Actually, there is an extremely popular second person shooter (SPF) out there now that is on its second incarnation. I'm sure you've heard of it: Counter Strike and Counter Strike Source. There is nothing quite like the fun of watching someone else run around and shoot people in an online multiplayer game.;)
But if you are 9/10ths of the way up/down from the equator to the pole, the direction of centrifugal force is NOT down. It is still perpendicular to the axis of rotation. Another way to look at why its not useful is a nice simple question: What degree of slope (or larger) makes a location unsuitable for use? 60 degrees? 30? I know hills with more than 15 or 20 degrees of slope have all kinds of warning signs for traffic to use caution, low gear, etc. That angle use usability would determine just how much of a Dyson sphere would actually contribute to usable surface area.
On the other hand... its a bloody HUGE structure, so for a single system race it probably would still be an improvement over "normal" rocks in orbit around a star.;)
Myself, I'm in the process of ripping my CD collection and encoding them in.ogg format. Since I don't have my multidisk CD player anymore, I plan to use my Gentoo64 mini-ITX shuttle as my stereo. So far, it works just fine for me. If I like the music enough to include in my collection then I usually like it enough to buy the CD.
I killed an Athlon 1500 MP... but the problem was that *I* killed it: while getting dual-channel memory to detect both DIMMS the IDE cable kept the fan from moving and I didn't see it until toastyness set in.:( Now if I can only find the time to test the OTHER Athlon 1500 MP that was on the baord at the time to see if its just one dead proc, or the entire setup. *sigh*
... and it can sort of glide, and has a safety parachute (parasail? i don't remember off hand) to make even an unpowered 'landing' survivable for the contents.
i still run a dual P166 (256Mb RAM) as my mail/web/router/firewall for my home network.;) at one point i had x windows on it, but it was too sluggish there. works just fine in console, however. and hte only problems i've had with the Tyan mb were fixed with a bios update.
I'm one of those that (like blugu64 below;) believes the 'Magic Eye' fad was a conspiracy, and that nobody can actually see anything in that noise but says they can to feel superior.
On the other hand, I failed the second set of depth perception practice test questions (2 practice and eight or 10 'real' ones) when I went through the MEPS when joining the USAF. I believe the test was a stereoscope of some sort, as the difference had the appearance of something from a stereoscope (well, for the first half of the practice 'questions' anyway, as i didn't see any difference beyond the first set;)
Landing has one key advantage vs splashdown in the fact that even with the flying brick shuttle you have some control as to where you land and how you land. If you screw up a splashdown and hit.. for example... land, you are pretty much screwed.
I think you are forgetting the fact that the USSR/Russians have been landing capsules in the stepes this whole time. In fact, I seem to remember reading that they thought the US was very odd for intentionally landing at sea.;)
[and yes, i agree with you about the shuttle and control over landing point.]
There is a really good game now that could be played over the IPN... Laser Squad: Nemesis. Its a... Real Time, Turn Based, PBeM tactical sim... it kicks ass! You can do turns at your own pace, and each turn takes 10 seconds of 'real' time in the game. Perfect for when your opponent is in a differnent timezone... on a different planet.;)
(for that that are interested, check here... made by the original X-Com creators)
Just a minor point, but you can indeed build your own rack mounted systems. I was seriously considering buying a rackmount case (don't remember the three brands I was looking at, as it was about 18 months ago, and I've slept since then) and building a system to colocate at the ISP I was working at.
True, building a rack system is more difficult, as there are some *serious* space limitations, but it can definitely be done if you do your research and take the time to buy the right parts. (one MB I saw actually had a riser card so you could add in a PCI card or two, depending on if you were going for a 1U or 2U height case).
My original: Dual Pentium Tyan Tomcat IID board, purchased in Oct 1996 - still running strong with a pair of P-166MHz chips (cause I can't find a pair of 200MHz *non* MMX P-200s). [Running Slack, for those that care, which does mail/web/routing/firewall for me.]
My current: Dual Athlon Tyan Tiger board running a pair of 1500MP Athlon chips. (now if I can only get the cash to upgrade the CPUs:)
Why dual CPU? Because I play with graphics and code and occasionally want it to do *lots* of processing. Its amazing how much a second CPU can affect how efficient a system runs. Not as big an impact as additional RAM (for most things) but still noticable.
