It sounds like someone that doesn't like the fact that Google is doing it for the sole reason of improving its image in the world and not for the reason that its algorithms shouldn't have allowed it to occur in the first place. Who says they are doing for the sole reason of improving their image? Not Google.
That's cheating. Why not tesselate the sides of an icosahedron into fours? I never said it was the best way to make a d80. I just said it would work for any even number. You can't tesselate any of the regular polyhedra to get a d14, for example.
I always wanted to get an actual d3 made - a triangular prism with rounded ends. And I never did manage to come up with a good d7 design. You can buy d3's (e.g. http://www.dicecollector.com/D03_GAMESCIENCE_01.jp g). You could do a d7 in a similar way, though I have not seen one. The d6's you can get do not have identical sides.
While I agree with the approach of making the companies using invasive software change their approach, I'm dismayed that this is probably the solution most people think should be applied. Why? Companies can't advertise by painting graffiti across the side of my house, why shouldn't there be legal restrictions against them doing the same with my computer even if I do nothing to stop them?
You can make any dice with an even number of sides using the same type of shape as a d10 (a trapezohedron). For example: the d34. You'd have to make it pretty big to work well with 80 sides, however.
The cell is capable of storing a file the size of the United States' Declaration of Independence with room left over." How many Libraries Of Congress per Volkswagon Beetles is that?
The sad thing is the article teaches people the tools but not when to apply them. That's going to be covered in part 3:
In the rousing conclusion to this series, I'll be taking bits from parts 1 and 2 and then putting them together in ways that actually have some relevance to games. Or I'll croak trying! Could it be that you didn't make it to the end of the article?
I am confused here. Obviously. Read what the person you are arguing with has written. Let me try to spell it out for you, yet again:
The word "prove" has more than one meaning. There is no reason whatsoever to insist that the article summary use it in the scientific sense. It is perfectly reasonable to use it in the common, everyday sense of "To determine the quality of by testing; try out." In that sense it is perfectly valid to say that this experimentation could prove string theory.
I'm sorry... I view the scientific method and particularly this point of it pretty damn important to the progress of our scientific and technical knowledge over that past few centuries. I see it as a bit more than pendantism. No one is suggesting that we throw out the scientific method. We are merely saying that to complain that it is not possible to "prove" string theory as stated in the article is to take an unnecessarily narrow (and pedantic) view of the definition of the word.
One idea i had was to spin up a largish gyroscope, (though you might need to give it a kick start...attach a bicycle!) whilst "charging" then change a gearbox to drive an alternator when "discharging". The efficiency of this could probably be quite good over a few hours, provided you keep it's bearings well greased. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_stora ge.
I don't think the iPhone will be hard for Apple to sell. I do think it will impact iPod sales. I, for one, am less likely to by an iPod until I've had a good look at the iPhone.
It's not innovative... I don't disagree with your argument, but I would like to point out that the iPod wasn't really innovative either. And for that matter neither was the iMac. A lack of innovation has never troubled Apple products in the past as their major selling points are easy of use and style.
Except many "net nanny" filters block the sites that use the real words. So to be polite and allow people to read the site at work or at the library or wherever they may be that may have filters on - it is normal to use a substitute. Pointless. It only takes one comment and you're blocked and there are plenty of troll ready to make that comment. And it's not "normal to use a substitute" here - I doubt it happens more than one time in ten.
But I find it funny that in a discussion about DRM restricting how people use technology you chose to tell an "author" of a comment how or how not he should write his own comments. Sorry, I don't see the connection. People are free to say whatever they like, and I am free to make whatever sort of comment I like in response.
Maybe just let the net be free and see what comes of it? Fine. So, you won't have any problem with me criticizing people who want to swear but also want to give the impression that they are too polite to do so.
Or maybe he's just one of those people who doesnt like to use profanity in a public forum. Then don't use it. If you mean "fuck" writing "fork" or "f**k" or whatever doesn't change anything - you meant to swear and everyone who reads it knows you meant to swear. So either spell it properly or don't use it at all.
DRM is not an issue for iPods, ie they can play any (typical) music format, so it means nothing to Apple what format it sells it songs on If Apple sold unencumbered mp3s you'd be free to replace your old iPod with some other vendor's product, but with the DRM it is more convenient for you to buy another iPod.
- however, in order make iPods attractively easy to use, it sells songs and to do that it must use DRM. According to TFA, that's bullshit. In particular Apple sells songs with DRM that eMusic sell as unencumbered mp3s. The only reason Apple sells those songs with DRM is because it keeps people locked in to Apple's players. Now, Apple are free to do whatever they like, but it is the sort of underhanded tactic that people will object to.
What is your argument? That iTunes users are locked into Apple devices? I thought the argument was pretty clear: the GP claimed that DRM is no benefit to Apple, but since it enforces lock in to Apple devices it ovbiously is a benefit to Apple. Did you even read my post?
The bottom line is, DRM has no benefit to Apple. The iTMS is a loss or "break-even" leader, in order to sell iPods... and it's possible that not having DRM would result in a FEW more iPod sales. Apple's DRM locks people into Apple's products: they have to have an iPod to play that music on a portable device (unless they want the hassle of the burn/rip hack). Once that iPod breaks down or becomes obsolete they have to buy another one, or lose access to the music they've paid for. There is no way that is not a major benefit to Apple.
