I am incredibly worried that the Billgates Security Action-squad will come check my PCs at home.
Billg: I don't know much about what you do or what you're worth, but I wanted to buy you out just to be safe.
Homer: Woohoo! We're rich! Billg: Okay boys...BUY HIM OUT!
Nah...there isn't a high school out there that doesn't also give suspensions for ludicrous things like parking on the grass one-too-many times or wearing pants too low after being told to wear a belt. Stupid punishments occur all the time and this one is really not all that different. The kid just set himself up to lay down a great prank, then wimped out. He would have been suspended in some fashion if he HAD given the speech...he should have had the backbone to follow up his promise to his buddies.
Bah. He garnered all that support and had the guts to walk out on the field, then he wimps out when he actually wins. He had a big sarcastic speech prepared and doesn't follow through. Instead he walks off, as if it is some big social statement. The school gets irked and hassles him a little.
Yawn. Since when is this news? Did anyone here who attended a public high school NOT witness a few oddball punishments like this now and then?
This story had a humorous potential to it, then it died when the kid wimped out. Who cares? There is better/funnier stuff out there to report.
For instance, you can read about a deadly fish tank at http://udel.edu/~jgephart/fishcounter.htm
"an you name one issue that they are actually far enough apart on that if the line moved two feet to the left or right, they would both be on the
same side?"
------------------------------
Of course he will likely reply "Abortion," so I'll just talk about that right now. My girlfriend has made abortion rights the key issue. Personally I think it is a waste to sway your vote on one issue.
Some say that if Bush is elected, that he will fight to overturn Roe vs Wade and will make abortion illegal in the nation.
That's a load of BS. If he does reverse the decision using Supreme Court nominations (IF that works), it will just revert back to the states. And there is no way that more than a handful of states will "ban" abortion. It just won't happen in a nation of free speech and freedom such as the USA.
Bush will say things, Gore will say things. And when one of them wins, they will laugh and do whatever they feel like. There is little difference between the two of them in word or deed.
Bwhahhaa....yeah right. I guess that was the only way to skirt the heavy fines, right?
Does anyone honestly think that Napster will retain even 10% of their current user base if they force them to subscribe? Subscription = tracking = loss of privacy to most folks (not that Napster was all that private in the first place, but now it is glaringly apparent to novices).
My mistake. I left out "with legitimate funding." Perot was a one-shot deal and a total anomoly. How many worthwhile candidates do you know who could even being to compete with the budget of the 2 big boys?
IE if Nader gets 5%, we have a decent 3rd party that gets some MAJOR federal funding for 2004. Definately a step in the right direction.
Me? I hate politics. Let me say that again. I HATE POLITICS.
Why? Because they accomplish nothing. People just vote for whatever they think they are: Democrat or Republican.
That's why voting is a big waste of time to me. I don't like either party and I don't consider myself to be so one-sided as to
"fit" into either declared system of beliefs.
I almost didn't vote this year, because I feel that it accomplishes nothing. Both Bush and Gore are the same people. Maybe
they have differences of opinion in speeches or debates, but let's face it: they will do the same thing every president does
after they win. And that's do whatever they feel like, past promises be damned.
Then I started reading a little. I went to http://www.speakout.com/votematch/ and took the poll. It was EXTEREMELY
interesting to find out what "my" views were in regards to the candidates. If you have 20 minutes to spare, your should do it
too. I assure you that you will be suprised by the results. I'll bet that your views are actually more like a different candidate
than the one you plan to vote for on November 7th.
I'm voting for Ralph Nader.
Why?
Not because I think he can win. Let's be serious, he can't.
But if he gets just 5% of the vote in this country, he qualifies for government funding in the 2004 election. That means that
for the first time since well...as far back as my memory goes, we will have a SERIOUS 3rd-party candidate in the running.
Why is that good? Because it is a 3rd choice, and having more than two choices is a good thing. I, for one, am appalled by
the fact that in America, the greatest country in the world, we limit ourselves to only two guys for the leadership of our
nation. We force OURSELVES to make a choice simply on who we hate LESS. That's horrible.
Now I bet some of you know the issues involved in the media about Nader. Here is my reply to them:
Q: Nader isn't going to win. He is a wasted vote.
A: If you already plan on NOT voting, take half an hour out of your life (it only happens every 4 years, you can spare it)
and vote for Nader. Simply make your voice heard that you WANT a 3rd choice, regardless of who it is. One more guy to
choose from is one more way to make the other two guys more honest.
