To qualify myself, I'll say that I played in the NEPL (new england paintball league) for two seasons, and various leagues/rec games before that.
For those who don't know, there are two types of paintball: Recreational and tournament. Rec play is usually of the pick-up game variety. There is a wide range of objectives. And generally, it is done simply for fun.
Tournament paintball is a completely different style of play. A "tournament" is an event where many teams show up to a host site and a single elimination style tournament is held. Games are extremely intense, and highly regulated. Most teams practice for weeks or even months leading up to an even (good teams have playbooks, hand signals, verbal code).
Many tourament players own electric paintball markers (official term for paintball gun). Most electronic markers shoot at up to 13 balls per second (in semi-automatic mode). As you can see, tournament paintball is at a different level than rec paintball. The two factions don't mix well at all (rec players usually dislike tournament players etc)
Back on topic... The hellhound is used in only in rec games (and usually only in scenario games). It is extremely expensive, and really detracts from the purpose of the game. It would be cool for about one game, then people would realize it's more fun without it. Basically its a novelty item used to promote the owner, Tippman co ("damn who made that cool thing? Their markers must be equally as cool").
Why, you ask, is the NRA so powerful? The answer is simple: the NRA has grassroots support like you wouldn't believe.
Gun owners (I should know) are as spirited, if not more, than the pro life/choice crowd. I know many people whom would die before they would allow someone to come in and take their guns away.
You don't see this with the slashdot readers. I don't know of one person who would die before they allow the gov't to take away their encryption.
People don't give a crap enough to create such an organization.
When a story comes on slashdot about such-and-such right being taken away, people complain, but nobody ever does anything (I hope someone can prove me wrong).
Ok, so the other has proved that the US and Oceania share some similarities. Until we develop something equivalent to the thought police, I'm not going to be terribly concerned.
Wait a second... Afghanistan already has a secret police. Interestingly enough, its titled The Ministry of Vice and Virtue.
Apparently Orwell's book reaches all corners of the earth.
It's pretty obvious the outcome of the show is predetermined, as stated numerous times already (pop this trunk here... oh whatdya know... a roll of tin foil). What I really hate about the show, is how they dumb down the technical side of the show to the point where they are often incorrect. As a person who has worked on engines, cars etc all his life, I can tell you most of the explanations of what the people are doing on the show is simply incorrect. Not to mention that a lot of the designs are just silly.
Gun companies *could* make guns safer and prevent the number of deaths to small children, but haven't. Hence they are guilty of negligence.
By doing what? Some of the things mentioned in the industry are:
-harder/longer trigger pulls In theory this would make it more difficult for a child to discharge a weapon. In practice it makes the gun more inaccurate to the user. A longer harder trigger pull causes the weapon to jump around. In self defense situations, do you really want to compound the inaccuracy problems, potentially endangering innocent people?
-finger print IDer In theory only the person who purchased the handgun could fire it. This has several problems. First, what if the battery fails in a self-defense situation? What if there is a glitch in the system. This is not acceptable. This would also drive the cost of handguns out of the range of the average citizen. For women who need handguns for self defense, this is also not an option.
Loaded chamber IDer. This one really gets me. First off, these things can wear off with age and dirt can cover up the painted red areas. A gun should ALWAYS be treated as loaded, unless the chamber is visually inspected to be clear. There is no point to this addon, and can potentially make the gun less safe, obviously by a combo of crud build-up and user safety breach.
Guns are very safe it treated properly. The solution to the child problem is to keep them out of reach or locked up. Using the simple rule of never pointing the rifle at something you don't want destroyed is the only way to stay safe. I've recently had a situation where my SAR-2 slam-fired (gun fired when the charging handle was released), causing the gun to go off without pulling the trigger. Fortunately, I was practicing firearms safety and the rifle dischaged into the ground.
I love the idea of controlling outlets with pc's. As one of the prior posters stated, it looks pretty sketchy running a rack off of one of these things, but what about your coffee maker, lamp or toaster?
Think about it, you could set linux up to turn on your lamp or stereo when you want to get up in the morning, have coffee all ready by the time you're out of the shower, and have the toast just popping out as you finish your cup of coffee!
Hell, you could schedule your linux box to randomly turn on lights while you were on vacation to scare off intruders. If your box was networked, you could remotely turn stuff on and off from work.
