As a species, we've advanced pretty well and can use technology to reproduce all kinds of natural processes. It's easy to be lulled into thinking we can do just about anything. So it's kind of nice to see we still have some tricks to learn. I mean, no one is surprised we can't yet dial-in desired genetic traits a la Gattaca, but engineering spider silk seems fairly simple by comparison. I suppose once we have total control over the individual placement of atoms, at scale, anything really will be possible.
I have a traditional 2-story colonial home. There are four bedrooms, all on the second floor. I got a small spool of cat-6 "Siamese" cable; it's got coax and cat-6 separately jacketed, but heat-glued together. I recommend that even if Google Fiber doesn't use coax (does it?). You never know what the future may hold, and you're only going to want to do this once.
I went into the attic and liberally measured off cable for each bedroom. I think I did something like 15' for the drop down the wall to the outlet (9' ceilings), plus the length to the sewage stack, plus another 12' per floor (12 for the first floor and 12 for the basement), then tacked on another 10' to run from the sewage stack to the networking wall. So each run ended up something like 60-65 feet. I had to use a hole-saw to drill a 3" hole next to the sewage stack on the second floor. It was behind a section of wall that had an air vent in it. I had to take the vent off and push the duct work out of the way. That was a little scary, and I wasn't able to get it back together perfectly, but it was worth it in the end. Once I was able to drop a weighted string to from attic to the basement, I taped up all the BR cables at one end, tied that to the string, and lowered them down along the sewage stack. I then did the runs down to the bedroom wallplates and terminated those. Then did the same for the basement. I used an 8-post coax line conditioner to terminate all the coax lines in the basement. All the cat-6 went into a wireless router and a switch: http://imgur.com/MeqFKrT
I did separate runs for the family room on the first floor and three runs in the basement. In the end, I'm very happy with how it all turned out, and I would definitely do it again should I ever move.
It depends on the car and where you take it to be serviced. Even basic maintenance like oil changes can be expensive on luxury vehicles at the dealer or specialty shop. The mid-tier service plan on the Tesla is $500/year. I could get half-way to that just on oil changes alone...if I were dumb enough to take it to a dealer. The local foreign auto shop is a bit less, but I don't think $500/year is crazy. Certainly not any crazier than spending $80k on a car when you can buy other brands and models for $20k. You buy the car (and service) that fits in your budget and meets the needs you set above basic locomotion.
I understand where you are coming from, but I have to disagree...publicly.
If we took that attitude, why bother coming here at all? I come to slashdot to learn from those who have expertise in a given field, and lend my expertise in return. It's how we grow; individually and as a species. What purpose do sites like Stackoverflow serve in your world? We should all be working to help each other, not protect our meager little slice of the pie. What you know isn't a secret. You and you alone have not figured out the one, true, pure, and non-reproducible way of designing a perfect telecom system. Putting that information out there isn't taking food off of your table. It's how you do it that makes you valuable; the service you provide. There's also the years of work you put in that allow you to fix unforeseen problems on the fly and with ease. I could probably teach someone to do what I do in a week, but that does not make them an adequately suitable replacement for me. It gives them a little, but not a lot, of my knowledge; and none of my wisdom.
But I'm not talking about Conal's story. After actually RTFA, I think Comcast went WAY out of bounds on this. It sounds to me like he pissed in petunias of someone in Comcast's accounting department, and they didn't like having threats of the PCAOB lobbed their way. So in a knee-jerk, you're swimming in deep waters young man fashion; they contacted Conal's employer. It could also be that they really do have something to fear from the PCAOB, and discrediting the accuser is the first step of the defense.
If someone billed me for $2000 worth of gear I didn't order, and then sent me to collections for not paying it, I'd be making legal threats too. I guess if anything, that's where Conal went wrong. He tried to work within the Comcast system to get it resolved. I probably would have just contacted the state attorney general, particularly if I had expertise in the field in question.
I agree that the lack of consumer choice is definitely to blame for this. I also think declaring ISPs as common carriers would keep the net neutrality we always had for years without government stating ISPs must treat packets equally regardless of sender.
