my high school uses Bess (cause they're stupid) and it does still block babelfish, but not for that reason. I believe it is blocked under "cheater".. cause it can be used for a french paper or something. although I think that babelfish does well enough to be readible, but makes enough mistakes to fail horribly if you would be getting a grade on proper grammer.
anybody wanna fuck with that server? it uses proxy.ahs.k12.wi.us 8760.. feel free to do your worst.:)
Actually, it sounds to me more like that they are trying to make it work only with their catalog. Makes sense to me.. I've wanted a barcode scanner to play with for a while, but the damn things run for like $100 minimum. They make a cheap version (under a few bucks), give it away, why kill all the other businesses (and maybe their own?). Although, I would pay the $15 for a straight version of it.
I'll totally agree with you on this one. While I had the flu, totally spaced on pre-regging for events, I had a blast, and none of the rips that the article references. I didn't see a 300 lbs chainmail bikini, but I did see an incredibly hot one.. skipping the line for the 3e PHBs and getting it from a different vendor.. meeting a bunch of cool people, some great games.. 4 days away from family (grin). free games, free food. good times for all. This post is pretty damn pointless, but ah, hell, too bad. Anybody think a slashdot/gencon 2001 gathering might be fun?
Eh.. if you believe that new fangled TSR/WotC/Hasbro stuff, it's now just a "PH". Of course, in my eyes, that's just a way to easily label the newbie punks.
Okay, I'll agree with you that there was bad acting.. plot was definantly lacking. Graphics, well, okay, I liked 'em, dammit. But hell, if you paid $8 for a fucking trailer, you got what you deserved. And pretty impressive for a movie that got nothing but kitchen scraps from the studio. I mean, it cost $30 million. You try making something with $30M. Besides, they had a guy named Ensign Fuck.
Actually, IIRC, the credit card verification (put in your credit card number to show you aren't a minor), which this is at least partially due to (according the MSNBC article) was created by the whole CDA hoopla.
How thick is the vapour shell? Does anybody know? I guess I was imagining a couple of milimetres, and so the surfaces would have to be very thin/only slight movements, perhaps too slight to make a real difference to direction? Also, how stable are these cavieties? Very carefully calculated for stability, or just kinda there?
It's a decent idea, I just think it would need a hell of a lot of work to make it near-functional. Plus the problems of turning at very high speeds. Have to make sure the sub stays in the bubble, or you have some serious problems. Plus, how the hell do you avoid a whale at mach 2? I mean, seriously, the reason very high speeds work in the air is there really isn't anything too big to run into. The water, you got some huge stuff, plus much harder to map. RADAR works for the air, but SONAR isn't nearly as precise. 2.5 km/sec, plus slow turning, would mean you'd need to know like 100 km in advance (just a very rough guess). The logistics of that are.. troubling. Of course, at such high speeds, you might just be able to bore a hole right through the creatures:)
It would be extremely expensive. This is pretty far from really even being military viable. The bullets, for example, mentioned in the article, only go about 12 metres (plus taking out the mine, so maybe 50 metres by themself?). Plus, it would have a pretty small payload. Works for military purposes, but you need to fit a lot of people on a sub to make it worth the cash. That, and sitting a few metres away from a nuclear reactor. I personally wouldn't have a problem (especially since if I was travelling at a supersonic speeds underwater and there were a problem, I probably wouldn't live long enough to care), but the general public has a problem with nuclear reactors being near them, when there's a large amount of breathing room available. Plus, getting the materials to commerically operate a mini-nuclear plant would be difficult. Believe it or not, you can't buy plutonium mail-order from russia (free power rod with every bride!)
Plus the problems of having a straight line between NYC and London (or whatever). And recovery of the sub. Oh yeah, just imagine the regulating.
Yeah, this is basically the same principle that airplanes use to steer (changing surface -> changing pressure -> changing lift -> changing direction).. I think the problem would be in the materials. The kind of pressure that the nose is sustaining would require some pretty special materials, and I would guess that it's be pretty damn hard to push it to a flexible shape. Even if the materials would allow for it, it would take a lot of force (and so a lot of power) to push the nose into changing it's surface.
I think that's the main problem. Looks nice on paper..
