Recylcing is a HUGE energy sink. But it's not about the energy-- it's about the raw materials. I'm surprised anyone would ever think for a second that recycling is about energy.
Of COURSE the pickup, processing, melting, and re-forming of materials is going to use a ton of energy. It does have other nice side-effects, though: less deforestation, less mining, etc...
It's a tradeoff. You spend energy to get material.
There needs to be a standard for this. A small, short-range transmitter just like the one described in this article can send out a code that says "silent mode only" to phones, rather than "no service." It would allow vibrating rings, and prevent answering until the user left the area to pick up the call. Even better would be if the person on the calling end could receive a message telling them that the party on the receiving end is in a silent-mode zone, and that they should hold on longer for an answer while the person leaves the silent-mode area.
Unfortunately, this would require some sort of cooperative standard from the handset manufacturers-- not likely.
You ever talk to somebody who was listening to music loudly on headphones, and have them respond to you by yelling (unintentionally)?
It's the same thing. I'm not saying they're not stupid, that's just why it happens. They're too inept to adjust their phone's volume, and instinctively speak as loud as the other person sounds when held to their ear.
There's also the "shout through static" effect, where people try to yell through whatever reception difficulties they're having.
Personally, I prefer mobile IM anyway. It's quiet and unobtrusive.
Let her count the TiVo. I think you're gonna win no matter what. "Living Organisms?" Toilet bacteria alone are going to allow you to buy thousands and thousands of PCs. Never mind your intestinal bacteria, houseplants, and any pets you may have. To be fair, she could also legitimately count the dozens of embedded computers in everything from your microwave to your alarm clock, but she'll never come close to that household bacteria number.
"point-and-click games do not tranfer well to anything that doesn't have a MOUSE"
This true, if the port tries to emulate the mouse (ugh) rather than fixing the interface.
The Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars port to the GBA is fantastic. It's a 1.2GB point-and-click adventure on the PC, and it works beautifully on the GBA even without a mouse. The interface is a marvel of design, doing away with the pointer entirely, and giving you direct control of your character's movement with the d-pad. Action icons appear when standing near an object.
If they can port BS, they can port literally any of the older (Sam & Max, etc...) point-and-click games with ease. Most of the lucasarts games are only a few megs to start with-- there won't be the massive 1.2GB->8MB shoehorning effort with the port.
Nonetheless, if you like adventure games and have a GBA, you should DEFINITELY get Broken Sword.
"Umm...we *are* talking about the device w/o a touchscreen or mouse, right?"
There was no issue porting Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars to the GBA, an adventure game similar to Sam & Max, but of a much later (and thus higher resolution, larger, and more complex) vintage. The game is 1.2GB for the PC, but fits on an 8MB cartridge and works beautifully without a touchscreen, despite the PC's dependency on the mouse. The interface is truly an accomplishment, and works so smoothly you don't realize you're not playing as originally intended. If you like adventure games and don't have this one for the GBA, it's a must-buy.
There is also a port of the AGI VM for the GBA, which allows you to run the old Sierra games (SQ1,2, KQ1-4, LSL1, etc...). Those games required *typing* but are still highly playable, because the VM port does intelligent word-suggestion based on the vocabulary usable at the particular location you are looking at. It's actually easier to play with no keyboard than it was on the original PC. (No more trying to guess what something is called, or which verb to use to do what you want)
Sam & Max would most certainly be portable, but it would probably have to be a dedicated rewrite rather than a VM port. The ScummVM team looked into a GBA port, and although to processor is up to it, there simply isn't enough RAM to run ScummVM games.
I wasn't one of those people, but I'll try to explain it anyway.
You have a few scenarios:
1. You set up a new machine and trash the old one. You use one PC's worth of power, and it's more than enough to handle serving your mp3s while you do other things. Downside, you trashed the old one and released the toxic badness.
2. You set up a new machine and keep the old one for mp3s. Same as #1, but uses twice the power.
3. You set up a new machine and donate the old one to someone else who will use it. Same as #2, except twice the number of people are using PCs at the same energy use.
So, which is more efficient in your mind? One person using two PCs, or two people using two PCs? Seems like twice the use is being obtained with no net energy increase. So, yes, the same amount of energy is being used, but that doesn't seem to be the point.