This was my letter to the FCC during the net neutrality public comment period:
As long as telecommunication companies have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the return on the investment entrusted to them by their shareholders, they have no choice but to shape the direction of the internet in ways that will do so. Market forces that can often help keep that responsibility in check with the best interests of the public at large are absent in telecommunications, as most of these companies, and certainly the largest of them, enjoy little to no competition in the areas they serve. Even in markets that have more than two telecommunication providers to choose from, there is very little in the way of competitive behavior. While this may smack of collusion, the obvious truth is that none of these incumbent providers wish to engage in an expensive price war that races to the bottom, and a services war that races to the top. They are able to avoid competitive practices in the absence of pressure from start-ups or municipally-operated internet service.
Access to the internet is now a part of modern life in the United States of America. It is used to find a job, get an education, select and consume goods and services, and above all...communicate with others and our government. The fact that this very letter is available to those members of the FCC who are inclined to read it, along with countless other U.S. citizens, is made possible by the internet.
And that internet, which has created jobs and wealth from within our borders and without, has succeeded and thrived under the unspoken principle that all data regardless of its nature or point of origin will be delivered uninhibited to its intended recipient. This unspoken principle is of course, Net Neutrality. Some of our members of congress, well-meaning though they may be, are under the mistaken belief that Net Neutrality is a new idea. In fact, the internet has been neutral since its inception. Given its unprecedented and inarguable success, supporters of Net Neutrality simply wish to keep the internet the way it is and always has been.
Internet service providers state that senders of large amounts of data, like Netflix, place an undue burden on their systems and the only way to recoup the cost to deliver that data is to charge a higher amount for what they call an “internet fast-lane”. Pricing structures are already in place though to deal with the sending and consumption of large amounts of data however, without the need to discriminate. Netflix pays for the data it uploads on a megabit per second (Mbps or bitrate) basis during peak times, and even distributes video at lower quality for those ISPs unable to deliver video at the higher bitrates. Consumers also have the option pay extra to the internet service providers to deliver data at higher bitrates, and often do. These are marketed and sold under package names like Blast, Turbo, or simply High Speed. So Netflix and the like already pay more for higher bitrates, and consumers already pay more for higher bitrates. What the telecommunications industry is doing with “internet fast-lanes” is clearly double-dipping.
Reclassifying internet service providers as common-carriers solves these problems. It will increase competition by lowering the bar to entry for newcomers looking to focus on delivering the best service at lowest price. It will make internet access more affordable to more Americans for their daily basic needs, and bringing the speed and price of that service on par with other nations of the world. It engenders the long-held principle that data should not be discriminated against based on content or sender by creating a barrier between the creator of that data and the transport and delivery of that data. This allows for the continued growth in the technology sector, and fosters innovation by small businesses that may one day become the next Facebook, Google, or Netflix.
then we must be against it! Fire up the astroturfing machine!!!
Like many things based in science or technology, I think the conservatives simply do not understand the call for net neutrality. But they do understand that many people with liberal tendencies are for it, therefore, they must oppose it. I'm (somewhat) convinced that there are people at Fox News or similar conservative outlets that stir up and create controversy where there is none, just to get their base frothing at the mouth...which equals more ad revenue.
A thousand times yes. I won't buy these any more as they simply do not last; at least not in my house. I might get year out of them. Maybe a little more, but not appreciably more than a normal incandescent bulb which are considerably less expensive. I'll continue to purchase incandescent bulbs until they are regulated out of existence, or newer technologies come down to a sane price where the value (lifetime/cost) is on par with older technologies.
I'll warm you now that your blood may boil, and you may turn into a rage monster thinking about the sheer absurdity and stupidity of the car-buying process.
Yes, it certainly sucks that a very ignorant but very vocal minority can cast a dark shadow upon a vast but comparatively silent majority. If you don't like the preconceived notions that are hung upon the religious (as perceived by the non-religious), you may want to encourage like-minded individuals to speak up on matters of science and scientific literacy. Right now the media is controlling the message that this is a two-sided debate, mostly because that's an easier sell. But it's also due to the fact that there is a HUGE contingent of people of faith who recognize a place for science in their lives, but are cowering in the corner. ISIS uses threats of violence to get the masses to bow to their whim. It's not a sword, so what is the far-right hanging over your head?