Purchase some solenoids, and you could really have some fun.
Fuel cells are almost the perfect energy source. Unlike contentional power production methods, fuel cells can be used on demand, as it only takes minutes to activate a fuel cell plant.
Fuel cells work by introducing hydrogen gas to an anode, and oxygen gas to a cathode. With new advancements in the design of the semipermeable membrane that separates the anode and cathode, the cell can operate at temps below 100C.
Fuel cells are nothing new. They were commonly used on the Apollo missions to the moon in the 60's (water being a product of the cell, is quite handy), and probably well before then.
The catch? Hydrogen, even though the most abundent element in the universe is almost always attached to something else (like H2O, or CH3), and getting the hydrogen out is more costly than current energy production. So until this issue is resolved, fuel cell plants will most likely be used as a backup (thats what they do in NYC, I recall).
That's not all that impressive. I just happened to have a copy of the latest American Snowmobiler, and in it they ran some slightly modified snowmobiles on a dirt track.
The quickest to 60mph was a Ski-Doo Mach Z (285hp, 175f/p torque), in 2.07 seconds. Mind you, this is on dirt which is not where a snowmobile is supposed to be driven. Imagine that thing on snow?!
This is obviously a modified engine. Most stock 800cc snowmobiles hit 60 in the low 3 second range (on dirt).
Forget napster. Why go through all the hassle of changing filenames (etc) as suggested, when you can just use opennap? It has clients for practically every OS out there, and if it didn't have one for your OS, it wouldn't be much of a problem to write one.
I really like the musiccity set of servers. They have about 30 different servers, all of which are very fast.
If you don't like Microsofts skeme, don't buy the operating system. Nobody is holding a gun to your head saying "buy this OS." They are selling you a product, if you don't like it then don't buy it.
I actually have one of these, and I used it recently. These died for a very good reason, they're very difficult to cut grass with
Every been to a golf course?
Reel mowers are most certainly not dead. Nearly every golf course in existance uses them exclusively for cutting fairways and rough (they pull them behind tractors). Most good golf courses use a species of grass called bent grass for the closer-cut fairways. It is almost impossible for rotary blade mowers to get as close and consistent as a reel mower.
Those of us in vermont are lucky. Our power companies signed a deal with Hydro-Quebec for "cheap power" (at the time). Their idea was to lock in a "cheap" rate, as prices looked as though they were going to skyrocket.
Unfortunately, power is significantly cheaper now and we're stuck paying rediculous rates.
I have no problem helping other people. That is what charity is for. I have a problem with people being FORCED to give up their money to other people.
At the moment, I am a poor college student. Yet, I don't think anyone OWES me anything. Whatever little money I have, I've worked hard for. It is mine and know one elses. I think it is disgusting that we have so many people in this society that just want to leech off of the achievers.
Re:The Middle Class' Best Interest is to Vote Nade
on
Should You Vote?
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· Score: 1
If you take matching funds, aren't you selling out?
Also, what does Nader want to help the middle class to become? It is my understanding Nader doens't like the wealthy, correct my if I'm wrong. I hypothesize that Nader wants to keep the middle class right where they are.
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Nader? Why will you be voting for candidate X?
on
Should You Vote?
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· Score: 1
I live in a liberal college campus (University of Vermont). Ralph Nader has quite a following here. I would like to hear from a Nader supporter why they are voting for him (not why they shouldn't vote for Gore or Bush).
Personally, I will be voting for Bush. While I don't agree with everything he says, he shares my beliefs more than any of the other candidates.
Actually, I'd like to hear from all the candidate supporters on why they want to vote for a candidate (but not why other candidates shouldn't be in office).
I like how some people phrase this as "why should the government give us a tax cut." Or even some people who want to "give" the american people a tax cut.
As if taking less money away from us is a gift.
Why thank you government. Thank you very much for not raping me of my money.
They may be the same lengths, but they are not going to be the same file size due to the nature of compression. Just avoid song whose file size differs from the rest.
I wonder if you've ever used napster. Unless you like artifacts, you're going to be searching for 160 or 192 kb/sec (I always try for 192). So your statement concerning bitrates is moot.
