This is a harsh article - actually offensive in some parts. Just look at these lines and realize they are refering to a lot of *you* out there:
"The nerds in the typical firm's IT support department are proliferating nearly as fast."
"But fear not. Help is at hand for anybody who fears that their office is about to be swamped by Playstation addicts."
"...If not, Sun may suffer the same fate that it has in store for all those corporate nerds."
Note that this is *not* a technical publication. These stereotypes are not meant as a joke. They are trying to appeal to the average businessman who doesn't understand computers and software anymore than they "understood" the dot com boom (and subsequent bust).
The author is luring them in to read the article by saying "hey, wouldn't you like to save some money and get rid of the most socially inept portion of your company that doesn't really do anything but break e-mail preventing you from getting anything real done."
I say we "nerds" stage some sort of vengeful act/ Some time of "revenge" maybe.
Both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick collaborated on the book AND the movie. They both had input on each other's work (in fact they came up with the whole plot together) and the book came out at nearly the same time as the movie (a little bit later even though it was supposed to come out first).
Since it was planned to be a book and movie all along they compliment each other perfectly, with each giving a unique perspective on the story.
Unfortunately, its otherwise pretty much impossible to make a decent movie from a book without being unfaithful to the book itself. They are just so different mediums. In the best case you end up with Harry Potter which is boring because its identical to the book or LOTR, which may be the only exception -- but I still like the book waaay better (the songs, the elvish script, - its all necessary). This is not to say you can't make a great movie based on a bad book - its just rare to have both become classics.
As for the other method - writing a book based on a movie - well, we all know what that is about.
So, they say each card can hold 4.4k of data. Lets assume the cards are about 8 square inches or so. Maybe 4" by 2" or something. 4.4kilobytes is 35.2 kilobits... lets assume no error correction, just to simplify things (though I am sure they use some). Thats about 36,000 dots for 8 square inches, or at least 4500 DPI. ok, guys, your 300dpi scanner can't read that and your copy machine is not going to make a readable copy of that.
It looks like Nintendo won't have to worry about piracy.
Besides who would go for that effort to pirate a 3 dollar game?
NES games were quite small. I'm not exactly sure but its likely that they were about 16k-32k or so. That means they could easily fit on an average of 5 of these cards. That seems to be consistent with what Nintendo is advertising. Each card holds 4.4k it seems.
SNES games could get to be a lot larger - like up to a couple of megabytes (remember they were measured in megabits though). There is no way to fit a SNES game on a paper card that can hold only 4.4k.
First, the TurboGrafix 16 used (electronic) ROM cards that, yes, were the size of credit cards but they were significantly thicker. If you ever cracked a game open you'd find that they were just essentially a plastic-sealed circuit board. So, they were essentially the same things as the SNES games at the time, but instead of using DIP ROM chips soldered to a circuit board and then put in a plastic case, they were pure ROM silicon wired and coated in plastic without all that extra "packaging". If you've ever opened a Tamagotchi, a digital watch, or calculator you've probobably seen tiny microchips that are coated with a blob of plastic.
Basically, the turbografx is not that impressive, because while the packaging for the games was probably way more expensive to manufacture, you must remember that the actual silicon in electronic products is pretty small - most of it is packaging to enable easy design and construction of circuit boards. For high volume items that never need to be upgraded or serviced and need to be small, especially if they are simple like a data ROM you can through them all in a single chip. Think of the TurboGrafx game as a "chip".
Now, what Nintendo is doing now is something very different. They are actually printing the "data" for the game on a small card. Think of it like a really complicated barcode, because that is esentially what it is. These games probably won't be easily copied because they will beyond the resolution of a copy machine. Also, recall that NES games were quite small. A few K is all you need.
Why is this here? This is so obviously a hoax. I thought we were smarter than this.
Take a minute and go to google and search for "perpetual motion machine". You'll get a bunch of links - all to various machines built by "scientists" who claim they will revolutionize the way the world works. Sometimes they use "entropy", sometimes they claim to suck heat out of the air. Sometimes they give no description at all. You won't find one working prototype though.
Whats next? Slashdot posts a link about a sick group of art lovers making bonsai kittens?
Or maybe a story about a company that sells human meat.
Awari is only ONE type of Mancala
on
Awari Solved
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There are hundreds, maybe thousands of variations on Mancala-type games (bowls and stones which are placed in them). These games are played all over the world.