Agreed. He's an outside contractor working for the NSA. I think for a man in his position that's more of a water cooler kind of conversation, so he can use nuance and visual queues to establish casual concern. There's no way he's going to put his objections into writing where all of that is lost. He likely would have been fired, investigated, had his family members interrogated, and all of his credit cards would have mysteriously stopped working.
So I suppose the end result is the same, except that we probably wouldn't know the truth if he sent an email.
I think the OP's inference is justified. A rephrasing of the sentence should be used to describe an ongoing program. Also, the article clearly states that the program ended in 2011, lending some support to the inference.
I also do not believe for one New York second that the program is suspended, or if it is, it is only because it was replaced by an even more Orwellian (and dare I say, anti-American) program with a different name.
It goes back even further for me. I had to buy a TI-81 in 1990 for freshman year in college. Then I had to take a class (Math 148), that despite its description, was really just to teach you how to use the TI-81. In the two subsequent classes (Math 150 and 151), we barely used the TI-81 for much more than basic calculator functions that I recall, although that was a long time ago. Of course, I never used the calculator again after that. I came away from the whole experience feeling like it was scheme cooked up between the university, TI, and the book publisher.
Board Games (broad-ish appeal, nothing heavy): Cards Against Humanity Zombie Dice Settlers of Catan Ticket to Ride Pandemic Dominion A couple of Magic the Gathering starter sets Plain old deck of cards
PC: Diablo II - This is the only game I think I consistently install from one PC to the next. It usually involves one of my friends saying "Hey, we should start an old-school D2 night once a week!" Because of this, I think every PC I've had since 1997 has had Diablo on it at some point.
RPGs: Pathfinder, or whatever your favorite flavor of D&D is Shadowrun
While it is news and it does matter, I don't feel Slashdot is the appropriate site for this article. There are plenty of the other online news aggregation and discussion sites where this would be entirely appropriate content.
As such, I'm afraid I must boycott this article by not posting!
Yeah, it's hard to miss that WotC had their events in the Sagamore Ballroom for years, but Paizo has had that space for the past two years and WotC has been relegated to a small corner of Hall C.
I've played most editions of D&D going back to 1984. My gaming group and I generally play the "living" campaigns. I didn't mind 4e so much, and LFR is a great campaign setting. We were often tapped to play-test 4e LFR's a few months before the cons. I just thought the combats in 4e could take too long if not properly designed. I like the way LordLucless above regards 4e as a "tactical skirmish" game; I think he's right. We play-tested Next a few times and I wasn't impressed. I just did a 5e this past Saturday at Gen Con and hated every second of it. I played a pre-gen archer and it was 2.5 hours before I loosed my first arrow. WAY too much RP. That's obviously module-specific, but a poor choice to introduce 5e at a con.
We left D&D for Pathfinder PFS a year ago when WotC/Baldman dropped LFRs from the Gen Con lineup without warning, and with nearly nothing to replace it. It's ok. I think what really needs to happen in tabletop RPG's, at least with living campaigns, is that modules need to have rating system for how they've been written. I'd like to know in advance if this module is geared more towards combat or role-playing so I can choose accordingly.
I've been getting into Shadowrun 5th edition lately and liking it more and more.
Thanks to the awesome new browser plug-in called Greenhouse (how has this not been on slashdot?), here's a little context.
Congressman Mo Brooks gets his biggest financial contributions from the aerospace industry. Among his top-10 contributors are Lockheed Martin (1), Northrup Grumman (2), Boeing (6), and Raytheon(10).
Both congressmen Coffman and Gardner have Koch Industries in their top-10 at 7 and 5 respectively. At first, this didn't mean much to me, but I found the coincidence intriguing so I dug deeper. Koch Industries purchased Molex, Inc. in December for $7.2 billion. Among other things, Molex makes wiring and connectors for defense and aerospace. Is that enough to push a couple of congress critters to voice concerns about Space X? I don't know, but following the money is usually a good first step in determining motive.
It's the reporting. This wasn't a peer reviewed scientific discovery, and it didn't claim to be. It was just a paper that laid out how the experiment was done, and what the results were, nothing more. Just because IFL Science, like every other tech/science site, picks up the story and hints at trips to Mars in a matter of weeks, doesn't mean that's what the experimenters were claiming.