Not really adding anything, but this idea (the sentient virus thing) was explored in a season 5 episode of the X-Files.. the Gibson episode (2/15/1998).
With my own content, the idea of a self-modifying virus seems.. abstract. The best virii are as compact as possible, although I could see something that randomly changes a footer or something to prevent antivirus detection. A sentient version though.. I don't know. I don't think that AI is impossible, or even improbable, but I kinda doubt that it could work as a virus. I'd think you'd need something more intellegent than the average human (or has some mechanism to fake it) to learn how to exploit systems. At least without any intervention.
If you're really paranoid you could wrap wire around your magnetic material in a corkscrewish pattern. Running a lot of current through this would set up a magnetic field through the drive, which should destroy everything. Now you got AC running through (@60 Hz like most/all of america.. dunno what it is elsewhere).. and the field'll be swapping 60 times a second. Run a lot of power through it should be effectively destroyed. Set up a trigger that would be hard to catch (maybe light-based? opening up the case on your computer? losing power to the computer? opening the door to the room with the computer in it without appropriate steps to disengage the trap?
Anyways, this should destroy just about anything.. work as an emergency device for the paranoid.
From the second page of the Penguin Payola article..
"We want to open up the environment so that the next John Carmack can get his game to market," says Gildred, alluding to the id Software co-founder who got his start writing the industry-shaking freeware game "Doom." "We want to make it easy for new developers to get onto our platform and get new games out."
While industry-shaking, Doom wasn't freeware, it was shareware. Not only that, but Doom was far from id's (and Carmack's) first game. Commander Keen was the first for id (with Carmack), and a little game called Wolfenstein 3d comes to mind too.
I dunno, just bothers me almost as much as confusing copyright, trademark, and patents.
I'm pretty sure that browsers (and HTML) don't like to have stacked images.. although I supose you could set it as a background in a table. Anyways, you'd have to make some pretty big compatibility sacrifices to make this work. That and they didn't want to dammit.:) Safer would have been to make the X-ed image for all of 'em. Or add the images to the directory later (although that would be more maintance work)... plus, I doubt the designers thought that people would actually try to read the (gasp) HTML.. it's so hard to understand, you need a degree just to read that stuff!
I don't know if this has anything at all to do with it, but here in southeast Wiconsin (near Milwaukee) we had some weird lightning stuff going on on Thursday night. Had been a humid couple of days, was expecting rain. But then about midnight (central, I suppose it was friday morning) it starting lightninging.. nonstop. From the windows it looked almost like a strobe light. And almost no thunder. Then, about half and hour later, it stopped, and started raining.
I know this is probably unrelated, but it seems to me that the static electricity built up by this kind of storm could do this? Or am I completely off-base here? Anybody have a clue? Anybody reading this?
sounds much more realistic than other games. Then, the question is: why are movies subjected to official (non-voluntary) ratings, but not video games (which are getting closer to being interactive movies all the time). Sure, if there are different standards applied to violence
The MPAA in the US, and I think is used in Canada as well, is a voluntary system. Sure, your film probably won't go anywhere if it isn't rated, but it's still not legally enforced. Computer/video games also use a voluntary system. It hasn't yet become the marketing tool that the MPAA ratings have..
This is off-topic, I know, but you better believe the movie ratings are little but marketing. I've never been carded for an R-rated movie, and I've been going to see 'em since around 12 or so. Even with the recent surge of "protect the kids" (at least around here..), never been carded. Ever After, a Drew Barrymore flick, modification of Cinderella, for example. Pretty good movie IMHO.. when it was released for theatres, it got a PG-13 rating for a few swears. When released for video, 3 swear words were cut, was re-rated, got a PG. Made it a 'family' movie. But nobody would go to see a PG movie by choice, right?
Doh, okay, I'm an idiot... From the name I thought it used some sort of nuclear (having to do with protons, anyways) propulsion.. a bit of digging told me what I should have known all along, it's just a Russian rocket design..
Now I like to pretend to be fairly well-informed about space technology, but I don't know what a proton rocket is.. I can't even try to figure it out from the name. When I follow the link, it goes to a page about Pizza Hut logo on the rocket.. But that really doesn't help much.