My bad, and a bit of a mix-up in terminology. "Remote Controlled" meaning just that the surgeon is not right there in the opening with a scalpel, viewing and performing the surgery directly-- not necessarily radio- or wire-controlled.
You're quite right-- laparoscopic surgery's "remote" is just really long instruments stuck in through tiny holes. He can't see the surgery except via the camera, and all he's got to work with are the "handles" sticking out of the patient. That's all I meant by remote. It's still very much like a video game.
Hey, I was joking and sarcastic too! Don't be so jumpy!
Man, talk about irony-- being accused of not being able to take a joke right after making a sarcastic slashdot joke. Seriously. That's like, deep, and stuff.
Well, laparoscopic surgery isn't so much a "scalpel" surgery. The image is obtained via a fiberoptic camera, and the surgery itself is performed with remote controlled instruments while the doctor watches the screen.
It's no surprise that video games (controlling things happening on a screen) is good practice for laparoscopic surgery (controlling things happening on a screen).
Did you even read the article? Ohhhhhh, sorry-- forgot where I was for a minute.
I believe this requirement was eliminated last year, or there was a new type of visa created that doesn't have the requirement. Additionally, the traditional "workaround" has been something like this:
Job Requirements: 5 Yrs. C++/Java Experience, Must be Fluent in Punjabi.
Nonetheless, I think if I get canned, I will be switching fields if work is scarce in my area. If they ask me to train my replacement, I will tell them to shove their severance package somewhere painful.
Your "me and my father, half sister, and her kids" dataset isn't statistically significant.
Here's a lesson from my life: Hondas are statistically reliable. Mine has needed transmission service nine times in less than 40K miles. Does my single example mean Hondas are unreliable overall? No. It means I'm the rare example, and an unlucky son of a bitch with an unreliable civic.
Just remember "but it didn't happen that way for me" isn't a valid argument against somebody who did a controlled study with a large dataset. You need more than a single datapoint from your own life.
You are thinking of Niven's "Integral Trees," which is indeed about people living in a gas torus in zero-g. And there was a "midget" (normal height to us) capable of wearing the space suit left behind by the original ship.
Ringworld is about a huge ring the size of a planetary orbit around a star, with people living on the inside of it. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do if you liked Integral Trees. Just don't read the last one in the series-- it's awful. The rest are fantastic.
Yeah, I had a copy, too. In my misguided youth, I thought it was a great game solely because of the spectacular graphics. In retrospect, it sucked. The gameplay and control was terrible. But at least it was pretty while it was sucking.
I probably played PocoMan (a sokoban clone) roughly 100 times more than Shadow of the Beast, and Monkey Island for the Amiga is my standard for adventure games to this day.
I don't know how "short notice" he was looking for, but I managed to find several dozen hockey helmets *exactly* like the ones used in the 80s to make the helmets in the movie on ebay when I made my Tron costume. Took about a week to arrive, and a few days to paint. I'm certainly not as hardcore as he is, but MAN are there easier ways than plaster-casting your head and sculpting the helmet from scratch.
I ran CC in indy for BDHS at the same time Pete was running. I always felt awful for him-- he was a pretty good cross country runner, and usually finished high enough that they read his name at the awards ceremonies after the meets. I would always cringe when I saw the announcer hesitate before reading a name-- they never knew what to do. (For the record, I was bad enough that he probably never heard my name announced)
I never really new him-- but I hope that the name change has made his life smoother.
There was a guy from another regional high school who ran Cross Country against our team in Indianapolis whose name was "Peter Wacker." I believe he went to Lawrence North or Lawrence Central HS. I saw him again later writing a column for a college newspaper that a friend showed me.
Incidentally, we also had a Richard Hair on our basketball team at Ben Davis HS.
Also, there are a pair of tombstones down towards Greenwood, IN, for a deceased couple named Earlie and Ada Boner. Yes, both of them. The cemetery is just off the west side of 31-- I can't remember the cross street.
"I don't really understand the emotional backlash from tv-viewers who think the non-tv people have a superiority complex"
I think you answered your own question...
