A modified Shuttle mated to an American-licensed Energia would be sweet. Fix the thermal system, and drop the SSMEs that have to be rebuilt every flight anyway.
People flying in a spacecraft, the thermal system of which is the only thing that stands between them and forces strong enough to neatly distribute their bodies across 200 miles of forest, should not have to "hope it never happens again".
The current Thermal Protection System is a dangerous, fragile and unreliable hack that should be thrown away and replaced with a more sensible system using modern materials and technologies that are proven and ready to use now.
this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released.
Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.
Note, my comments apply to the version I've played, that being the XBox version.
Well, the game has some really brilliant moments (running like hell as various civilians turn into Agents all around you), but there are a bunch of annoying glitches that pop up every now and then.
* You can get stuck in walls, floors, and other geometry,
* you occasionally run into invisible walls that you have to walk around (?!),
* occasional odd physics things like your character wigging out when landing on platforms,
* random annoying enemy spawns, usually right behind me where there's no way somebody could naturally have gotten there...
Also the Metal Gear Solid style "hide up against a wall and peek around the corner" is really picky about what sort of walls you try to hide up against.
Overall, what I've played through has been fun, but pretty frequently you'll run into some sort of glitch that is relatively insignificant but takes away from the experience.
--riney p.s. The "hacking" interface with the DOS prompt is kinda fun.
Note that I said "in a Progress or two". Progress flights cost from 20 to 50 million, much cheaper than a shuttle flight which I didn't mention.
Not to mention, astronauts have pulled off some damn complex assembly operations on orbit - like, for example, assembling the space station they're living in. It's just a matter of giving them the right procedures.
Hell, why stop there? Why not transport the whole probe up to the ISS in a Progress or two, have the astronauts assemble it Erector-set style and hand-carry it outside, and let it launch itself from the station?
Now that's cool, and a halfway worthwhile use of all that hardware we've got floating up there.
The office at my previous company switched to an open plan. We had actual offices for meetings and group work sessions, and the rest of the area set up as a wide open floor, with nice expensive desks and comfy chairs. It took a while for some members of the team to get used to it, but eventually rules and psychological barriers started to naturally fall into place (call out name and ask permission to roll into somebody's "office"; if someone's got headphones on, don't bother 'em; etc).
It was the best boost in productivity we ever had. Spontaneous group brainstorms, pair programming, etc, were much easier.
Yesterday morning, I got to work. Net was down. Phones were down. I got a message from our network support. It said that AT&T service (our bandwidth and long distance provider) was down all over the east coast. It came back about an hour later.
What the hell happened? Nothing on the news, nothing obvious on AT&T's site. You'd think that a hour long outage of an entire coast would at least hit the newswires.
If you let it go any significant period of time between recharges (i.e. greater than a week or two), the battery gets screwed up. I left my ipaq in a drawer for a month, came back, and it was shot. Do a google search for "ipaq battery problems".
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A modified Shuttle mated to an American-licensed Energia would be sweet. Fix the thermal system, and drop the SSMEs that have to be rebuilt every flight anyway.
(repost - stupid thing won't log me in!)
--riney
People flying in a spacecraft, the thermal system of which is the only thing that stands between them and forces strong enough to neatly distribute their bodies across 200 miles of forest, should not have to "hope it never happens again".
The current Thermal Protection System is a dangerous, fragile and unreliable hack that should be thrown away and replaced with a more sensible system using modern materials and technologies that are proven and ready to use now.
--riney
Come on man...duct tape!
--riney
this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released.
Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.
--riney
How the hell are you gonna keep it lit in space?
--riney
1. Scroll down to description of auction
2. Click on picture of sticker
3. Print out onto sticker paper
4. Profit!
--riney
Not to mention the major burst of insanity that surrounded the removal of MNG/JNG support, two perfectly useful new formats.
0
Mind-boggling Bugzilla discussion of this is here - http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19528
--riney
Note, my comments apply to the version I've played, that being the XBox version.
Well, the game has some really brilliant moments (running like hell as various civilians turn into Agents all around you), but there are a bunch of annoying glitches that pop up every now and then.
* You can get stuck in walls, floors, and other geometry,
* you occasionally run into invisible walls that you have to walk around (?!),
* occasional odd physics things like your character wigging out when landing on platforms,
* random annoying enemy spawns, usually right behind me where there's no way somebody could naturally have gotten there...
Also the Metal Gear Solid style "hide up against a wall and peek around the corner" is really picky about what sort of walls you try to hide up against.
Overall, what I've played through has been fun, but pretty frequently you'll run into some sort of glitch that is relatively insignificant but takes away from the experience.
--riney
p.s. The "hacking" interface with the DOS prompt is kinda fun.
Are they planning on releasing a generic headset for the PS2? The only one out now is packed in with Socom.
--riney
WarBSD? Huh. Good God ya'll. What is it good for?
--riney
Note that I said "in a Progress or two". Progress flights cost from 20 to 50 million, much cheaper than a shuttle flight which I didn't mention.
Not to mention, astronauts have pulled off some damn complex assembly operations on orbit - like, for example, assembling the space station they're living in. It's just a matter of giving them the right procedures.
--riney
Hell, why stop there? Why not transport the whole probe up to the ISS in a Progress or two, have the astronauts assemble it Erector-set style and hand-carry it outside, and let it launch itself from the station?
Now that's cool, and a halfway worthwhile use of all that hardware we've got floating up there.
--riney
These Ask Slashdot questions are getting tough. I've got no friggin' idea!
--riney
Inside voices, my man, inside voices.
--riney
The office at my previous company switched to an open plan. We had actual offices for meetings and group work sessions, and the rest of the area set up as a wide open floor, with nice expensive desks and comfy chairs. It took a while for some members of the team to get used to it, but eventually rules and psychological barriers started to naturally fall into place (call out name and ask permission to roll into somebody's "office"; if someone's got headphones on, don't bother 'em; etc).
It was the best boost in productivity we ever had. Spontaneous group brainstorms, pair programming, etc, were much easier.
--riney
I never dreamed I'd ever see a resonance cascade, let alone download a .JPG of one.
--riney
Aaaagh! Patents are bad! Patents are bad!
(Psst - hey, Google's getting one.)
Uh, well, (grumble) I guess that's okay then, er...
Bring on the wave of apologists.
--riney, Karmakaze
And for a second there I thought they were talking about building some new sort of Amiga.
--riney
Hu-woah-whoa-whoa! This interview shanked my jengaship!
--riney
CS and calculus are subsets of the same thing.
That said, I still hate calculus.
--riney
Alright! EL Christmas lights can't be far behind.
--riney
Featuring Vin Diesel as the androgynous, pointy-haired, sword wielding hero.
(shudder)
Yesterday morning, I got to work. Net was down. Phones were down. I got a message from our network support. It said that AT&T service (our bandwidth and long distance provider) was down all over the east coast. It came back about an hour later.
What the hell happened? Nothing on the news, nothing obvious on AT&T's site. You'd think that a hour long outage of an entire coast would at least hit the newswires.
Two sites slash-murdered today and counting.
--riney
If you let it go any significant period of time between recharges (i.e. greater than a week or two), the battery gets screwed up. I left my ipaq in a drawer for a month, came back, and it was shot. Do a google search for "ipaq battery problems".
--riney