Does anyone know what a proton rocket it, roughly how it works? Thanks
Hey, what the hell, since it's becoming ever easier to do such silliness, I'll toss in my own idea.
Well, first you get VCs of course, but as I recall from a few weeks ago, for the talented, that isn't hard (certain full-motion video internet technologies come to mine...)
1) Send up satellite. Start a website at www.ads.com (Administration that Don't Suck) (I'm sure the domain is available, if not I'll sue the squatting fuckers). 2) Start broadcasting a TV channel called "Movies that Don't Suck". MoDS would go for weeks without repeating anything, and only shows old-but-good stuff. 3) Launch the sister network, "Music that Don't Suck". Sucking is of course in my personal opinion. Yours will not be tolerated, and you will like it. 4) Get a 50% market share in 6 months. 5) Acquire AOL/Time Warner. Start showing first run films (Matrix II, Matrix III, come to mind) on MoDS. Likewise, brand spankin new Britney Spears would go only on MuDS. 6) Use marketing power to disband the MPAA, RIAA, and other such shit. 7) Acquire VA/Linux, Red Hat, Microsoft, and the FSF. Force RMS (through the use of crack commando squads) to denounce the GPL, and suddenly change the license to everything. 8) Bundle Debian with AOL, Red Hat with MSN, and Windoze with pr0n (no need for browsers that way). 9) Retire a happy multi-gillionaire.
I figure I should be able to get this done within a few years? VC's, call me!
> well. I think it is unfortunate but I don't believe that the younger > generation has much incentive to look under the hood. With the lack of
Well, speaking from the front lines (I'm gonna be a senior in the fall, as much as I fight it.. ), I can say that you're half right. There are two basic kinds of computer-using kids. There's the average people, those that use it for writing papers, go online and look a pr0n^H^H^H^Heducational websites. They tend to think that WordArt is the best thing since sliced bread. They also tend to mix their {their,there,they're}s, since they're totally reliant on spellcheck. Some of these folks are script kiddies. Think they're all hot with winnuke and the like. That and anarchist's cookbook. You're right, these people have no motivation to "look under the hood".. the abstraction that GUI brings them makes it unneccisary. So they'll be okay, as long as nothing serious breaks (and if it does, just reset:)
Then there's the second kind. I am a member of this group. Usually been using computers for ages (been about 14 years now for me). Can remember specific doom deathmatches from 8, 9 years ago better than prom night (I know, I know, I'm sad.. nothing happened to make it worth remembering anyways). These young'uns definantly have the motivation to look under the hood. Why? performance, largly.. but also out of pure facination.
So, I know, this is long and mostly pointless, but hell. I'd say that you'll have less people under the hood. But those that are can do wonders. Hey, at least Windoze is weeding out the idiot amatuers for us:)
I personally can appreciate both. I like having a paper reference, but I can still go through online docs (if it's in a good format -- I prefer HTML or plaintext for efficency).
If a company were to save money by not printing the manuals and instead tossing it on the CD, then I say go for it, as long as the savings are passed on. Also, have the option of buying the book for a decent price. If the cost of writing the docs is included in the purchase price, then charge the printing fees (plus a modest profit) for the paper docs.
This is kinda long, but bear with me. If you read some stuff on the WAVE webpage, they give that list of warning signs. They quote "Extensive Research", and link (poorly) to a gov't paper on safty in schools, and the like. Here it is. http://cecp.air.org/guide/guidetext.htm Here's what it says.
from http://cecp.air.org/guide/textonly.htm (section 3) Principles for Identifying the Early Warning Signs of School Violence
Educators and families can increase their ability to recognize early warning signs by establishing close, caring, and supportive relationships with children and youth--getting to know them well enough to be aware of their needs, feelings, attitudes, and behavior patterns. Educators and parents together can review school records for patterns of behavior or sudden changes in behavior.
