related stuff. As 1999 marked a huge explosion in terms of computer/ internet growth, I wonder whether this is at least partially responsible.
OTOH, maybe I'm a bit more picky nowadays about how I spend $25 on something that costs 50c to make. [UK prices]!!
I notice that the UK and USA call several of John Wyndham's books different names, almost as though Americans are too stupid to understand the UK titles [this is not meant to be an adverse comment about Americans, before this gets marked as Flamebait] e.g.
The Kraken Wakes AKA From the Deeps
The Chrysalids AKA Re-birth
I enjoyed reading both these titles, along with Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos (AKA "Village of the Damned" in the movie world), and they still sit on one of my bookshelves.
I thought The Chrysalids was remarkably prescient, as I often regard "think-together" and the hive mind postulated in the book as analogous to how the Web has allowed widely separated teams of people to work on the same project. The opposition to this development in people seems to be opposed by many forces in society albeit not as violently as the community in the book tries to suppress difference.
Since I'm moderating for the next 72 hours I'll answer...
Moderators only have 5 points to throw around and they can't allocate more than one per comment. They only get allocated these 5 points for a period of three days and then have to wait a week or so before their name pops up out of the hat again. I'm not sure how metamoderation affects this, but I assume if someone hates your moderation you have to wait longer before you get moderator points again. Maybe a browse of the code at Slashcode will reveal all
However I agree that some get more [and less!] mod points than they deserve.
Re:Oops, Plain Old Text isn't
on
Hackers
·
· Score: 2
POT mode seems to have gone to POT [:-) ] since it understand most HTML, the only difference seems to be paragraphs - see the following:
(aren't crackers something I break into my soup?) I normally use croutons:-).
I think hacking is both a) competitive, b) a solo activity Both are environments in which women seem to fare less well, for some reason. It may be surprising that I claim hacking is a solo activity with the increasing use of groups to attack problems, but even here individual members of a group compete for the largest contribution to the solution.
Hacking/cracking perhaps has a primitive analogy in hunting, where individuals still want to stand out in what may be a group activity.
Life is out to get you, but it's out to get everyone else too!
..the news that another minor development release of Linux is out shouldn't really be on SlashDot, IMHO. However this particular release, I understand incorporates some major new functionality (devFS filing system), and *THAT* should have been reported.
I think that SlashDot should confine its comments to releases on the main branch, or be a little more careful about how it describes the significance of development branch releases. Freshmeat is also an Andover site, and most of us have the Freshmeat window on our Slashdot displays too, so there is little need for this double reporting.
On the other hand, SlashDot itself has been remarkably quiet about Windows 2000, and that should have qualified for a news story or two. Regardless of what you feel about Windows, this release is a MAJOR release of the current #1 operating system in the world and should have been covered as such. It is unfortunate that Slashdot did not feel it could put up a news article with some appropriate links describing new features, and even better if someone has a copy, a fast initial impression.
Normally I`m on the side of Linux in most things [Linux leads 5:3 against Windows installs in my home], but I feel SlashDot should have at least tried to give us some objective reporting.
Why couldn't they have given it a mobile phone ? You appear to be able to use them almost anywhere else. Maybe next time they should install a few mobile phone antenna masts in the vicinity of the landing zone as a backup to the backup comms system.:=)
Slashdot Mirror
Normally I agree with most of Robs comments, but our opinions diverge here. I think our "Illustrious Leader" [ :-)] is being a little inconsistent here - he's happily put stories on about IPOs, stock offerings, the effects of suddenly finding oneself wealthy after IPOs, company takeover news etc....
The fact is that some stock market news is applicable to Slashdot readers and therefore should be reported. Obviously I don't think every last detail should be reported, just as I don't think that minor releases on the development branch of the linux kernel should be reported. But a hefty crash on NASDAQ, which is the home of a number of major technology stocks is most definitely of interest to some or all Slashdot readers. Stock market levels can have major effects on the employment status of us nerds and a high stock market is a Good Thing (TM) as it means people are investing in technology companies, providing employment, which pays our salaries.
Maybe Rob should add a separate topic section for financial news and have an option to put a NASDAQ ticker on our customised Slashdot page!
