Actually, that's a myth. Sand was invented by the British shortly before World War I, as something to fill all their at-the-time useless surplus "cannonball catching bags".
Unfortunately, even in the height of wartime, mass production far exceeded supply, and in a desperate move to cover up the multinational financial boondoggle and rescue what they could of the struggling world economy, the "sand" was dumped unceremoniously across africa and most of asia, as well as most poor, equotorial regions that thought the wealth of inventory would translate into increased economical benefit for their country.
By the time they realized the sand was nearly worthless, the newly formed UN began work on quietly covering up and brainwashing the world into believing that "sand" had always been around. Often tankers continued to run aground for a few years, or jettisoned their now-worthless cargo of sand into the ocean, where it washed up and covered beaches.
Tell everyone, before they silence you t]H]H]H NO CARRIER
Re:Actually that would be "how" we fall apart
on
Why We Fall Apart
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· Score: 1
Er, no, Sexual reproduction enhances the genetic diversity of a population, thus making the population less affected by changes.
I'm ~really~ not trying to be a troll here: Can we see Slashdot move the hell away from it's american-centrism? There are other english speaking/literate countries in the world folks.
Particularly bad in the 'Your Rights Online' section; I'd love to see+hear perspectives of people's rights online internationally, not just what the next 'just a bill up on capitol hill' song and dance is.
Pebble-bed reactors?
on
Port-A-Nuke
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Are they using pebble-bed reactors?
Seriously. This sounds like it's just begging for trouble. Armor and alarms won't mean much if it's the local what-passes-for-government decides it wants it's hands on (what it assumes to be) fissile material.
Me (in my best Half-Life Scientist voice): "My, your optical properties are particularly attractive today. I'd delight in measuring the refractive index of your optical inputs and follicle-produced protein chains."
Her (in her best Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom narrator voice): "The female... is receptive."
This is why having a geek girlfriend is awesome... I can actually get away with conversations like this.:D
Seriously. I think the time has already come where the Olympic games should be split into two categories. To use an automotive analogy, Stock and Modified.
Let the people who want to compete honest and clean do so, and give the people who want to showcase what modern technology can do for their bodies do so as well.
Those who want to burn themselves out in five years of drug-fuelled performance can then have their venue to do so. Companies wishing to showcase biological enhancements via gene doping, or cybernetics, or whatever the world's tech level has to offer, can then do so.
Is there a moral cost to this? Sure. Plenty will end up dead or crippled from their reliance on drugs/gene tech/cybernetics/what-have-you. Will it stop cheating in the 'Stock' Olympic games? No, but at least those drawn to "performance at any cost" will have a better venue to perform in.
Personally I'm excited about the idea of spending an hour or two watching genetically modified humans fly at twice the speed of an average sprinter around a racetrack, and then spend the rest of the day watching good old fashioned Human 1.0's compete amongst themselves.
Bring it on, IOC. If you don't, someone else eventually will, and steal your thunder in the process!
Or one could say the use of the word "made" was the direct result of posting a mostly inconsequential bit of opinion to a very inconsequential forum.
I'm well aware I could have used better words than "made", but at the time, it wasn't exactly a priority. Nor is it now.
And as for parent's post about being unable to conceive beyond "Teevee"... christ. I don't even own a television. Reading is my primary source of entertainment.
Loved 'Altered Carbon', and I'm delighted a sequel is being made.
Fair warning for folks interested in the series though: The torture scenes get gruesome, almost to the point of Piers Anthony's "On The Uses Of Torture" short story.
Being body-swapped into the body of a young woman, on her period, and then being tied down and having your feet slowly blowtorched off.
Yeah. Reader beware. If you can tolerate the gruesome scenes, however, the book is excellent. And from the sounds of it, so is the sequel.
True story: The *very first* time I touched a computer, I was 4 years old. My parents were visiting college friends of theirs, and had brought me along. So I sat down in front of some (now-ancient) DOS machine at the prompt, assuming I couldn't do anything to a machine except just bang in letters on the keyboard.
Unfortunately, I was a somewhat bright kid.
>help >help format >format c: >y
So I have the dubious pride of telling people that the first time I ever touched a computer, I formatted it's hard drive.
I work in the Loss Control industry, which is a fancy way of saying I try to make jobs safer for people so that A) you still have your limbs at the end of the day, and B) your employer doesn't have to pay through the nose for injuries/casualties.