The Celsius scale is calibrated to the freezing and boiling points of water. The Celsius scale was originally calibrated to the freezing and boiling points of water. For the last 50 years it has been calibrated to absolute zero and the triple point of Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water.
but comes at the expense of sensitivity for day-to-day use.... Since a Fahrenheit degree is finer-grained than a Celsius degree and the endpoints of the scale more closely match the range of habitable temperatures, it makes more sense to use F outside of science and cooking, IMO. This is a strawman. Simply use a decimal point if you need more precision, FFS! Anyway, it's far more useful having freezing at (approx.) 0 than at 32. There is no practical benefit to using Fahrenheit, it's just what you are used to.
Personally, the only compelling reason I've seen to use Imperial units is that they tend to use other number bases (12 inches to the foot, 16 oz. to the lb.). These other bases have many more common factors than the metric base 10
I agree that having more factors is an advantage if you're working in fractions. But you've ignored the disadvantage of the likes of 12 and 16: they are not as easy to divide into other numbers, and they're not as easy to multiply with. How many feet in 1375 inches? How many ounces is 73 pounds?
One of the main problems with Imperial measurement is the lack of consistency. If everything was based on the same factor it'd be fine, but it's not. 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 1760 yards to the mile. 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone.
3/8 = 0.375 in metric
1/3 = 0.333... in metric
Note how much easier it is to see that 0.375 is bigger than 0.333, and by how much, compared to the same values in fractions?
If we were to come up with some kind of hexadecimal-based metric system (which would make transition to computer binary cleaner) How often do you need to convert to binary, really? Even as a programmer I practically never need to do it these days. And if I do need to, it's easy to do from decimal by repeated division by two: eg 13: 13/2 = 6 rem 1, 6/2 = 3 rem 0, 3/2 = 1 rem 1, 1/2 = 0 rem 1. Take the remainders (in reverse) = 1101 base 2.
and in real life the progression from smaller to larger date units makes more sense. if you want to know the date, the day is more important than month and month is more important than year because chances are that you already know what year and even month is
meant. in this case, mentioning larger units is just a waste of time. Bullshit. You obviously don't work with dates much. Unless the date you are interested in is in this month you are not likely to know the month. Unless the date is in this year you are not likely to know the year. If the month and year are obvious then just omit them: "pay by the 23rd", "I'm getting married on March 12". If a full format date is required then yyyy-mm-dd makes sense while dd-mm-yyyy and mm-dd-yyyy do not.
Dates are the only measurement we use that are not routinely written with the big unit first and there is no good reason why that is the case.
Yes I agree, y-m-d is better. It's a natural progression from the larger to the smaller units and it easily sortable. Which is exactly why it's the ISO standard date format (ISO 8601).
Slashdot Mirror
Well Tetris has been around as long as Nethack, and is much more popular. So Nethack is not the only game to have survived a generation.
You can make any dice with an even number of sides using the same type of shape as a d10 (a trapezohedron). For example: the d34. You'd have to make it pretty big to work well with 80 sides, however.
What makes you think this is an "Ask Slashdot"?
The word "prove" has more than one meaning. There is no reason whatsoever to insist that the article summary use it in the scientific sense. It is perfectly reasonable to use it in the common, everyday sense of "To determine the quality of by testing; try out." In that sense it is perfectly valid to say that this experimentation could prove string theory.
I'm sorry... I view the scientific method and particularly this point of it pretty damn important to the progress of our scientific and technical knowledge over that past few centuries. I see it as a bit more than pendantism. No one is suggesting that we throw out the scientific method. We are merely saying that to complain that it is not possible to "prove" string theory as stated in the article is to take an unnecessarily narrow (and pedantic) view of the definition of the word.I don't think the iPhone will be hard for Apple to sell. I do think it will impact iPod sales. I, for one, am less likely to by an iPod until I've had a good look at the iPhone.
That Yahoo link wouldn't even work for me - it just sits there "loading". And the "Trouble Loading?" link is completely useless.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:mA5Nqi0PomUJ:
http://www.7days.ae/2007/01/04/dubai-big-bad-4x4-
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060626/238241.
http://www.transalt.org/press/media/1999/990218da
A quick Google search will find much more of the same.
I agree that having more factors is an advantage if you're working in fractions. But you've ignored the disadvantage of the likes of 12 and 16: they are not as easy to divide into other numbers, and they're not as easy to multiply with. How many feet in 1375 inches? How many ounces is 73 pounds?
One of the main problems with Imperial measurement is the lack of consistency. If everything was based on the same factor it'd be fine, but it's not. 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 1760 yards to the mile. 16 ounces to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone.
3/8 = 0.375 in metric1/3 = 0.333... in metric
Note how much easier it is to see that 0.375 is bigger than 0.333, and by how much, compared to the same values in fractions? If we were to come up with some kind of hexadecimal-based metric system (which would make transition to computer binary cleaner) How often do you need to convert to binary, really? Even as a programmer I practically never need to do it these days. And if I do need to, it's easy to do from decimal by repeated division by two: eg 13: 13/2 = 6 rem 1, 6/2 = 3 rem 0, 3/2 = 1 rem 1, 1/2 = 0 rem 1. Take the remainders (in reverse) = 1101 base 2.Dates are the only measurement we use that are not routinely written with the big unit first and there is no good reason why that is the case.