This is how science works. You do experiments, you post your methods and results. Other scientists may do the same. If there is enough evidence that something may be at work, you do more. If you end up showing that everything we thought we knew about the universe was wrong, THEN YOU START CHANGING THE TEXTBOOKS.
The law of conservation of momentum, like all scientific laws, comes with the caveat that our understanding of how the universe works is correct. They are not immutable. Given reproduceability, predictability, and strong empirical evidence, it probably is correct; but that doesn't mean it may not need "tweaking" in the face of new evidence. It could also be that no scientific principles are being broken here, it's just there's something else at play we don't understand.
People who claim otherwise are really just religious zealots in a lab coat.
In the decades past, it was viewed as harmless...even cute when the little golf-cart like robots crawled across the surface doing their little experiments. But then in 2025, Earth attacked. It was without warning or provocation that the vicious spikes penetrated the community, and this action would not go without swift and formidable retribution. So the ships were fueled and armed, and a vast armada launched into the sky and made their way to seek...not revenge, but justice. The Earthlings, with their antiquated detection systems, didn't even notice the approaching fleet with weapons ready to unleash hell.
But alas, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog, and no justice was served that day or any other.
As the video points out, this is not limited to Google Glass, any video capturing device will work. But beyond that, this is really kind of obvious. Yeah, video recording someone entering their password on a touch device will give you a fairly accurate idea of what that password is. Record, playback at 1/4 speed, password. I would bet that security camera footage might even be better to work with due to the angle. The custom software I suppose is a nice achievement, but I would guess it's not all that necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't mind the young haters. I came to type the same thing. Would that I had karma to give.
please - verify - me
As a species, we've advanced pretty well and can use technology to reproduce all kinds of natural processes. It's easy to be lulled into thinking we can do just about anything. So it's kind of nice to see we still have some tricks to learn. I mean, no one is surprised we can't yet dial-in desired genetic traits a la Gattaca, but engineering spider silk seems fairly simple by comparison. I suppose once we have total control over the individual placement of atoms, at scale, anything really will be possible.
I have a traditional 2-story colonial home. There are four bedrooms, all on the second floor. I got a small spool of cat-6 "Siamese" cable; it's got coax and cat-6 separately jacketed, but heat-glued together. I recommend that even if Google Fiber doesn't use coax (does it?). You never know what the future may hold, and you're only going to want to do this once.
I went into the attic and liberally measured off cable for each bedroom. I think I did something like 15' for the drop down the wall to the outlet (9' ceilings), plus the length to the sewage stack, plus another 12' per floor (12 for the first floor and 12 for the basement), then tacked on another 10' to run from the sewage stack to the networking wall. So each run ended up something like 60-65 feet. I had to use a hole-saw to drill a 3" hole next to the sewage stack on the second floor. It was behind a section of wall that had an air vent in it. I had to take the vent off and push the duct work out of the way. That was a little scary, and I wasn't able to get it back together perfectly, but it was worth it in the end. Once I was able to drop a weighted string to from attic to the basement, I taped up all the BR cables at one end, tied that to the string, and lowered them down along the sewage stack. I then did the runs down to the bedroom wallplates and terminated those. Then did the same for the basement. I used an 8-post coax line conditioner to terminate all the coax lines in the basement. All the cat-6 went into a wireless router and a switch: http://imgur.com/MeqFKrT
I did separate runs for the family room on the first floor and three runs in the basement. In the end, I'm very happy with how it all turned out, and I would definitely do it again should I ever move.
It depends on the car and where you take it to be serviced. Even basic maintenance like oil changes can be expensive on luxury vehicles at the dealer or specialty shop. The mid-tier service plan on the Tesla is $500/year. I could get half-way to that just on oil changes alone...if I were dumb enough to take it to a dealer. The local foreign auto shop is a bit less, but I don't think $500/year is crazy. Certainly not any crazier than spending $80k on a car when you can buy other brands and models for $20k. You buy the car (and service) that fits in your budget and meets the needs you set above basic locomotion.
I understand where you are coming from, but I have to disagree...publicly.