I showed the videos to the Director of the company and immediately it's been making it's rounds through the office. This is exciting technology, this is *important* technology. Ask the thousands of labourers, carpenters, shop workers, around north america who've lost digits to cutting accidents what they think of this technology. No, you won't hear a goddamn negative thing.
Some people have complained about the inventor of the technology trying to make the device mandatory on cutting tools. Is this self-serving for him? Hell yes. Is he still in the right? Undoubtedly. Hard hats, steel toe boots, rebar covers, flagmen, confined space entry, are all areas of industry that are strongly regulated by governments, and made mandatory by law. This should, without a doubt, join it.
One significant aspect of the technology that needs to be addressed however, and raised by a fellow/.'er, is that the cartridge must be re-useable. Not infinitely, but it should be able to hold at least 6 good stops to itself before needing a cartridge change. (By law, and good safety policy, such systems should be regularly tested.)
I look forward to this technology becoming industry standard. The man who invented it is going to be filthy, stinking rich, and definetly deserves to be. That's what innovation leads to; success.
And for the rest of you going on about "You don't need this if you're careful.", I call bullshit. You need a hardhat, you need safety goggles, you need steel-toe boots. *YOU* can be careful, but you can't control all variables around you. That's why they're called 'Accidents' when they happen.
There is an important factor in human evolution, and primates in general, that is frequently overlooked.
Humans are strong. No, like,/really/ strong. And we're weak compared to most of the primate family.
Primates of all sorts sport a good deal of muscle, and moreso, a very efficiently designed skeletal and tendon system. Whereas many animals focus their real strength in specialized parts of their body (usually the thighs for running, or jaws for biting), the human+primate bodies have it strongly built throughout their torso, shoulders, arms, etc.
Long before brains came along, primates were already happily cookin' along with a hefty dose of strength/weight ratio. Hands were pretty helpful too.
If this seems counter-intuitive, think about it for a moment: Take an animal weighing as much as you (St. Bernard, a whitetail deer, and a juvenile tiger).
St. Bernard: Can't lift nearly as much as you with his jaws. Can't carry nearly as much on his back. Can certainly bite harder, and pull more. The torque his neck can create twisting isn't going to compare with the torque your body can produce with a similar motion. Leverage, and advantage: human.
Whitetail deer: Strong neck, but a human can overpower the torque. Powerful thighs, which can easily outrun and outleap a man, no contest there, but can't carry the same weight on their back (no, they can't, ask the Laaps). Lifting strength, torquing strength, etc, all less than humans, and with a body definetly not designed to use leverage.
Juvenile tiger: Let's declaw this kitty for simplicity. Pointy bits are, of course, a major evolutionary advantage, but that's not what we're gauging here. First, the spring-like back of all felines is powerful, but can't bear a tremendous amount of weight on it. Note that cats tend to drag their kill, not hoist it and go. (With the notable exception of cheetahs, who tend to tree their prey). Having spoken with a tiger trainer on this subject before, he's indicated that a tiger's forearms aren't incredibly strong; most people at the same weight could "arm-wrestle" a tiger and win, so to speak. Tigers gain most of their knock-down power from lunging their body and hitting with the shoulders; again, back to powerful legs. Twisting torque isn't a forte of theirs; they rely instead on a tight bite at the neck, and their body weight, to bring most prey down.
As a last example; an animal your weight, were one to tie 15 lbs. weights to each of their arms and legs, would be very unlikely to be able to move at all. A human being, while not able to move/easily/, would still be able to exert the necessary leverage to travel distances.
Halloween party -- Candy poker!
on
Geeks and Poker?
·
· Score: 1
Last time I played some sit-down Texas Hold'em poker with friends was an intrepid idea on Halloween: Everyone buys a big bag of candy, sits down at the table, and agrees on values thereof (full-size candy bar: 5, mini candy bar: 3, lollipop: 1, etc. etc.).
Within two hours we had thoroughly distributed our candy amongst ourselves, and had a blast doing it. (As well as trying to play a poker face on a wicked sugar high.)
The Shipwreck Museum on tip of the Upper Penninsula in Michigan has a terrific Fresnel lens from the old lighthouse. It's lit inside with only a tiny 40W bulb, and explained to us years ago by the tour guide that any stronger of a light within it and they risked burning the walls!
I beat Ghouls and Ghosts for the Sega Genisis. The only really challenging level was, I found, the one with the ocean waves trying to sweep you off the pillars.