"require masses of cognitive dissonance to justify expensive and unhealthy weirdness to calm an overy-anxious soul: excessive spending, tv-watching, eating, smoking, drinking just to calm down and forget about "the crappy universe" that's out to get you"
Certainly sounds like a superiority complex to me. Like everything, TV can be done in moderation, without massive expense, self-lying justification, or as a means of escapism. Lumping "us TV watchers" into your own personal stereotype of underachieving, depressed, escapist addicts seems fairly condescending, and it's not true.
I, of course, enjoy watching the occasional tivo'd television program. I like it because I like it, not because my world is horrible, or that I have deep, hidden self-doubt.
I had no idea we were in such lousy position on this. Sure, we're behind in vacation for workers, quality of life, cell phone tech, digital TV deployment, broadband access and mass transit, but who would have thought we would also be so low on something like life expectancy?
Perhaps it has something to do with the overwhelming fatness of the people who live here. Show your patriotism and excersise! We must live longer than the socialists!
Note: if you take this as anything but sarcasm, you're retarded. It is surprising to see us SO low, even though I certainly didn't expect to be #1. Somebody mod the parent up.
I dunno about any of it. Popups, interstitials, placements, etc... they all drive me nuts. The only thing that would make me happy is ads you choose to watch, and I would simply choose not to watch any of them. That alias episode you reference in particular, and an earlier one with an obnoxious logo zoom-in on a Ford Focus really grated on me.
Honestly... who would yell something like "Take the F-150!!!" in a frantic chase? Maybe "Get in the truck." But in that particular example, how about "Get in the car in FRONT of the truck, so we don't have to push a parked car out of the way with the truck." Not to mention it made the Mustang look pretty lousy that a huge pickup truck could accelerate and corner as well as it did.
I want to pay for my shows directly. I don't need 100 channels, ads, or anything but the few programs I like.
Slashdot Mirror
Recylcing is a HUGE energy sink. But it's not about the energy-- it's about the raw materials. I'm surprised anyone would ever think for a second that recycling is about energy.
Of COURSE the pickup, processing, melting, and re-forming of materials is going to use a ton of energy. It does have other nice side-effects, though: less deforestation, less mining, etc...
It's a tradeoff. You spend energy to get material.
There needs to be a standard for this. A small, short-range transmitter just like the one described in this article can send out a code that says "silent mode only" to phones, rather than "no service." It would allow vibrating rings, and prevent answering until the user left the area to pick up the call. Even better would be if the person on the calling end could receive a message telling them that the party on the receiving end is in a silent-mode zone, and that they should hold on longer for an answer while the person leaves the silent-mode area.
Unfortunately, this would require some sort of cooperative standard from the handset manufacturers-- not likely.
You ever talk to somebody who was listening to music loudly on headphones, and have them respond to you by yelling (unintentionally)?
It's the same thing. I'm not saying they're not stupid, that's just why it happens. They're too inept to adjust their phone's volume, and instinctively speak as loud as the other person sounds when held to their ear.
There's also the "shout through static" effect, where people try to yell through whatever reception difficulties they're having.
Personally, I prefer mobile IM anyway. It's quiet and unobtrusive.
Let her count the TiVo. I think you're gonna win no matter what. "Living Organisms?" Toilet bacteria alone are going to allow you to buy thousands and thousands of PCs. Never mind your intestinal bacteria, houseplants, and any pets you may have. To be fair, she could also legitimately count the dozens of embedded computers in everything from your microwave to your alarm clock, but she'll never come close to that household bacteria number.
"point-and-click games do not tranfer well to anything that doesn't have a MOUSE"
This true, if the port tries to emulate the mouse (ugh) rather than fixing the interface.
The Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars port to the GBA is fantastic. It's a 1.2GB point-and-click adventure on the PC, and it works beautifully on the GBA even without a mouse. The interface is a marvel of design, doing away with the pointer entirely, and giving you direct control of your character's movement with the d-pad. Action icons appear when standing near an object.
If they can port BS, they can port literally any of the older (Sam & Max, etc...) point-and-click games with ease. Most of the lucasarts games are only a few megs to start with-- there won't be the massive 1.2GB->8MB shoehorning effort with the port.