If we took that attitude, why bother coming here at all? I come to slashdot to learn from those who have expertise in a given field, and lend my expertise in return. It's how we grow; individually and as a species. What purpose do sites like Stackoverflow serve in your world? We should all be working to help each other, not protect our meager little slice of the pie. What you know isn't a secret. You and you alone have not figured out the one, true, pure, and non-reproducible way of designing a perfect telecom system. Putting that information out there isn't taking food off of your table. It's how you do it that makes you valuable; the service you provide. There's also the years of work you put in that allow you to fix unforeseen problems on the fly and with ease. I could probably teach someone to do what I do in a week, but that does not make them an adequately suitable replacement for me. It gives them a little, but not a lot, of my knowledge; and none of my wisdom.
Smells like a mermaid's asshole to me!
But I'm not talking about Conal's story. After actually RTFA, I think Comcast went WAY out of bounds on this. It sounds to me like he pissed in petunias of someone in Comcast's accounting department, and they didn't like having threats of the PCAOB lobbed their way. So in a knee-jerk, you're swimming in deep waters young man fashion; they contacted Conal's employer. It could also be that they really do have something to fear from the PCAOB, and discrediting the accuser is the first step of the defense.
If someone billed me for $2000 worth of gear I didn't order, and then sent me to collections for not paying it, I'd be making legal threats too. I guess if anything, that's where Conal went wrong. He tried to work within the Comcast system to get it resolved. I probably would have just contacted the state attorney general, particularly if I had expertise in the field in question.
I agree that the lack of consumer choice is definitely to blame for this. I also think declaring ISPs as common carriers would keep the net neutrality we always had for years without government stating ISPs must treat packets equally regardless of sender.
This was my letter to the FCC during the net neutrality public comment period:
As long as telecommunication companies have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the return on the investment entrusted to them by their shareholders, they have no choice but to shape the direction of the internet in ways that will do so. Market forces that can often help keep that responsibility in check with the best interests of the public at large are absent in telecommunications, as most of these companies, and certainly the largest of them, enjoy little to no competition in the areas they serve. Even in markets that have more than two telecommunication providers to choose from, there is very little in the way of competitive behavior. While this may smack of collusion, the obvious truth is that none of these incumbent providers wish to engage in an expensive price war that races to the bottom, and a services war that races to the top. They are able to avoid competitive practices in the absence of pressure from start-ups or municipally-operated internet service.
Access to the internet is now a part of modern life in the United States of America. It is used to find a job, get an education, select and consume goods and services, and above all...communicate with others and our government. The fact that this very letter is available to those members of the FCC who are inclined to read it, along with countless other U.S. citizens, is made possible by the internet.
And that internet, which has created jobs and wealth from within our borders and without, has succeeded and thrived under the unspoken principle that all data regardless of its nature or point of origin will be delivered uninhibited to its intended recipient. This unspoken principle is of course, Net Neutrality. Some of our members of congress, well-meaning though they may be, are under the mistaken belief that Net Neutrality is a new idea. In fact, the internet has been neutral since its inception. Given its unprecedented and inarguable success, supporters of Net Neutrality simply wish to keep the internet the way it is and always has been.
Internet service providers state that senders of large amounts of data, like Netflix, place an undue burden on their systems and the only way to recoup the cost to deliver that data is to charge a higher amount for what they call an “internet fast-lane”. Pricing structures are already in place though to deal with the sending and consumption of large amounts of data however, without the need to discriminate. Netflix pays for the data it uploads on a megabit per second (Mbps or bitrate) basis during peak times, and even distributes video at lower quality for those ISPs unable to deliver video at the higher bitrates. Consumers also have the option pay extra to the internet service providers to deliver data at higher bitrates, and often do. These are marketed and sold under package names like Blast, Turbo, or simply High Speed. So Netflix and the like already pay more for higher bitrates, and consumers already pay more for higher bitrates. What the telecommunications industry is doing with “internet fast-lanes” is clearly double-dipping.