I actually complained that the end boss was too easy.
Toe Jam & Earl was a hard game to beat. Recently I unpacked it to beat it again (for only the second time in my life), got to the/last/ piece of the ship. I'm down to my last life, but I'm gonna beat the game. My friends are nodding and cheering, congradulating me. I decide to celebrate, and open a present.
Total Bummer. Within 8 steps on-screen of the last piece of the ship. My life goes to zero, I die, and in chorus I and two watching friends scream our rage at the television.
Good times, good times. But fucked if I'll ever be so arrogant to a 16-bit machine again.
Seconded. While I prefer Wizard class, it's still an absurdly hard game. Even those rare games that I survive long enough to get something I can engrave Elbereth with, and exploit the toss-gem-to-aligned-unicorn, or otherwise milk an altar for everything it's worth, I still haven't made it past level 17 or so.
Anybody have any luck with Monk class? I found them rather fun.
Playing the old Shifter mod for Starsiege Tribes. Having a great, evil macro set up; buy a tactical nuke, launch it in my own base, and then switch teams before it detonates.
Repeat once.
Respawn in as engineer. Repair everything you blew up. Change teams. Repeat.
Rinse, lather, repeat until the map ends or someone finally gets wise to you and kicks you off the server. Having games where you have 900+ points where the next runner-up has perhaps 50, is just plain silly fun.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, that's a myth. Sand was invented by the British shortly before World War I, as something to fill all their at-the-time useless surplus "cannonball catching bags".
Unfortunately, even in the height of wartime, mass production far exceeded supply, and in a desperate move to cover up the multinational financial boondoggle and rescue what they could of the struggling world economy, the "sand" was dumped unceremoniously across africa and most of asia, as well as most poor, equotorial regions that thought the wealth of inventory would translate into increased economical benefit for their country.
By the time they realized the sand was nearly worthless, the newly formed UN began work on quietly covering up and brainwashing the world into believing that "sand" had always been around. Often tankers continued to run aground for a few years, or jettisoned their now-worthless cargo of sand into the ocean, where it washed up and covered beaches.
Tell everyone, before they silence you t]H]H]H NO CARRIER
Er, no, Sexual reproduction enhances the genetic diversity of a population, thus making the population less affected by changes.
The only remaining superpower? Don't kid yourself. The US is dominant, sure, but:
Even with all of it's military and socio-economic might combined, China's going to overtake the States in under twenty years.
Russia, if it can handle it's internal affairs, will continue to be the bear that roars over all of eurasia.
India has nuclear capability, a powerful standing army that's probably only rivalled by North Korea and China.
North Korea, a pissant little state but with enough firepower that the US hasn't been able to do much but shake a finger and talk sternly to ol' Jong.
Brazil, which continues to dictate the politics of South America to it's benefit.
Thailand, whose military moderness and economic clout, while very seldom flexed, is strong enough to keep the Chinese at bay.
American politics, for better or worse, impact the entire world.
So do the politics of each of the countries I've mentioned above. Maybe you just weren't paying attention?
I'm ~really~ not trying to be a troll here: Can we see Slashdot move the hell away from it's american-centrism? There are other english speaking/literate countries in the world folks.
Particularly bad in the 'Your Rights Online' section; I'd love to see+hear perspectives of people's rights online internationally, not just what the next 'just a bill up on capitol hill' song and dance is.
Are they using pebble-bed reactors? Seriously. This sounds like it's just begging for trouble. Armor and alarms won't mean much if it's the local what-passes-for-government decides it wants it's hands on (what it assumes to be) fissile material.
Of course it is.
:D
Me (in my best Half-Life Scientist voice): "My, your optical properties are particularly attractive today. I'd delight in measuring the refractive index of your optical inputs and follicle-produced protein chains."
Her (in her best Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom narrator voice): "The female... is receptive."
This is why having a geek girlfriend is awesome... I can actually get away with conversations like this.
How about "My heart caught in my throat?"
Seems to describe that easily enough, though not as efficiently.
Seriously. I think the time has already come where the Olympic games should be split into two categories. To use an automotive analogy, Stock and Modified.
Let the people who want to compete honest and clean do so, and give the people who want to showcase what modern technology can do for their bodies do so as well.
Those who want to burn themselves out in five years of drug-fuelled performance can then have their venue to do so. Companies wishing to showcase biological enhancements via gene doping, or cybernetics, or whatever the world's tech level has to offer, can then do so.