People are also lazy. If a song is already encoded and in wide distribution, there's no need to encode it again. Try searching for a song (searching for only one bitrate) and you'll find a couple of lengths that are popular. If you're smart you'll download one of these "veteran" files (since its obviously good, or people would delete it from their hds).
I don't understand why anyone would be dumb enough to actually download one of these trojans. I mean, if you really wanted a BNL song, you would just have to compare its length with other matches.
Of course, if they were really smart, they'd make the advertisements the same length as the other songs. BUT, since mp3's are compressed, the song length would never be the same size. It would be very easy to pick out.
what constitues "regular bullets"? Are you refering to full metal jacket, hollow points, jacketed hollow point, soft points? Are you refering to standard loads +p loads or +p+ loads?
You see, there is no such thing as "standard" bullets. Those teflon coated bullets were just another deviation which was demonized by the left wing in an attempt at banning guns altogether... starting with ammunition.
Slashdot Mirror
First, a little background on paintball...
To qualify myself, I'll say that I played in the NEPL (new england paintball league) for two seasons, and various leagues/rec games before that.
For those who don't know, there are two types of paintball: Recreational and tournament. Rec play is usually of the pick-up game variety. There is a wide range of objectives. And generally, it is done simply for fun.
Tournament paintball is a completely different style of play. A "tournament" is an event where many teams show up to a host site and a single elimination style tournament is held. Games are extremely intense, and highly regulated. Most teams practice for weeks or even months leading up to an even (good teams have playbooks, hand signals, verbal code).
Many tourament players own electric paintball markers (official term for paintball gun). Most electronic markers shoot at up to 13 balls per second (in semi-automatic mode). As you can see, tournament paintball is at a different level than rec paintball. The two factions don't mix well at all (rec players usually dislike tournament players etc)
Back on topic... The hellhound is used in only in rec games (and usually only in scenario games). It is extremely expensive, and really detracts from the purpose of the game. It would be cool for about one game, then people would realize it's more fun without it. Basically its a novelty item used to promote the owner, Tippman co ("damn who made that cool thing? Their markers must be equally as cool").
Why, you ask, is the NRA so powerful? The answer is simple: the NRA has grassroots support like you wouldn't believe.
Gun owners (I should know) are as spirited, if not more, than the pro life/choice crowd. I know many people whom would die before they would allow someone to come in and take their guns away.
You don't see this with the slashdot readers. I don't know of one person who would die before they allow the gov't to take away their encryption.
People don't give a crap enough to create such an organization.
When a story comes on slashdot about such-and-such right being taken away, people complain, but nobody ever does anything (I hope someone can prove me wrong).
Ok, so the other has proved that the US and Oceania share some similarities. Until we develop something equivalent to the thought police, I'm not going to be terribly concerned.
Wait a second... Afghanistan already has a secret police. Interestingly enough, its titled The Ministry of Vice and Virtue.
Apparently Orwell's book reaches all corners of the earth.
It's pretty obvious the outcome of the show is predetermined, as stated numerous times already (pop this trunk here... oh whatdya know... a roll of tin foil). What I really hate about the show, is how they dumb down the technical side of the show to the point where they are often incorrect. As a person who has worked on engines, cars etc all his life, I can tell you most of the explanations of what the people are doing on the show is simply incorrect. Not to mention that a lot of the designs are just silly.
By doing what? Some of the things mentioned in the industry are:
-harder/longer trigger pulls In theory this would make it more difficult for a child to discharge a weapon. In practice it makes the gun more inaccurate to the user. A longer harder trigger pull causes the weapon to jump around. In self defense situations, do you really want to compound the inaccuracy problems, potentially endangering innocent people?
-finger print IDer In theory only the person who purchased the handgun could fire it. This has several problems. First, what if the battery fails in a self-defense situation? What if there is a glitch in the system. This is not acceptable. This would also drive the cost of handguns out of the range of the average citizen. For women who need handguns for self defense, this is also not an option.
Loaded chamber IDer. This one really gets me. First off, these things can wear off with age and dirt can cover up the painted red areas. A gun should ALWAYS be treated as loaded, unless the chamber is visually inspected to be clear. There is no point to this addon, and can potentially make the gun less safe, obviously by a combo of crud build-up and user safety breach.