Q: A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
A: Not true really, math-wise. It's just a vote for Nader. Maybe you would have went with Bush, maybe with Gore, or maybe
with no one because it used to be worthless to pick.
Q: Bush/Gore is going to win my state, so why bother?
A: If you live in a state that is already "projected" to be an overwhelming victory for one candidate, then you have
NOTHING TO LOSE by voting for Nader. So instead of adding another vote for the guy who already has 90% of them in
your state, you can still be happy that Gore/Bush won your state AND use your important vote to add to Nader's small pile.
Q: Nader won't get 5%, this is a waste of time.
A: Nader already has 10% of California alone and over 5% in a few other states. This is not going to be a 1-2% deal. It is
going to be close. Maybe 4%, maybe 5%, maybe 6%. It's that close right now. So use your vote to make a difference in our
democracy for a change.
My hope is that one person that reads this will look into the issues and give Nader their vote. If he hits that 5% mark, we
can expect to see a 2004 election that is unlike the usual tripe and empty promises we expect from politics.
Speaking of the church, I was there three years ago when their recent summer tweaking on the big cannons put their expected distance at the END of the "long field," across the road, and pretty much INTO a church on the other side.
So did they call off the competition?
Nope. They evacuated the church and said they would pay for anything they broke. It was also around then that they unfurled a giant tarp on the roof of the church that looked like a bullseye;)
Anyway, don't go. It's uh, too crowded or something. It's not fun. And I won't be camping there on Saturday night this weekend. Nope. Not me.
1) NASA launching a spacecraft of this kind period
2) Having it still work at all
3) Having people smart enough to jury rig it to STILL WORK! Can you imagine trying to fix something MILLIONS of miles away? That's amazing...way to go NASA.
That means that we'll get to see 16 confused American hopefuls jump through all kinds of crazy "cosmonaut hoops" on TV after all!
Highlight from Episode 8: Vomit Comet ride followed immeadiately by a 20-mile emergency landing ocean swim. The last guy to finish gets fed to a shark. The shark will speak russian and get subtitles as he eats.
This is a good time to let everyone know about what happened to a PC I was building for a friend.
The PC was ready to go, but we used her old monitor from her Pentium 66 PC (not sure if it was a VGA or SVGA, but I assume VGA) and got nothing but wavy static lines. For some odd reason we left the monitor on, I guess hoping that after my hard work over the summer building the PC, maybe the monitor would happily wink into a working state for us.
Right about midnight, I hear a horrible scream from the PC speaker and it turns itself off. It never turned back on. After swapping out the power supply I did some research on how ATX boards control power and did some tests to confirm that the motherboard was dead.
Hopefully now you can avoid the damage youself...it really sucked to wait a week and shell out another $100 for a new mboard. Be careful if you are going to toss new video cards in older PCs!
If we are talking about a real race situation and not a lame solo time-trial, the robots could easily win.
How? By teaming up. They are better equipped to handle the tiny calibrations in track condition in order to maintain a constant speed.
All the robots would have to do is to get 3 or 4 robot cars to surround a human driver on 3 sides, then slowly force him into the wall. Repeat x # of human drivers.
Of course, it would be more amusing if the robots just followed a hive mentality. Then they could just assign one robot car as the "Queen" and have all of the "workers" suicide into human cars. At a cost of 1 robot per 1 human, the machines would see that as a positive math situation. And they could probably also engineer situations to take out multiple humans with just one robot car.
"Whatever your personal views, we all can agree on one thing: nanotechnology is going to do to human civilization what the invention of the
steam engine and limited liability corporation did in previous centuries."
Yeah, only steam engines aren't small enough to sneak up on your, slip into your bloodstream, and hack your cells to death. This technology scares me simply because we are moving far too fast without considering the risks.
Why should we not be open-sourcing this? Because you are only accellerating the time it takes some rogue with cash to either grey-goo the planet or take out everyone with a certain eye color just for fun. This is no trivial matter. It WILL happen in this century.
Man, it wure would be great if I was the first guy to "invent" that endless flood-trap of popups that occur when you try to close a porn site...think of the all of that sweet lawsuit money...
No offense to you people out there that actually use them to their full extent, but I would be pretty irked to be told that I had to buy a laptop. In essense, a laptop will always be a few steps below a desktop in terms of features and always a few steps higher than a desktop in price. Forcing your average student to buy one is silly. We all know how many friends and co-workers own a laptop and never use them on the road for anything more than email and solitaire. What a waste of money...