Is there a moral cost to this? Sure. Plenty will end up dead or crippled from their reliance on drugs/gene tech/cybernetics/what-have-you. Will it stop cheating in the 'Stock' Olympic games? No, but at least those drawn to "performance at any cost" will have a better venue to perform in.
Personally I'm excited about the idea of spending an hour or two watching genetically modified humans fly at twice the speed of an average sprinter around a racetrack, and then spend the rest of the day watching good old fashioned Human 1.0's compete amongst themselves.
Bring it on, IOC. If you don't, someone else eventually will, and steal your thunder in the process!
Or one could say the use of the word "made" was the direct result of posting a mostly inconsequential bit of opinion to a very inconsequential forum.
I'm well aware I could have used better words than "made", but at the time, it wasn't exactly a priority. Nor is it now.
And as for parent's post about being unable to conceive beyond "Teevee"... christ. I don't even own a television. Reading is my primary source of entertainment.
Loved 'Altered Carbon', and I'm delighted a sequel is being made.
Fair warning for folks interested in the series though: The torture scenes get gruesome, almost to the point of Piers Anthony's "On The Uses Of Torture" short story.
Being body-swapped into the body of a young woman, on her period, and then being tied down and having your feet slowly blowtorched off.
Yeah. Reader beware. If you can tolerate the gruesome scenes, however, the book is excellent. And from the sounds of it, so is the sequel.
It's not. Look closer: There's a top bar to support the top of the flag, and then the mainstay bar supporting the side.
The flag was made of, essentially, thick aluminum foil. It's not waving at all; it's crinkled.
(NASA had always planned to plant a flag on the moon with their landing, but knew enough even then to get a custom flag made for it.)
I tend to favor no@no.com myself, useful for dumping past registration forms on websites, blah.
True story: The *very first* time I touched a computer, I was 4 years old. My parents were visiting college friends of theirs, and had brought me along. So I sat down in front of some (now-ancient) DOS machine at the prompt, assuming I couldn't do anything to a machine except just bang in letters on the keyboard.
Unfortunately, I was a somewhat bright kid.
>help
>help format
>format c:
>y
So I have the dubious pride of telling people that the first time I ever touched a computer, I formatted it's hard drive.
I work in the Loss Control industry, which is a fancy way of saying I try to make jobs safer for people so that A) you still have your limbs at the end of the day, and B) your employer doesn't have to pay through the nose for injuries/casualties.
/.'er, is that the cartridge must be re-useable. Not infinitely, but it should be able to hold at least 6 good stops to itself before needing a cartridge change. (By law, and good safety policy, such systems should be regularly tested.)
I showed the videos to the Director of the company and immediately it's been making it's rounds through the office. This is exciting technology, this is *important* technology. Ask the thousands of labourers, carpenters, shop workers, around north america who've lost digits to cutting accidents what they think of this technology. No, you won't hear a goddamn negative thing.
Some people have complained about the inventor of the technology trying to make the device mandatory on cutting tools. Is this self-serving for him? Hell yes. Is he still in the right? Undoubtedly. Hard hats, steel toe boots, rebar covers, flagmen, confined space entry, are all areas of industry that are strongly regulated by governments, and made mandatory by law. This should, without a doubt, join it.
One significant aspect of the technology that needs to be addressed however, and raised by a fellow
I look forward to this technology becoming industry standard. The man who invented it is going to be filthy, stinking rich, and definetly deserves to be. That's what innovation leads to; success.
And for the rest of you going on about "You don't need this if you're careful.", I call bullshit. You need a hardhat, you need safety goggles, you need steel-toe boots. *YOU* can be careful, but you can't control all variables around you. That's why they're called 'Accidents' when they happen.
There is an important factor in human evolution, and primates in general, that is frequently overlooked.
/really/ strong. And we're weak compared to most of the primate family.
/easily/, would still be able to exert the necessary leverage to travel distances.
Humans are strong. No, like,
Primates of all sorts sport a good deal of muscle, and moreso, a very efficiently designed skeletal and tendon system. Whereas many animals focus their real strength in specialized parts of their body (usually the thighs for running, or jaws for biting), the human+primate bodies have it strongly built throughout their torso, shoulders, arms, etc.
Long before brains came along, primates were already happily cookin' along with a hefty dose of strength/weight ratio. Hands were pretty helpful too.