Unfortunately, there is a real danger that early warning signs will be misinterpreted. Educators and parents--and in some cases, students--can ensure that the early warning signs are not misinterpreted by using several significant principles to better understand them. These principles include: * Do no harm. There are certain risks associated with using early warning signs to identify children who are troubled. First and foremost, the intent should be to get help for a child early. The early warning signs should not to be used as rationale to exclude, isolate, or punish a child. Nor should they be used as a checklist for formally identifying, mislabeling, or stereotyping children. Formal disability identification under federal law requires individualized evaluation by qualified professionals. In addition, all referrals to outside agencies based on the early warning signs must be kept confidential and must be done with parental consent (except referrals for suspected child abuse or neglect). * Understand violence and aggression within a context. Violence is contextual. Violent and aggressive behavior as an expression of emotion may have many antecedent factors-factors that exist within the school, the home, and the larger social environment. In fact, for those children who are at risk for aggression and violence, certain environments or situations can set it off. Some children may act out if stress becomes too great, if they lack positive coping skills, and if they have learned to react with aggression. * Avoid stereotypes. Stereotypes can interfere with--and even harm--the school community's ability to identify and help children. It is important to be aware of false cues--including race, socio-economic status, cognitive or academic ability, or physical appearance. In fact, such stereotypes can unfairly harm children, especially when the school community acts upon them. * View warning signs within a developmental context. Children and youth at different levels of development have varying social and emotional capabilities. They may express their needs differently in elementary, middle, and high school. The point is to know what is developmentally typical behavior, so that behaviors are not misinterpreted. * Understand that children typically exhibit multiple warning signs. It is common for children who are troubled to exhibit multiple signs. Research confirms that most children who are troubled and at risk for aggression exhibit more than one warning sign, repeatedly, and with increasing intensity over time. Thus, it is important not to overreact to single signs, words, or actions.
end quote
To which the WAVE site has something along the lines of "Don't use this to stereotype please!"
Also, each of the warning signs has a paragraph for each sign, which is not reproduced, and too long for me to do here. Look for yourself though. Listed with this information (and USED with it too), the list might not be the worst thing in the world. But everywhere else I've seen this sort of list there has been no such qualifying infomation. Why? It takes space, and people are lazy. Some thought would go a long way.
Slashdot Mirror
anybody wanna fuck with that server? it uses proxy.ahs.k12.wi.us 8760 .. feel free to do your worst. :)
tah tah
well, hell, if it hurts, use vaseline!
just my guess, anyways.
I'll totally agree with you on this one. While I had the flu, totally spaced on pre-regging for events, I had a blast, and none of the rips that the article references. I didn't see a 300 lbs chainmail bikini, but I did see an incredibly hot one.. skipping the line for the 3e PHBs and getting it from a different vendor.. meeting a bunch of cool people, some great games.. 4 days away from family (grin). free games, free food. good times for all. This post is pretty damn pointless, but ah, hell, too bad. Anybody think a slashdot/gencon 2001 gathering might be fun?
Eh.. if you believe that new fangled TSR/WotC/Hasbro stuff, it's now just a "PH". Of course, in my eyes, that's just a way to easily label the newbie punks.
Okay, I'll agree with you that there was bad acting.. plot was definantly lacking. Graphics, well, okay, I liked 'em, dammit. But hell, if you paid $8 for a fucking trailer, you got what you deserved. And pretty impressive for a movie that got nothing but kitchen scraps from the studio. I mean, it cost $30 million. You try making something with $30M. Besides, they had a guy named Ensign Fuck.
unless my memory is worse than I remember...
True, but the idea is still the same -- why spend big bucks on processor time when millions have spare cycles we can harvest?
How thick is the vapour shell? Does anybody know? I guess I was imagining a couple of milimetres, and so the surfaces would have to be very thin/only slight movements, perhaps too slight to make a real difference to direction? Also, how stable are these cavieties? Very carefully calculated for stability, or just kinda there?
It's a decent idea, I just think it would need a hell of a lot of work to make it near-functional. Plus the problems of turning at very high speeds. Have to make sure the sub stays in the bubble, or you have some serious problems. Plus, how the hell do you avoid a whale at mach 2? I mean, seriously, the reason very high speeds work in the air is there really isn't anything too big to run into. The water, you got some huge stuff, plus much harder to map. RADAR works for the air, but SONAR isn't nearly as precise. 2.5 km/sec, plus slow turning, would mean you'd need to know like 100 km in advance (just a very rough guess). The logistics of that are.. troubling. Of course, at such high speeds, you might just be able to bore a hole right through the creatures :)
Plus the problems of having a straight line between NYC and London (or whatever). And recovery of the sub. Oh yeah, just imagine the regulating.