I just returned from Kenya and Tanzania where I bought a Mancala borard for a local gamed called Bau (also spelled Bao). It is a lot more complicated than Awati and some say it is the most complex form of Mancala.
First Apple announces that they will make their iPod's compatible with PCs and now there is a fixed-point Vorbis decoder!
I was hesistant in buying an iPod because all my music is in ogg vorbis format (and with good reason, given all the legal issues that are coming up with mp3). The iPod processor is capable of decoding Vorbis but it is fixed-point and I was desperately waiting for someone to port over the algorithm and I even considered undertaking the project myself.
But now that they have released the fixed-point implementation it should be any day now that we see a port to the iPod making it the best portable digital music player and a truly kick-ass piece of hardware. Now if it would only take standard AA batteries...
I don't remember what country it was specifically, but a certain group of prostitutes in Africa who were repeatedly exposed to the HIV virus (there clients had an extremely high rate of AIDS) never got the virus.
One thing that wasn't mentioned was that if the prostitutes retired and then returned to work at some point in the future and became re-exposed they had lost their resistance and became infected.
FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) causes an AIDS-like syndrome in cats and while it is uncurable it is nowhere near as dangerous to cats as AIDS is to humans. In fact, viruses that cause immunodeficiency are quite common in animals and some scientists have expressed surprise that we didn't have an HIV virus floating around before 25 years ago.
I don't believe FIV is as contagious among cats as HIV is among humans and I think that most cases come from the mother cat giving it to her kittens.
Lastly, FIV does not infect humans. The reason why kittens are tested for it is because many people do not want to adopt a cat that is destined to be plagued with health problems its whole life.
Red Bull, Bawls, Mt Dew etc, have been around for quite a while now and most people have already tried them. The point of a review is to evaluate NEW things so you know whether you should waste your money trying them or not. As I've yet to try any of these 4 drinks I actually found the review quite helpful.
Funny considering that DVD's are only in about a third of American homes... compare that to the unbelievable amount of VHS players... and it quickly shows just how popular the DVD has become."
What are you talking about??
If DVDs really were that popular don't you think that more than 1/3 of all households would have bought a DVD player by now? The only thing that stat shows is that the relatively small number of people who own DVD players buy a lot of DVDs. What does that have to do with anything?
Nowhere in that article did I see any mention of the "history of the DVD". It was basically just some stats on how DVDs have gotten really popular this year (big whoop).
The management of a company is typically NOT on the board. Even the founders with big equity stakes often don't get a seat on board. What the board should do is oust the CEO and if they can't, they should fire the dissenting opinions on the board and reform and dissolve the company.
It comes down to board seats and votes and if they are like any other startup company the investors have a majority of the seats.
Drinking too much water too quickly can damage your bladder (from making it stretch too much) or your kidneys (from overworking them because they need to filter the water out of your blood).
More likely, it can upset the sodium balance in your blood (remember osmosis) and you need to replace the electrolytes when you exercise and just plain water. Ever notice that you still feel thirsty if you are sweating a lot and then drink plain water?
The ideal liquid would have a concentration of sodium, potassium, etc that matches the blood (but just a little more dilute).
Also, contrary to popular belief, sugar is NOT a diuretic and does not make you more thirsty. Sugar is absorbed through the small intenstine into the blood but then excess sugar is filtered out by the kidneys. So as long as your kidneys are working properly (and you are not a diabetic) having water or drinks with sugar will not dehydrate you or make you more thirsty.
To convert to metric, 236ml is 8oz or 1 cup. In Japan, "1 cup" is 200ml. I'm not sure if this is true in other metric countries. 1 liter = 1000ml = 1.057 quarts this makes a teaspoon 5ml (ok, so it should be a little less, but who can measure 1/10ml when cooking?)
Slashdot Mirror
"Revenge of the Nerds"
ok, so its not really that funny
This is a harsh article - actually offensive in some parts. Just look at these lines and realize they are refering to a lot of *you* out there:
"The nerds in the typical firm's IT support department are proliferating nearly as fast."
"But fear not. Help is at hand for anybody who fears that their office is about to be swamped by Playstation addicts."
"...If not, Sun may suffer the same fate that it has in store for all those corporate nerds."
Note that this is *not* a technical publication. These stereotypes are not meant as a joke. They are trying to appeal to the average businessman who doesn't understand computers and software anymore than they "understood" the dot com boom (and subsequent bust).