If this seems counter-intuitive, think about it for a moment: Take an animal weighing as much as you (St. Bernard, a whitetail deer, and a juvenile tiger).
St. Bernard: Can't lift nearly as much as you with his jaws. Can't carry nearly as much on his back. Can certainly bite harder, and pull more. The torque his neck can create twisting isn't going to compare with the torque your body can produce with a similar motion. Leverage, and advantage: human.
Whitetail deer: Strong neck, but a human can overpower the torque. Powerful thighs, which can easily outrun and outleap a man, no contest there, but can't carry the same weight on their back (no, they can't, ask the Laaps). Lifting strength, torquing strength, etc, all less than humans, and with a body definetly not designed to use leverage.
Juvenile tiger: Let's declaw this kitty for simplicity. Pointy bits are, of course, a major evolutionary advantage, but that's not what we're gauging here. First, the spring-like back of all felines is powerful, but can't bear a tremendous amount of weight on it. Note that cats tend to drag their kill, not hoist it and go. (With the notable exception of cheetahs, who tend to tree their prey). Having spoken with a tiger trainer on this subject before, he's indicated that a tiger's forearms aren't incredibly strong; most people at the same weight could "arm-wrestle" a tiger and win, so to speak. Tigers gain most of their knock-down power from lunging their body and hitting with the shoulders; again, back to powerful legs. Twisting torque isn't a forte of theirs; they rely instead on a tight bite at the neck, and their body weight, to bring most prey down.
As a last example; an animal your weight, were one to tie 15 lbs. weights to each of their arms and legs, would be very unlikely to be able to move at all. A human being, while not able to move
Last time I played some sit-down Texas Hold'em poker with friends was an intrepid idea on Halloween: Everyone buys a big bag of candy, sits down at the table, and agrees on values thereof (full-size candy bar: 5, mini candy bar: 3, lollipop: 1, etc. etc.).
Within two hours we had thoroughly distributed our candy amongst ourselves, and had a blast doing it. (As well as trying to play a poker face on a wicked sugar high.)
The Shipwreck Museum on tip of the Upper Penninsula in Michigan has a terrific Fresnel lens from the old lighthouse. It's lit inside with only a tiny 40W bulb, and explained to us years ago by the tour guide that any stronger of a light within it and they risked burning the walls!
Good stuff.
Oh sure, a best before date on nuclear half-lives?
"Best Before 1.7684^18^2 seconds after manufacture."
I beat Ghouls and Ghosts for the Sega Genisis. The only really challenging level was, I found, the one with the ocean waves trying to sweep you off the pillars.
/last/ piece of the ship. I'm down to my last life, but I'm gonna beat the game. My friends are nodding and cheering, congradulating me. I decide to celebrate, and open a present.
I actually complained that the end boss was too easy.
Toe Jam & Earl was a hard game to beat. Recently I unpacked it to beat it again (for only the second time in my life), got to the
Total Bummer. Within 8 steps on-screen of the last piece of the ship. My life goes to zero, I die, and in chorus I and two watching friends scream our rage at the television.
Good times, good times. But fucked if I'll ever be so arrogant to a 16-bit machine again.
I loved the void levels. True story; first time I saw one, was my roommate playing SMS, and I was playing Morrowind.
I chanced to glance over at the TV screen, saw the level he was playing, and instinctively hit the Quick Save button on my game.
Now that's 15+ years of gaming instinct!
Seconded. While I prefer Wizard class, it's still an absurdly hard game. Even those rare games that I survive long enough to get something I can engrave Elbereth with, and exploit the toss-gem-to-aligned-unicorn, or otherwise milk an altar for everything it's worth, I still haven't made it past level 17 or so.
Anybody have any luck with Monk class? I found them rather fun.
AOL Style: Me too!
The genius of this is that it was modded down Redundant. :D
*sniffle* Bastard, I've only got... *counts* Twelve.
:)
The Allan Maker series is even better than the Ender's Game / Ender's Shadow stuff, by the by.
Playing the old Shifter mod for Starsiege Tribes. Having a great, evil macro set up; buy a tactical nuke, launch it in my own base, and then switch teams before it detonates.
Repeat once.
Respawn in as engineer. Repair everything you blew up. Change teams. Repeat.
Rinse, lather, repeat until the map ends or someone finally gets wise to you and kicks you off the server. Having games where you have 900+ points where the next runner-up has perhaps 50, is just plain silly fun.