"we'll select 10 of the highest-moderated
ones and send them to some of the highest-profile people running for the U.S. presidency this year to answer or
ignore as they choose. "
The staff of each candidate will then say a collective "Who the HELL is this Slashydot person?"
That question will be echoed by a meek computer science intern fixing a laptop in the background. That intern will then note the audience involved, and will prompty be handed the question sheet and told to answer it for the future president.
Does anyone think that a major candidate will ever really SEE these questions? Do they ever see ANY questions from the outside?
Man, I hope he is right about the "zero growth in PCs" part. I hope PCs continue to decrease in size. I would hate for my tower case to get bigger every night...I would have to move my laundry basket and possibly a few magazines!
"2000-10-14 03:58:33 New Super Audio CD is out (articles,news) (rejected) "
No comment...
Anyway, it will take a lot to make people switch over. VHS->DVD was feasable because of the quality and the total change in viewing ability. SCD on the other hand...I need a little more than "more bits in your music" before I race out to buy all of my CDs over again.
AMD K6-2 550, ~320megs RAM, Win98. Netscape seems to crash at random times after I open at least 3 windows. Yet at other times I can leave 10 windows open at once with no problems. It's quite frustrating...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah it sounds great and all, but what if you press the final "Buy" button a second too late?
I have a feeling that you'll see a 10,000% increase in the sales of the new "Annoying Local Car Dealership Radio Ads Volume 3" cd...
(yes, it's sarcasm, no need to point out that it probably reads the title back to you first, smartguy!)
I am incredibly worried that the Billgates Security Action-squad will come check my PCs at home.
Billg: I don't know much about what you do or what you're worth, but I wanted to buy you out just to be safe.
Homer: Woohoo! We're rich!
Billg: Okay boys...BUY HIM OUT!
Nah...there isn't a high school out there that doesn't also give suspensions for ludicrous things like parking on the grass one-too-many times or wearing pants too low after being told to wear a belt. Stupid punishments occur all the time and this one is really not all that different. The kid just set himself up to lay down a great prank, then wimped out. He would have been suspended in some fashion if he HAD given the speech...he should have had the backbone to follow up his promise to his buddies.
Bah. He garnered all that support and had the guts to walk out on the field, then he wimps out when he actually wins. He had a big sarcastic speech prepared and doesn't follow through. Instead he walks off, as if it is some big social statement. The school gets irked and hassles him a little.
Yawn. Since when is this news? Did anyone here who attended a public high school NOT witness a few oddball punishments like this now and then?
This story had a humorous potential to it, then it died when the kid wimped out. Who cares? There is better/funnier stuff out there to report.
For instance, you can read about a deadly fish tank at http://udel.edu/~jgephart/fishcounter.htm
It's much more entertaining...
"an you name one issue that they are actually far enough apart on that if the line moved two feet to the left or right, they would both be on the same side?"
------------------------------
Of course he will likely reply "Abortion," so I'll just talk about that right now. My girlfriend has made abortion rights the key issue. Personally I think it is a waste to sway your vote on one issue.
Some say that if Bush is elected, that he will fight to overturn Roe vs Wade and will make abortion illegal in the nation.
That's a load of BS. If he does reverse the decision using Supreme Court nominations (IF that works), it will just revert back to the states. And there is no way that more than a handful of states will "ban" abortion. It just won't happen in a nation of free speech and freedom such as the USA.
Bush will say things, Gore will say things. And when one of them wins, they will laugh and do whatever they feel like. There is little difference between the two of them in word or deed.
Bwhahhaa....yeah right. I guess that was the only way to skirt the heavy fines, right?
Does anyone honestly think that Napster will retain even 10% of their current user base if they force them to subscribe? Subscription = tracking = loss of privacy to most folks (not that Napster was all that private in the first place, but now it is glaringly apparent to novices).
I'll see everyone on Gnutella...
My mistake. I left out "with legitimate funding." Perot was a one-shot deal and a total anomoly. How many worthwhile candidates do you know who could even being to compete with the budget of the 2 big boys?
IE if Nader gets 5%, we have a decent 3rd party that gets some MAJOR federal funding for 2004. Definately a step in the right direction.
Me? I hate politics. Let me say that again. I HATE POLITICS.
Why? Because they accomplish nothing. People just vote for whatever they think they are: Democrat or Republican.
That's why voting is a big waste of time to me. I don't like either party and I don't consider myself to be so one-sided as to "fit" into either declared system of beliefs.