Ice is less dense than liquid water, but I think the point is that liquid water distributes itself more evenly round the world - thinner icecaps mean the earth is less squashed about the poles, making the earth a slightly less oblate spheroid.
IIRC, this is responsible for an expansion of about 10m/year.
Informative digression on female chest measurements....
The number is the measurement round the body taken just under the breasts. The letters are an expression of 'cup' size, with 'A` = "teaspoon", 'C'= "healthy handful", 'D'+ = "Benny Hill" actress!.
If Jolie was a 55 there she'd be starring an AC/DC ('Whole lot of Rosie') videos rather than Lara Croft.
AFAIK, 'DDD' doesn't exist either, you only have double letters 'DD' max. Lara is probably about a 36/38 D (possibly E) I'm not, however, speaking from personal experience of her assets though....
Useless additional info...
Oops! Circumference of earth is 40,000km rather than 45,000km, since 1m was orinally defined to be 1/10 000 000 of circumference of the earth in 1790 or so. Believe its measured in terms of speed of light nowadays, but metre hasn't changed much, even if the earth is getting larger due to icecaps melting....
More specifically, 38.92056 Latitude, -77.06575 Longitude, 0 Altitude
Circumference of earth = 45000km (give or take)
1 degree of lat/long therefore = 125km
1/100000 of degree of lat/long = 1.25m^2
Amazing, all of Washington DC fits in an area of the earth less than 1.25m^2!!Actually, you can't be that specific about the location of Washington DC, which is a big place and can't be defined with such precision (are you using GPS ?). This is one case where less accuracy is better. For cities, coordinates accurate to 2dp (about 1km) are actually a better representation.
If you've provided the exact coordinates of your living room, my cruise missile will be knocking on your door shortly....
:-).
..we all remember how that book started, don't we.
Don't you know that staring at the lights in the sky makes you blind? Or was that something else ?
:-)
You should be using extrans mode - I made this mistake repeatedly some time ago.
IIRC, the injunctions against various parties in the DeCSS cases were to prevent the distribution and posting of the source code on their respective web sites - since source code is now regarded as speech and is now protected by the same rights [until a higher precedent comes along], this case appears to kill stone dead such injunctions.
:-).
IANAL.
IANAL, but I always though that "without prejudice" meant that the deal had no effect on future legal wheeling and dealing. i.e. it would mean the settlement in this case did not effect any future legal wheeling and dealing. "With prejudice", would presumably mean that the settlement in this case would affect any future dealing between the two companies involved.
Slashdot happily posted my UK story on DVD regional coding and posts lots of stories from the BBC. It is weighted in favor of American stories, but that is only natural considering its origins and the fact that a substantial proportion of its readers and submitters are American.
Maybe however there should be a 'Yurop' section for articles of special interest to readers on the other side of the pond. The laws of the EU and our national governments have far more impact and interest than US Congress and State legislation.
It is often painfully true that some Americans don't even know where Europe is, let alone talk about it. OTOH, I doubt I could locate a lot of US cities, so maybe we're even on that score.
I got a 404 Not Found error when I tried the link!
[OK, it was a server down or unreachable error, but it was funnier the other way]
Has it been Slashdotted already
Nope, I'm not confusing latency with bandwidth, I'm stating that many multiplayer games are adaptive i.e if the bandwidth is available, they'll use more of it for more detail/ smoother play.
Fantome wrote:
Most multiplayer games are meant to support atleast 4 people over a 56k modem, and EVERY real game takes up less than 33kbps for a single player, because that's what a 56k modem is limited to in upload. Meaning not much, miniscule, really. Using the 33k number, that's 303 people playing on a 10Mps network. Well, that's just a guess, but it's obvious a worse case scenario.
---------------------------------------
I stringly suspect that this ain't necessarily so; games performance on a network is radically different from playing on a modem. Quake on my home 100Mbps LAN has no comparison to modem play. I would strongly suspect most games consume more bandwidth than 56k/ four players if it is operating on a better network. 'course, there's less latency on a network too.
..sadly always seem to lag some way behind current technology and methods, as this one appears to.
Most of them don't appear to be very insightful, almost as though 'those who can't do, write a book'. I often feel you can learn far more about game design by looking at someone else's coding methods, for example in Quake now the code has been Open Sourced.