Guns are very safe it treated properly. The solution to the child problem is to keep them out of reach or locked up. Using the simple rule of never pointing the rifle at something you don't want destroyed is the only way to stay safe. I've recently had a situation where my SAR-2 slam-fired (gun fired when the charging handle was released), causing the gun to go off without pulling the trigger. Fortunately, I was practicing firearms safety and the rifle dischaged into the ground.
Can someone recommend a place that will press slack 8 to a CD for a decent price? An ISO is just too much for a dialup user.
"What were we celebrating again..?"
Think about it, you could set linux up to turn on your lamp or stereo when you want to get up in the morning, have coffee all ready by the time you're out of the shower, and have the toast just popping out as you finish your cup of coffee!
Hell, you could schedule your linux box to randomly turn on lights while you were on vacation to scare off intruders. If your box was networked, you could remotely turn stuff on and off from work.
Purchase some solenoids, and you could really have some fun.
Shouldn't that read "not an excess tax?"
Fuel cells are almost the perfect energy source. Unlike contentional power production methods, fuel cells can be used on demand, as it only takes minutes to activate a fuel cell plant.
Fuel cells work by introducing hydrogen gas to an anode, and oxygen gas to a cathode. With new advancements in the design of the semipermeable membrane that separates the anode and cathode, the cell can operate at temps below 100C.
Fuel cells are nothing new. They were commonly used on the Apollo missions to the moon in the 60's (water being a product of the cell, is quite handy), and probably well before then.
The catch? Hydrogen, even though the most abundent element in the universe is almost always attached to something else (like H2O, or CH3), and getting the hydrogen out is more costly than current energy production. So until this issue is resolved, fuel cell plants will most likely be used as a backup (thats what they do in NYC, I recall).
The quickest to 60mph was a Ski-Doo Mach Z (285hp, 175f/p torque), in 2.07 seconds. Mind you, this is on dirt which is not where a snowmobile is supposed to be driven. Imagine that thing on snow?!
This is obviously a modified engine. Most stock 800cc snowmobiles hit 60 in the low 3 second range (on dirt).
I really like the musiccity set of servers. They have about 30 different servers, all of which are very fast.
I'm still using 95 (when I have to).
Every been to a golf course?
Reel mowers are most certainly not dead. Nearly every golf course in existance uses them exclusively for cutting fairways and rough (they pull them behind tractors). Most good golf courses use a species of grass called bent grass for the closer-cut fairways. It is almost impossible for rotary blade mowers to get as close and consistent as a reel mower.
Unfortunately, power is significantly cheaper now and we're stuck paying rediculous rates.
At the moment, I am a poor college student. Yet, I don't think anyone OWES me anything. Whatever little money I have, I've worked hard for. It is mine and know one elses. I think it is disgusting that we have so many people in this society that just want to leech off of the achievers.
Also, what does Nader want to help the middle class to become? It is my understanding Nader doens't like the wealthy, correct my if I'm wrong. I hypothesize that Nader wants to keep the middle class right where they are.
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Personally, I will be voting for Bush. While I don't agree with everything he says, he shares my beliefs more than any of the other candidates.
Actually, I'd like to hear from all the candidate supporters on why they want to vote for a candidate (but not why other candidates shouldn't be in office).
As if taking less money away from us is a gift.
Why thank you government. Thank you very much for not raping me of my money.
5 cents a minute peak, 2 cents offpeak outside my exchange
Luckily FCC caps the local phone bill at $28 a month per line. 8000 minutes a month, metered, is not pretty.
Just something to think about.
They may be the same lengths, but they are not going to be the same file size due to the nature of compression. Just avoid song whose file size differs from the rest.
People are also lazy. If a song is already encoded and in wide distribution, there's no need to encode it again. Try searching for a song (searching for only one bitrate) and you'll find a couple of lengths that are popular. If you're smart you'll download one of these "veteran" files (since its obviously good, or people would delete it from their hds).
Of course, if they were really smart, they'd make the advertisements the same length as the other songs. BUT, since mp3's are compressed, the song length would never be the same size. It would be very easy to pick out.
You see, there is no such thing as "standard" bullets. Those teflon coated bullets were just another deviation which was demonized by the left wing in an attempt at banning guns altogether... starting with ammunition.