The author is luring them in to read the article by saying "hey, wouldn't you like to save some money and get rid of the most socially inept portion of your company that doesn't really do anything but break e-mail preventing you from getting anything real done."
I say we "nerds" stage some sort of vengeful act/ Some time of "revenge" maybe.
not my favorite, but is British so can do the accent, is tall, is charming when he mopes, and it will need the star power.
2001: A Space Odyssey.
Both Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick collaborated on the book AND the movie. They both had input on each other's work (in fact they came up with the whole plot together) and the book came out at nearly the same time as the movie (a little bit later even though it was supposed to come out first).
Since it was planned to be a book and movie all along they compliment each other perfectly, with each giving a unique perspective on the story.
Unfortunately, its otherwise pretty much impossible to make a decent movie from a book without being unfaithful to the book itself. They are just so different mediums. In the best case you end up with Harry Potter which is boring because its identical to the book or LOTR, which may be the only exception -- but I still like the book waaay better (the songs, the elvish script, - its all necessary).
This is not to say you can't make a great movie based on a bad book - its just rare to have both become classics.
As for the other method - writing a book based on a movie - well, we all know what that is about.
I say Hugh Grant
Even though I don't like him, he has a certain amount of British charm... I dunno if he can pull off the sarcastic wit of Dent though...
it is pretty lame, but its not dots per square inch, but dots along a line... so yes, you are right, its 300 squared...
So, they say each card can hold 4.4k of data.
Lets assume the cards are about 8 square inches or so. Maybe 4" by 2" or something.
4.4kilobytes is 35.2 kilobits... lets assume no error correction, just to simplify things (though I am sure they use some). Thats about 36,000 dots for 8 square inches, or at least 4500 DPI. ok, guys, your 300dpi scanner can't read that and your copy machine is not going to make a readable copy of that.
It looks like Nintendo won't have to worry about piracy.
Besides who would go for that effort to pirate a 3 dollar game?
NES games were quite small. I'm not exactly sure but its likely that they were about 16k-32k or so. That means they could easily fit on an average of 5 of these cards. That seems to be consistent with what Nintendo is advertising. Each card holds 4.4k it seems.
SNES games could get to be a lot larger - like up to a couple of megabytes (remember they were measured in megabits though). There is no way to fit a SNES game on a paper card that can hold only 4.4k.
Some clarfication is needed...
First, the TurboGrafix 16 used (electronic)
ROM cards that, yes, were the size of credit
cards but they were significantly thicker. If you ever cracked a game open you'd find that they were just essentially a plastic-sealed circuit board. So, they were essentially the same things as the SNES games at the time, but instead of using DIP ROM chips soldered to a circuit board and then put in a plastic case, they were pure ROM silicon wired and coated in plastic without all that extra "packaging". If you've ever opened a Tamagotchi, a digital watch, or calculator you've probobably seen tiny microchips that are coated with a blob of plastic.
Basically, the turbografx is not that impressive, because while the packaging for the games was probably way more expensive to manufacture, you must remember that the actual silicon in electronic products is pretty small - most of it is packaging to enable easy design and construction of circuit boards. For high volume items that never need to be upgraded or serviced and need to be small, especially if they are simple like a data ROM you can through them all in a single chip. Think of the TurboGrafx game as a "chip".
Now, what Nintendo is doing now is something very different. They are actually printing the "data" for the game on a small card. Think of it like a really complicated barcode, because that is esentially what it is. These games probably won't be easily copied because they will beyond the resolution of a copy machine. Also, recall that NES games were quite small. A few K is all you need.
This guy wasn't a *student* at MIT -- he was just the sysadmin for the economics department. There is a big difference.
Nowhere does it say that he was an MIT student. He was just the sysadmin for the economics department.
What about gambling? (Atlantic City)
Why is this here? This is so obviously a hoax. I thought we were smarter than this.
Take a minute and go to google and search for "perpetual motion machine". You'll get a bunch of links - all to various machines built by "scientists" who claim they will revolutionize the way the world works. Sometimes they use "entropy", sometimes they claim to suck heat out of the air. Sometimes they give no description at all. You won't find one working prototype though.
Whats next? Slashdot posts a link about a sick group of art lovers making bonsai kittens?
Or maybe a story about a company that sells human meat.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands of variations on Mancala-type games (bowls and stones which are placed in them). These games are played all over the world.