Nonetheless, if you like adventure games and have a GBA, you should DEFINITELY get Broken Sword.
"Umm...we *are* talking about the device w/o a touchscreen or mouse, right?"
There was no issue porting Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars to the GBA, an adventure game similar to Sam & Max, but of a much later (and thus higher resolution, larger, and more complex) vintage. The game is 1.2GB for the PC, but fits on an 8MB cartridge and works beautifully without a touchscreen, despite the PC's dependency on the mouse. The interface is truly an accomplishment, and works so smoothly you don't realize you're not playing as originally intended. If you like adventure games and don't have this one for the GBA, it's a must-buy.
There is also a port of the AGI VM for the GBA, which allows you to run the old Sierra games (SQ1,2, KQ1-4, LSL1, etc...). Those games required *typing* but are still highly playable, because the VM port does intelligent word-suggestion based on the vocabulary usable at the particular location you are looking at. It's actually easier to play with no keyboard than it was on the original PC. (No more trying to guess what something is called, or which verb to use to do what you want)
Sam & Max would most certainly be portable, but it would probably have to be a dedicated rewrite rather than a VM port. The ScummVM team looked into a GBA port, and although to processor is up to it, there simply isn't enough RAM to run ScummVM games.
I wasn't one of those people, but I'll try to explain it anyway.
You have a few scenarios:
1. You set up a new machine and trash the old one. You use one PC's worth of power, and it's more than enough to handle serving your mp3s while you do other things. Downside, you trashed the old one and released the toxic badness.
2. You set up a new machine and keep the old one for mp3s. Same as #1, but uses twice the power.
3. You set up a new machine and donate the old one to someone else who will use it. Same as #2, except twice the number of people are using PCs at the same energy use.
So, which is more efficient in your mind? One person using two PCs, or two people using two PCs? Seems like twice the use is being obtained with no net energy increase. So, yes, the same amount of energy is being used, but that doesn't seem to be the point.
My bad, and a bit of a mix-up in terminology. "Remote Controlled" meaning just that the surgeon is not right there in the opening with a scalpel, viewing and performing the surgery directly-- not necessarily radio- or wire-controlled.
You're quite right-- laparoscopic surgery's "remote" is just really long instruments stuck in through tiny holes. He can't see the surgery except via the camera, and all he's got to work with are the "handles" sticking out of the patient. That's all I meant by remote. It's still very much like a video game.
Hey, I was joking and sarcastic too! Don't be so jumpy!
:)
Man, talk about irony-- being accused of not being able to take a joke right after making a sarcastic slashdot joke. Seriously. That's like, deep, and stuff.
Ah well, all in good fun.
Well, laparoscopic surgery isn't so much a "scalpel" surgery. The image is obtained via a fiberoptic camera, and the surgery itself is performed with remote controlled instruments while the doctor watches the screen.
It's no surprise that video games (controlling things happening on a screen) is good practice for laparoscopic surgery (controlling things happening on a screen).
Did you even read the article? Ohhhhhh, sorry-- forgot where I was for a minute.
I believe this requirement was eliminated last year, or there was a new type of visa created that doesn't have the requirement. Additionally, the traditional "workaround" has been something like this:
Job Requirements: 5 Yrs. C++/Java Experience, Must be Fluent in Punjabi.
Nonetheless, I think if I get canned, I will be switching fields if work is scarce in my area. If they ask me to train my replacement, I will tell them to shove their severance package somewhere painful.
Your "me and my father, half sister, and her kids" dataset isn't statistically significant.
Here's a lesson from my life: Hondas are statistically reliable. Mine has needed transmission service nine times in less than 40K miles. Does my single example mean Hondas are unreliable overall? No. It means I'm the rare example, and an unlucky son of a bitch with an unreliable civic.
Just remember "but it didn't happen that way for me" isn't a valid argument against somebody who did a controlled study with a large dataset. You need more than a single datapoint from your own life.
You are thinking of Niven's "Integral Trees," which is indeed about people living in a gas torus in zero-g. And there was a "midget" (normal height to us) capable of wearing the space suit left behind by the original ship.