I almost didn't vote this year, because I feel that it accomplishes nothing. Both Bush and Gore are the same people. Maybe they have differences of opinion in speeches or debates, but let's face it: they will do the same thing every president does after they win. And that's do whatever they feel like, past promises be damned.
Then I started reading a little. I went to http://www.speakout.com/votematch/ and took the poll. It was EXTEREMELY interesting to find out what "my" views were in regards to the candidates. If you have 20 minutes to spare, your should do it too. I assure you that you will be suprised by the results. I'll bet that your views are actually more like a different candidate than the one you plan to vote for on November 7th.
I'm voting for Ralph Nader.
Why?
Not because I think he can win. Let's be serious, he can't.
But if he gets just 5% of the vote in this country, he qualifies for government funding in the 2004 election. That means that for the first time since well...as far back as my memory goes, we will have a SERIOUS 3rd-party candidate in the running.
Why is that good? Because it is a 3rd choice, and having more than two choices is a good thing. I, for one, am appalled by the fact that in America, the greatest country in the world, we limit ourselves to only two guys for the leadership of our nation. We force OURSELVES to make a choice simply on who we hate LESS. That's horrible.
Now I bet some of you know the issues involved in the media about Nader. Here is my reply to them:
Q: Nader isn't going to win. He is a wasted vote.
A: If you already plan on NOT voting, take half an hour out of your life (it only happens every 4 years, you can spare it) and vote for Nader. Simply make your voice heard that you WANT a 3rd choice, regardless of who it is. One more guy to choose from is one more way to make the other two guys more honest.
Q: A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
A: Not true really, math-wise. It's just a vote for Nader. Maybe you would have went with Bush, maybe with Gore, or maybe with no one because it used to be worthless to pick.
Q: Bush/Gore is going to win my state, so why bother?
A: If you live in a state that is already "projected" to be an overwhelming victory for one candidate, then you have NOTHING TO LOSE by voting for Nader. So instead of adding another vote for the guy who already has 90% of them in your state, you can still be happy that Gore/Bush won your state AND use your important vote to add to Nader's small pile.
Q: Nader won't get 5%, this is a waste of time.
A: Nader already has 10% of California alone and over 5% in a few other states. This is not going to be a 1-2% deal. It is going to be close. Maybe 4%, maybe 5%, maybe 6%. It's that close right now. So use your vote to make a difference in our democracy for a change.
My hope is that one person that reads this will look into the issues and give Nader their vote. If he hits that 5% mark, we can expect to see a 2004 election that is unlike the usual tripe and empty promises we expect from politics.
Make a difference. Vote for a change. Vote Nader.
Speaking of the church, I was there three years ago when their recent summer tweaking on the big cannons put their expected distance at the END of the "long field," across the road, and pretty much INTO a church on the other side.
;)
So did they call off the competition?
Nope. They evacuated the church and said they would pay for anything they broke. It was also around then that they unfurled a giant tarp on the roof of the church that looked like a bullseye
Anyway, don't go. It's uh, too crowded or something. It's not fun. And I won't be camping there on Saturday night this weekend. Nope. Not me.
I don't know what is more impressive:
1) NASA launching a spacecraft of this kind period
2) Having it still work at all
3) Having people smart enough to jury rig it to STILL WORK! Can you imagine trying to fix something MILLIONS of miles away? That's amazing...way to go NASA.
That means that we'll get to see 16 confused American hopefuls jump through all kinds of crazy "cosmonaut hoops" on TV after all!
Highlight from Episode 8: Vomit Comet ride followed immeadiately by a 20-mile emergency landing ocean swim. The last guy to finish gets fed to a shark. The shark will speak russian and get subtitles as he eats.
This is a good time to let everyone know about what happened to a PC I was building for a friend.
The PC was ready to go, but we used her old monitor from her Pentium 66 PC (not sure if it was a VGA or SVGA, but I assume VGA) and got nothing but wavy static lines. For some odd reason we left the monitor on, I guess hoping that after my hard work over the summer building the PC, maybe the monitor would happily wink into a working state for us.
Right about midnight, I hear a horrible scream from the PC speaker and it turns itself off. It never turned back on. After swapping out the power supply I did some research on how ATX boards control power and did some tests to confirm that the motherboard was dead.
Hopefully now you can avoid the damage youself...it really sucked to wait a week and shell out another $100 for a new mboard. Be careful if you are going to toss new video cards in older PCs!