Except they point Hubble at the dayside of *the Earth* to calibrate the optics, which has a *much* higher albedo than the moon. I could almost believe the "the moon is to close" issue, except that the focal length is probably set to an infinity equivalent. I seem to recall that Hubble *had* taken pictures of hte moon though...
While I have two working eyes, I am unfortuately someone who can say he *failed* the depth perception test. (Though I was able to get the 'practice' questions right;\ )
Of course, I drive just fine (mainly cause I know how big an SUV is supposed to be, so I generally know how soon to stop when behind one).
... check Amiga.com for information about the new Amiga One, AOS 3.9 and 4.0, and a few other things. All the Amiga really needs now are *new* programs that people will use, and it will be kicking and not just alive.;)
The only thing wrong with your argument is that you can stack people in the air. There already exist proximity avionics that will alert the pilots of two planes flying close or in an intercept course that they need to watch out for another aircraft.
Of course the idiot drivers would become idiot pilots when we finally do get general use aircraft that replace cars... at least on the road you don't have as far to fall when some moron runs into you.;\
Mine is a dual P166 (non-MMX) running slack, and it runs great (ok, so I use windowmaker the few times I actually want to use a GUI, cause KDE/GNOME is just too slow on my ancient CPUs;).
I plan to try installing slack 8.1 on my dual Athlon 1500MP system when I get a free weekend to sit and play with it.;) If it works, and I can get my games to run under slack, I'll loose the win2k partition and feel very happy with the world.:)
My question for the/. crowd would be why someone chooses Debian over slack or vice versa. I'm not trying to start a "which is better" war, but although I've tried Debian, I keep coming back to slack.
For me, I use Slack because I like knowing how things work, and I know I have a lot left to learn about linux admin. Having to go into the config files and get everything working myself is the best way for me to understand what is happening, and gives me the best chance to fix it if soemthing goes wrong
oh, and i haven't tried any other distro's since I played with RH 6.2 so I don't know much about anything but Slack.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, there is an extremely popular second person shooter (SPF) out there now that is on its second incarnation. I'm sure you've heard of it: Counter Strike and Counter Strike Source. There is nothing quite like the fun of watching someone else run around and shoot people in an online multiplayer game. ;)
But if you don't run the modules you don't use Apache doesn't use the resources those modules would require.
But if you are 9/10ths of the way up/down from the equator to the pole, the direction of centrifugal force is NOT down. It is still perpendicular to the axis of rotation. Another way to look at why its not useful is a nice simple question: What degree of slope (or larger) makes a location unsuitable for use? 60 degrees? 30? I know hills with more than 15 or 20 degrees of slope have all kinds of warning signs for traffic to use caution, low gear, etc. That angle use usability would determine just how much of a Dyson sphere would actually contribute to usable surface area.
... its a bloody HUGE structure, so for a single system race it probably would still be an improvement over "normal" rocks in orbit around a star. ;)
On the other hand
IE isn't free ... ... you have to get a copy of Windows in order to use it.
I think I'll stick with Firefox (or maybe this browser) on my linux system.
Myself, I'm in the process of ripping my CD collection and encoding them in .ogg format. Since I don't have my multidisk CD player anymore, I plan to use my Gentoo64 mini-ITX shuttle as my stereo. So far, it works just fine for me. If I like the music enough to include in my collection then I usually like it enough to buy the CD.
I killed an Athlon 1500 MP ... but the problem was that *I* killed it: while getting dual-channel memory to detect both DIMMS the IDE cable kept the fan from moving and I didn't see it until toastyness set in. :( Now if I can only find the time to test the OTHER Athlon 1500 MP that was on the baord at the time to see if its just one dead proc, or the entire setup. *sigh*
ok ... i feel better knowing i wasn't the *only* one that thought it said that ... ;)
... and it can sort of glide, and has a safety parachute (parasail? i don't remember off hand) to make even an unpowered 'landing' survivable for the contents.
i still run a dual P166 (256Mb RAM) as my mail/web/router/firewall for my home network. ;) at one point i had x windows on it, but it was too sluggish there. works just fine in console, however. and hte only problems i've had with the Tyan mb were fixed with a bios update.
Actually, the ping would be 18m+ if we are 9lm from Mars: 9 minutes there + processing/response time + 9 minutes back ...
I'm one of those that (like blugu64 below ;) believes the 'Magic Eye' fad was a conspiracy, and that nobody can actually see anything in that noise but says they can to feel superior.