Ringworld is about a huge ring the size of a planetary orbit around a star, with people living on the inside of it. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do if you liked Integral Trees. Just don't read the last one in the series-- it's awful. The rest are fantastic.
Yeah, I had a copy, too. In my misguided youth, I thought it was a great game solely because of the spectacular graphics. In retrospect, it sucked. The gameplay and control was terrible. But at least it was pretty while it was sucking.
I probably played PocoMan (a sokoban clone) roughly 100 times more than Shadow of the Beast, and Monkey Island for the Amiga is my standard for adventure games to this day.
Nope. I was '95.
I don't know how "short notice" he was looking for, but I managed to find several dozen hockey helmets *exactly* like the ones used in the 80s to make the helmets in the movie on ebay when I made my Tron costume. Took about a week to arrive, and a few days to paint. I'm certainly not as hardcore as he is, but MAN are there easier ways than plaster-casting your head and sculpting the helmet from scratch.
Still, props to him for going the extra mile...
I ran CC in indy for BDHS at the same time Pete was running. I always felt awful for him-- he was a pretty good cross country runner, and usually finished high enough that they read his name at the awards ceremonies after the meets. I would always cringe when I saw the announcer hesitate before reading a name-- they never knew what to do. (For the record, I was bad enough that he probably never heard my name announced)
I never really new him-- but I hope that the name change has made his life smoother.
There was a guy from another regional high school who ran Cross Country against our team in Indianapolis whose name was "Peter Wacker." I believe he went to Lawrence North or Lawrence Central HS. I saw him again later writing a column for a college newspaper that a friend showed me.
Incidentally, we also had a Richard Hair on our basketball team at Ben Davis HS.
Also, there are a pair of tombstones down towards Greenwood, IN, for a deceased couple named Earlie and Ada Boner. Yes, both of them. The cemetery is just off the west side of 31-- I can't remember the cross street.
"I don't really understand the emotional backlash from tv-viewers who think the non-tv people have a superiority complex"
I think you answered your own question...
"require masses of cognitive dissonance to justify expensive and unhealthy weirdness to calm an overy-anxious soul: excessive spending, tv-watching, eating, smoking, drinking just to calm down and forget about "the crappy universe" that's out to get you"
Certainly sounds like a superiority complex to me. Like everything, TV can be done in moderation, without massive expense, self-lying justification, or as a means of escapism. Lumping "us TV watchers" into your own personal stereotype of underachieving, depressed, escapist addicts seems fairly condescending, and it's not true.
I, of course, enjoy watching the occasional tivo'd television program. I like it because I like it, not because my world is horrible, or that I have deep, hidden self-doubt.
I had no idea we were in such lousy position on this. Sure, we're behind in vacation for workers, quality of life, cell phone tech, digital TV deployment, broadband access and mass transit, but who would have thought we would also be so low on something like life expectancy?
Perhaps it has something to do with the overwhelming fatness of the people who live here. Show your patriotism and excersise! We must live longer than the socialists!
Note: if you take this as anything but sarcasm, you're retarded. It is surprising to see us SO low, even though I certainly didn't expect to be #1. Somebody mod the parent up.
It is definitely expensive at $70/month during the first year, but two-way satellite is available from starband.
If you do a 3-year contract, your average monthly price for all three years goes down to $60/month.
Just don't expect to game on it-- ping time via geosync is horrible.
It's coming soon...
May 25
I dunno about any of it. Popups, interstitials, placements, etc... they all drive me nuts. The only thing that would make me happy is ads you choose to watch, and I would simply choose not to watch any of them. That alias episode you reference in particular, and an earlier one with an obnoxious logo zoom-in on a Ford Focus really grated on me.
Honestly... who would yell something like "Take the F-150!!!" in a frantic chase? Maybe "Get in the truck." But in that particular example, how about "Get in the car in FRONT of the truck, so we don't have to push a parked car out of the way with the truck." Not to mention it made the Mustang look pretty lousy that a huge pickup truck could accelerate and corner as well as it did.
I want to pay for my shows directly. I don't need 100 channels, ads, or anything but the few programs I like.
Users Plan to Not Watch Them
oops. I was trying, man, I was trying. Despite all my reposting, I still managed to miss a good one!!