You haven't lived until you've seen my page about my roommate's deadly fish tank. We keep adding fish - they keep dying. Come read the news archive!
The Fish Counter Archive
" I would be more worried about some terrorist using conventional technology, there's plenty of it on the market."
True, but with that other stuff you have to AIM it. With nanobots you could just type in the attack profile and dump a bucket of em into some stream.
Scientist #1: Hey Bill, I was thinking...we just aren't inventing enough stuff to wipe out humanity.
Scientist #2: What do you mean, James?
#1: Well, we have nanobots in the works and that Taco Bell genetically altered supercorn, but something is lacking...
#2: Hey I have an idea. Let's take some really old bacteria and try to give it life again!
#1: Wow, great idea! But do we know what it does to the ecosystem?
#2: Nope! But we're scientists so we can't be blamed!
#1: Perfect! Hey, how about after this we go over to that local supercollider and try to make a tiny black hole to play with?
#2: But isn't that dangerous?
#1: Of course it is, silly. But we're SCIENTISTS, remember?
THE END...(of life on Earth)
If we are talking about a real race situation and not a lame solo time-trial, the robots could easily win.
How? By teaming up. They are better equipped to handle the tiny calibrations in track condition in order to maintain a constant speed.
All the robots would have to do is to get 3 or 4 robot cars to surround a human driver on 3 sides, then slowly force him into the wall. Repeat x # of human drivers.
Of course, it would be more amusing if the robots just followed a hive mentality. Then they could just assign one robot car as the "Queen" and have all of the "workers" suicide into human cars. At a cost of 1 robot per 1 human, the machines would see that as a positive math situation. And they could probably also engineer situations to take out multiple humans with just one robot car.
Now THAT would be good entertainment...
"Whatever your personal views, we all can agree on one thing: nanotechnology is going to do to human civilization what the invention of the steam engine and limited liability corporation did in previous centuries."
Yeah, only steam engines aren't small enough to sneak up on your, slip into your bloodstream, and hack your cells to death. This technology scares me simply because we are moving far too fast without considering the risks.
Why should we not be open-sourcing this? Because you are only accellerating the time it takes some rogue with cash to either grey-goo the planet or take out everyone with a certain eye color just for fun. This is no trivial matter. It WILL happen in this century.
Man, it wure would be great if I was the first guy to "invent" that endless flood-trap of popups that occur when you try to close a porn site...think of the all of that sweet lawsuit money...
No offense to you people out there that actually use them to their full extent, but I would be pretty irked to be told that I had to buy a laptop. In essense, a laptop will always be a few steps below a desktop in terms of features and always a few steps higher than a desktop in price. Forcing your average student to buy one is silly. We all know how many friends and co-workers own a laptop and never use them on the road for anything more than email and solitaire. What a waste of money...
#21 - Earth sets up a website and gets hit with the Slashdot Effect.
t m
-------
Our Fish Keep Dying! Try not to laugh at the results!
http://udel.edu/~jgephart/fishcounter.h
"I have the weirdest feeling I've seen this article somewhere before..."
t m
To continue browsing the archives, please log back into the NYTimes.com website
(The Average Slashdotter's Nightmare)
-------
Our Fish Keep Dying! Try not to laugh at the results!
http://udel.edu/~jgephart/fishcounter.h
"we'll select 10 of the highest-moderated ones and send them to some of the highest-profile people running for the U.S. presidency this year to answer or ignore as they choose. "
The staff of each candidate will then say a collective "Who the HELL is this Slashydot person?"
That question will be echoed by a meek computer science intern fixing a laptop in the background. That intern will then note the audience involved, and will prompty be handed the question sheet and told to answer it for the future president.
Does anyone think that a major candidate will ever really SEE these questions? Do they ever see ANY questions from the outside?
Man, I hope he is right about the "zero growth in PCs" part. I hope PCs continue to decrease in size. I would hate for my tower case to get bigger every night...I would have to move my laundry basket and possibly a few magazines!
"2000-10-14 03:58:33 New Super Audio CD is out (articles,news) (rejected) "
No comment...
Anyway, it will take a lot to make people switch over. VHS->DVD was feasable because of the quality and the total change in viewing ability. SCD on the other hand...I need a little more than "more bits in your music" before I race out to buy all of my CDs over again.
AMD K6-2 550, ~320megs RAM, Win98. Netscape seems to crash at random times after I open at least 3 windows. Yet at other times I can leave 10 windows open at once with no problems. It's quite frustrating...