I think that's the main problem. Looks nice on paper..
With my own content, the idea of a self-modifying virus seems.. abstract. The best virii are as compact as possible, although I could see something that randomly changes a footer or something to prevent antivirus detection. A sentient version though.. I don't know. I don't think that AI is impossible, or even improbable, but I kinda doubt that it could work as a virus. I'd think you'd need something more intellegent than the average human (or has some mechanism to fake it) to learn how to exploit systems. At least without any intervention.
Then again, I could be speaking out of my ass.
Anyways, this should destroy just about anything.. work as an emergency device for the paranoid.
"We want to open up the environment so that the next John Carmack can
get his game to market," says Gildred, alluding to the id Software
co-founder who got his start writing the industry-shaking freeware
game "Doom." "We want to make it easy for new developers to get onto
our platform and get new games out."
While industry-shaking, Doom wasn't freeware, it was shareware. Not only that, but Doom was far from id's (and Carmack's) first game. Commander Keen was the first for id (with Carmack), and a little game called Wolfenstein 3d comes to mind too.
I dunno, just bothers me almost as much as confusing copyright, trademark, and patents.
Errr.. right.
I know this is probably unrelated, but it seems to me that the static electricity built up by this kind of storm could do this? Or am I completely off-base here? Anybody have a clue? Anybody reading this?
The MPAA in the US, and I think is used in Canada as well, is a voluntary system. Sure, your film probably won't go anywhere if it isn't rated, but it's still not legally enforced. Computer/video games also use a voluntary system. It hasn't yet become the marketing tool that the MPAA ratings have..
This is off-topic, I know, but you better believe the movie ratings are little but marketing. I've never been carded for an R-rated movie, and I've been going to see 'em since around 12 or so. Even with the recent surge of "protect the kids" (at least around here..), never been carded. Ever After, a Drew Barrymore flick, modification of Cinderella, for example. Pretty good movie IMHO.. when it was released for theatres, it got a PG-13 rating for a few swears. When released for video, 3 swear words were cut, was re-rated, got a PG. Made it a 'family' movie. But nobody would go to see a PG movie by choice, right?
Excuse my somewhat coherant rant..
Excuse my stupidity..
Does anyone know what a proton rocket it, roughly how it works? Thanks
Well, first you get VCs of course, but as I recall from a few weeks ago, for the talented, that isn't hard (certain full-motion video internet technologies come to mine...)
1) Send up satellite. Start a website at www.ads.com (Administration that Don't Suck) (I'm sure the domain is available, if not I'll sue the squatting fuckers).
2) Start broadcasting a TV channel called "Movies that Don't Suck". MoDS would go for weeks without repeating anything, and only shows old-but-good stuff.
3) Launch the sister network, "Music that Don't Suck". Sucking is of course in my personal opinion. Yours will not be tolerated, and you will like it.
4) Get a 50% market share in 6 months.
5) Acquire AOL/Time Warner. Start showing first run films (Matrix II, Matrix III, come to mind) on MoDS. Likewise, brand spankin new Britney Spears would go only on MuDS.
6) Use marketing power to disband the MPAA, RIAA, and other such shit.
7) Acquire VA/Linux, Red Hat, Microsoft, and the FSF. Force RMS (through the use of crack commando squads) to denounce the GPL, and suddenly change the license to everything.
8) Bundle Debian with AOL, Red Hat with MSN, and Windoze with pr0n (no need for browsers that way).
9) Retire a happy multi-gillionaire.
I figure I should be able to get this done within a few years? VC's, call me!
Well, speaking from the front lines (I'm gonna be a senior in the fall, as much as I fight it.. ), I can say that you're half right. There are two basic kinds of computer-using kids. There's the average people, those that use it for writing papers, go online and look a pr0n^H^H^H^Heducational websites. They tend to think that WordArt is the best thing since sliced bread. They also tend to mix their {their,there,they're}s, since they're totally reliant on spellcheck. Some of these folks are script kiddies. Think they're all hot with winnuke and the like. That and anarchist's cookbook. You're right, these people have no motivation to "look under the hood".. the abstraction that GUI brings them makes it unneccisary. So they'll be okay, as long as nothing serious breaks (and if it does, just reset :)
Then there's the second kind. I am a member of this group. Usually been using computers for ages (been about 14 years now for me). Can remember specific doom deathmatches from 8, 9 years ago better than prom night (I know, I know, I'm sad.. nothing happened to make it worth remembering anyways). These young'uns definantly have the motivation to look under the hood. Why? performance, largly.. but also out of pure facination.