I just returned from Kenya and Tanzania where I bought a Mancala borard for a local gamed called Bau (also spelled Bao). It is a lot more complicated than Awati and some say it is the most complex form of Mancala.
There was a slashdot story about the fixed-point version being available (as part of the first official release of the spec) only a few weeks ago.
First Apple announces that they will make their iPod's compatible with PCs and now there is a fixed-point Vorbis decoder!
I was hesistant in buying an iPod because all my music is in ogg vorbis format (and with good reason, given all the legal issues that are coming up with mp3). The iPod processor is capable of decoding Vorbis but it is fixed-point and I was desperately waiting for someone to port over the algorithm and I even considered undertaking the project myself.
But now that they have released the fixed-point implementation it should be any day now that we see a port to the iPod making it the best portable digital music player and a truly kick-ass piece of hardware. Now if it would only take standard AA batteries...
I don't remember what country it was specifically, but a certain group of prostitutes in Africa who were repeatedly exposed to the HIV virus (there clients had an extremely high rate of AIDS) never got the virus.
One thing that wasn't mentioned was that if the prostitutes retired and then returned to work at some point in the future and became re-exposed they had lost their resistance and became infected.
I think this was on slashdot a few months ago.
FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus) causes an AIDS-like syndrome in cats and while it is uncurable it is nowhere near as dangerous to cats
as AIDS is to humans.
In fact, viruses that cause immunodeficiency are quite common in animals and some scientists have
expressed surprise that we didn't have an HIV virus floating around before 25 years ago.
I don't believe FIV is as contagious among cats as HIV is among humans and I think that most cases come from the mother cat giving it to her kittens.
Lastly, FIV does not infect humans. The reason why kittens are tested for it is because many people do not want to adopt a cat that is destined to be plagued with health problems its whole life.
It does mention it. Early in the article it says the chimps are immune to "AIDS and its simian variants". That means SIV, too.
Red Bull, Bawls, Mt Dew etc, have been around
for quite a while now and most people have already tried them. The point of a review is to evaluate NEW things so you know whether you should waste your money trying them or not.
As I've yet to try any of these 4 drinks I actually found the review quite helpful.
Good job, I say.
Funny considering that DVD's are only in about a third of American homes... compare that to the unbelievable amount of VHS players... and it quickly shows just how popular the DVD has become."
What are you talking about??
If DVDs really were that popular don't you think that more than 1/3 of all households would have bought a DVD player by now? The only thing that stat shows is that the relatively small number of people who own DVD players buy a lot of DVDs. What does that have to do with anything?
Nowhere in that article did I see any mention of the "history of the DVD". It was basically just some stats on how DVDs have gotten really popular this year (big whoop).
The management of a company is typically NOT on the board. Even the founders with big equity stakes often don't get a seat on board. What the board should do is oust the CEO and if they can't, they should fire the dissenting opinions on the board and reform and dissolve the company.
It comes down to board seats and votes and if they are like any other startup company the investors have a majority of the seats.
Drinking too much water too quickly can damage your bladder (from making it stretch too much) or your kidneys (from overworking them because they need to filter the water out of your blood).
More likely, it can upset the sodium balance in your blood (remember osmosis) and you need to replace the electrolytes when you exercise and just plain water. Ever notice that you still feel thirsty if you are sweating a lot and then drink plain water?
The ideal liquid would have a concentration of sodium, potassium, etc that matches the blood (but just a little more dilute).
Also, contrary to popular belief, sugar is NOT a diuretic and does not make you more thirsty. Sugar is absorbed through the small intenstine into the blood but then excess sugar is filtered out by the kidneys. So as long as your kidneys are working properly (and you are not a diabetic) having water or drinks with sugar will not dehydrate you or make you more thirsty.
Some karma whoring:
3 teaspoons (small spoons you eat yogurt with)
= 1 tablespoon (large soup spoon)
2 tablespoons = 1 ounce
8oz (ounces) = 1 cup typical "small" glass
2 cups = 1 pint (school milk cartons are half-pints)
2 pints = 1 quart (think "a quart of milk")
4 quarts = 1 gallon
To convert to metric, 236ml is 8oz or 1 cup.
In Japan, "1 cup" is 200ml. I'm not sure if this is true in other metric countries.
1 liter = 1000ml = 1.057 quarts
this makes a teaspoon 5ml (ok, so it should be a little less, but who can measure 1/10ml when cooking?)
for nerds, 1 tablespoon = 4 drams