Is this book any different ?
It's not totally true in Engalnd either - as I said, I'm referring to tradition, not actuality.
:-) I accepted, by means of a return "Yes" Easter Egg! ]
[Personal note: I "hinted" to my fiancee that she should propose to me, which she did, via a "Will You Marry Me?" Easter Egg
In the UK, tradition holds that a woman can only ask a man to marry her on leap days i.e whenever February 29th occurs.
:-) ]
a) Is this also true in the US of A ?
b) has anyone been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to ask/ do the asking and
c) what was the reply ?
Incidentally, guys, if you refuse, a further tradition says that you have to buy her some silk gloves as compensation. [Cheap way of getting out of commitment IMHO
For one thing, I suspect CD sales may be down due to other diversions. I bought a lot less music last year, probably because I spent more time on the Internet and on computer related stuff. As 1999 marked a huge explosion in terms of computer/ internet growth, I wonder whether this is at least partially responsible.
OTOH, maybe I'm a bit more picky nowadays about how I spend $25 on something that costs 50c to make. [UK prices]!!
e.g.
I enjoyed reading both these titles, along with Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos (AKA "Village of the Damned" in the movie world), and they still sit on one of my bookshelves.
I thought The Chrysalids was remarkably prescient, as I often regard "think-together" and the hive mind postulated in the book as analogous to how the Web has allowed widely separated teams of people to work on the same project. The opposition to this development in people seems to be opposed by many forces in society albeit not as violently as the community in the book tries to suppress difference.
Since I'm moderating for the next 72 hours I'll answer...
Moderators only have 5 points to throw around and they can't allocate more than one per comment. They only get allocated these 5 points for a period of three days and then have to wait a week or so before their name pops up out of the hat again. I'm not sure how metamoderation affects this, but I assume if someone hates your moderation you have to wait longer before you get moderator points again. Maybe a browse of the code at Slashcode will reveal all
However I agree that some get more [and less!] mod points than they deserve.
If this was POT:
this wouldn't be bold
this wouldn't be italic
this wouldn't be a link
this wouldn't be teletype
this would lack emphasis
this would be weak
break
break
(aren't crackers something I break into my soup?) :-).
I normally use croutons
I think hacking is both
a) competitive,
b) a solo activity
Both are environments in which women seem to fare less well, for some reason. It may be surprising that I claim hacking is a solo activity with the increasing use of groups to attack problems, but even here individual members of a group compete for the largest contribution to the solution.
Hacking/cracking perhaps has a primitive analogy in hunting, where individuals still want to stand out in what may be a group activity.
Life is out to get you, but it's out to get everyone else too!
..the news that another minor development release of Linux is out shouldn't really be on SlashDot, IMHO. However this particular release, I understand incorporates some major new functionality (devFS filing system), and *THAT* should have been reported.
I think that SlashDot should confine its comments to releases on the main branch, or be a little more careful about how it describes the significance of development branch releases. Freshmeat is also an Andover site, and most of us have the Freshmeat window on our Slashdot displays too, so there is little need for this double reporting.
On the other hand, SlashDot itself has been remarkably quiet about Windows 2000, and that should have qualified for a news story or two. Regardless of what you feel about Windows, this release is a MAJOR release of the current #1 operating system in the world and should have been covered as such. It is unfortunate that Slashdot did not feel it could put up a news article with some appropriate links describing new features, and even better if someone has a copy, a fast initial impression.
Normally I`m on the side of Linux in most things [Linux leads 5:3 against Windows installs in my home], but I feel SlashDot should have at least tried to give us some objective reporting.
..search for signals from Polar Lander.
:=)
Why couldn't they have given it a mobile phone ? You appear to be able to use them almost anywhere else. Maybe next time they should install a few mobile phone antenna masts in the vicinity of the landing zone as a backup to the backup comms system.
The press release refers to virtual PCV, which apparently allows you to run your Mac stuff on Linux and PCs. Is there a correct link out there ?
Assuming that you are seriously asking, K&R is a reference to
The C Programming Language by Brain Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie.
The above is an Amazon link, if you don't like them then look in the computer section of another bookshop.