So, I know, this is long and mostly pointless, but hell. I'd say that you'll have less people under the hood. But those that are can do wonders. Hey, at least Windoze is weeding out the idiot amatuers for us :)
Thanks for reading.
I personally can appreciate both. I like having a paper reference, but I can still go through online docs (if it's in a good format -- I prefer HTML or plaintext for efficency).
If a company were to save money by not printing the manuals and instead tossing it on the CD, then I say go for it, as long as the savings are passed on. Also, have the option of buying the book for a decent price. If the cost of writing the docs is included in the purchase price, then charge the printing fees (plus a modest profit) for the paper docs.
Just my views..
This is kinda long, but bear with me. If you read some stuff on the WAVE webpage, they give that list of warning signs. They quote "Extensive Research", and link (poorly) to a gov't paper on safty in schools, and the like. Here it is. http://cecp.air.org/guide/guidetext.htm Here's what it says.
from http://cecp.air.org/guide/textonly.htm (section 3)
Principles for Identifying the Early Warning Signs of School Violence
Educators and families can increase their ability to recognize early
warning signs by establishing close, caring, and supportive
relationships with children and youth--getting to know them well
enough to be aware of their needs, feelings, attitudes, and behavior
patterns. Educators and parents together can review school records for
patterns of behavior or sudden changes in behavior.
Unfortunately, there is a real danger that early warning signs will be
misinterpreted. Educators and parents--and in some cases,
students--can ensure that the early warning signs are not
misinterpreted by using several significant principles to better
understand them. These principles include:
* Do no harm. There are certain risks associated with using early
warning signs to identify children who are troubled. First and
foremost, the intent should be to get help for a child early. The
early warning signs should not to be used as rationale to exclude,
isolate, or punish a child. Nor should they be used as a checklist
for formally identifying, mislabeling, or stereotyping children.
Formal disability identification under federal law requires
individualized evaluation by qualified professionals. In addition,
all referrals to outside agencies based on the early warning signs
must be kept confidential and must be done with parental consent
(except referrals for suspected child abuse or neglect).
* Understand violence and aggression within a context. Violence is
contextual. Violent and aggressive behavior as an expression of
emotion may have many antecedent factors-factors that exist within
the school, the home, and the larger social environment. In fact,
for those children who are at risk for aggression and violence,
certain environments or situations can set it off. Some children
may act out if stress becomes too great, if they lack positive
coping skills, and if they have learned to react with aggression.
* Avoid stereotypes. Stereotypes can interfere with--and even
harm--the school community's ability to identify and help
children. It is important to be aware of false cues--including
race, socio-economic status, cognitive or academic ability, or
physical appearance. In fact, such stereotypes can unfairly harm
children, especially when the school community acts upon them.
* View warning signs within a developmental context. Children and
youth at different levels of development have varying social and
emotional capabilities. They may express their needs differently
in elementary, middle, and high school. The point is to know what
is developmentally typical behavior, so that behaviors are not
misinterpreted.
* Understand that children typically exhibit multiple warning signs.
It is common for children who are troubled to exhibit multiple
signs. Research confirms that most children who are troubled and
at risk for aggression exhibit more than one warning sign,
repeatedly, and with increasing intensity over time. Thus, it is
important not to overreact to single signs, words, or actions.
end quote
To which the WAVE site has something along the lines of "Don't use this to stereotype please!"
Also, each of the warning signs has a paragraph for each sign, which is not reproduced, and too long for me to do here. Look for yourself though. Listed with this information (and USED with it too), the list might not be the worst thing in the world. But everywhere else I've seen this sort of list there has been no such qualifying infomation. Why? It takes space, and people are lazy. Some thought would go a long way.
Again, my apologies on the length
Groke