;)
On the other hand, I failed the second set of depth perception practice test questions (2 practice and eight or 10 'real' ones) when I went through the MEPS when joining the USAF. I believe the test was a stereoscope of some sort, as the difference had the appearance of something from a stereoscope (well, for the first half of the practice 'questions' anyway, as i didn't see any difference beyond the first set
I think you are forgetting the fact that the USSR/Russians have been landing capsules in the stepes this whole time. In fact, I seem to remember reading that they thought the US was very odd for intentionally landing at sea.
[and yes, i agree with you about the shuttle and control over landing point.]
There is a really good game now that could be played over the IPN ... Laser Squad: Nemesis. Its a ... Real Time, Turn Based, PBeM tactical sim ... it kicks ass! You can do turns at your own pace, and each turn takes 10 seconds of 'real' time in the game. Perfect for when your opponent is in a differnent timezone ... on a different planet. ;)
... made by the original X-Com creators)
(for that that are interested, check here
Just a minor point, but you can indeed build your own rack mounted systems. I was seriously considering buying a rackmount case (don't remember the three brands I was looking at, as it was about 18 months ago, and I've slept since then) and building a system to colocate at the ISP I was working at.
True, building a rack system is more difficult, as there are some *serious* space limitations, but it can definitely be done if you do your research and take the time to buy the right parts. (one MB I saw actually had a riser card so you could add in a PCI card or two, depending on if you were going for a 1U or 2U height case).
I have two dual processor machines ...
:)
My original: Dual Pentium Tyan Tomcat IID board, purchased in Oct 1996 - still running strong with a pair of P-166MHz chips (cause I can't find a pair of 200MHz *non* MMX P-200s). [Running Slack, for those that care, which does mail/web/routing/firewall for me.]
My current: Dual Athlon Tyan Tiger board running a pair of 1500MP Athlon chips. (now if I can only get the cash to upgrade the CPUs
Why dual CPU? Because I play with graphics and code and occasionally want it to do *lots* of processing. Its amazing how much a second CPU can affect how efficient a system runs. Not as big an impact as additional RAM (for most things) but still noticable.
... you forgot Texas. I'm always seeing things compared to the 'size of Texas'. ... or do they just mean its BIG when they do that? ;)
Except they point Hubble at the dayside of *the Earth* to calibrate the optics, which has a *much* higher albedo than the moon. I could almost believe the "the moon is to close" issue, except that the focal length is probably set to an infinity equivalent. I seem to recall that Hubble *had* taken pictures of hte moon though ...
That or they might charging for bandwidth used, which would probably earn the ISPs more money in the long run ...
I think slashdot has adopted a post-now/spell check later policy...:)
;)
This is so we don't have to wait a day or three to read the posts.
While I have two working eyes, I am unfortuately someone who can say he *failed* the depth perception test. (Though I was able to get the 'practice' questions right ;\ )
Of course, I drive just fine (mainly cause I know how big an SUV is supposed to be, so I generally know how soon to stop when behind one).
... check Amiga.com for information about the new Amiga One, AOS 3.9 and 4.0, and a few other things. All the Amiga really needs now are *new* programs that people will use, and it will be kicking and not just alive. ;)
The only thing wrong with your argument is that you can stack people in the air. There already exist proximity avionics that will alert the pilots of two planes flying close or in an intercept course that they need to watch out for another aircraft.
... at least on the road you don't have as far to fall when some moron runs into you. ;\
Of course the idiot drivers would become idiot pilots when we finally do get general use aircraft that replace cars
Thanks! The link at the top was /.'d before 20 posts were made!
Mine is a dual P166 (non-MMX) running slack, and it runs great (ok, so I use windowmaker the few times I actually want to use a GUI, cause KDE/GNOME is just too slow on my ancient CPUs ;).
;) If it works, and I can get my games to run under slack, I'll loose the win2k partition and feel very happy with the world. :)
I plan to try installing slack 8.1 on my dual Athlon 1500MP system when I get a free weekend to sit and play with it.
For me, I use Slack because I like knowing how things work, and I know I have a lot left to learn about linux admin. Having to go into the config files and get everything working myself is the best way for me to understand what is happening, and gives me the best chance to fix it if soemthing goes wrong
oh, and i haven't tried any other distro's since I played with RH 6.2 so I don't know much about anything but Slack.