Reclassifying internet service providers as common-carriers solves these problems. It will increase competition by lowering the bar to entry for newcomers looking to focus on delivering the best service at lowest price. It will make internet access more affordable to more Americans for their daily basic needs, and bringing the speed and price of that service on par with other nations of the world. It engenders the long-held principle that data should not be discriminated against based on content or sender by creating a barrier between the creator of that data and the transport and delivery of that data. This allows for the continued growth in the technology sector, and fosters innovation by small businesses that may one day become the next Facebook, Google, or Netflix.
then we must be against it! Fire up the astroturfing machine!!!
Like many things based in science or technology, I think the conservatives simply do not understand the call for net neutrality. But they do understand that many people with liberal tendencies are for it, therefore, they must oppose it. I'm (somewhat) convinced that there are people at Fox News or similar conservative outlets that stir up and create controversy where there is none, just to get their base frothing at the mouth...which equals more ad revenue.
Of course they aren't going to find it. It's all the way over in the Pegasus galaxy.
A thousand times yes. I won't buy these any more as they simply do not last; at least not in my house. I might get year out of them. Maybe a little more, but not appreciably more than a normal incandescent bulb which are considerably less expensive. I'll continue to purchase incandescent bulbs until they are regulated out of existence, or newer technologies come down to a sane price where the value (lifetime/cost) is on par with older technologies.
I highly recommend to everyone reading this discussion to listen to this 16-minute NPR Money Matters story:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...
Them if you have some time, This American Life tells the dealer's side of the story:
http://m.thisamericanlife.org/...
I'll warm you now that your blood may boil, and you may turn into a rage monster thinking about the sheer absurdity and stupidity of the car-buying process.
The "machine learning algorithm" is a euphemism for three hairless teenagers floating in pools of milk.
Watch out for the spiders.
Yes, it certainly sucks that a very ignorant but very vocal minority can cast a dark shadow upon a vast but comparatively silent majority. If you don't like the preconceived notions that are hung upon the religious (as perceived by the non-religious), you may want to encourage like-minded individuals to speak up on matters of science and scientific literacy. Right now the media is controlling the message that this is a two-sided debate, mostly because that's an easier sell. But it's also due to the fact that there is a HUGE contingent of people of faith who recognize a place for science in their lives, but are cowering in the corner. ISIS uses threats of violence to get the masses to bow to their whim. It's not a sword, so what is the far-right hanging over your head?
We all get and deserve the world we make.
Agreed. He's an outside contractor working for the NSA. I think for a man in his position that's more of a water cooler kind of conversation, so he can use nuance and visual queues to establish casual concern. There's no way he's going to put his objections into writing where all of that is lost. He likely would have been fired, investigated, had his family members interrogated, and all of his credit cards would have mysteriously stopped working.
So I suppose the end result is the same, except that we probably wouldn't know the truth if he sent an email.
I think the OP's inference is justified. A rephrasing of the sentence should be used to describe an ongoing program. Also, the article clearly states that the program ended in 2011, lending some support to the inference.
I also do not believe for one New York second that the program is suspended, or if it is, it is only because it was replaced by an even more Orwellian (and dare I say, anti-American) program with a different name.
It goes back even further for me. I had to buy a TI-81 in 1990 for freshman year in college. Then I had to take a class (Math 148), that despite its description, was really just to teach you how to use the TI-81. In the two subsequent classes (Math 150 and 151), we barely used the TI-81 for much more than basic calculator functions that I recall, although that was a long time ago. Of course, I never used the calculator again after that. I came away from the whole experience feeling like it was scheme cooked up between the university, TI, and the book publisher.
Board Games (broad-ish appeal, nothing heavy):
Cards Against Humanity
Zombie Dice
Settlers of Catan
Ticket to Ride
Pandemic
Dominion
A couple of Magic the Gathering starter sets
Plain old deck of cards
PC:
Diablo II - This is the only game I think I consistently install from one PC to the next. It usually involves one of my friends saying "Hey, we should start an old-school D2 night once a week!" Because of this, I think every PC I've had since 1997 has had Diablo on it at some point.
RPGs:
Pathfinder, or whatever your favorite flavor of D&D is
Shadowrun
Android/iPhone:
Clash of Clans
While it is news and it does matter, I don't feel Slashdot is the appropriate site for this article. There are plenty of the other online news aggregation and discussion sites where this would be entirely appropriate content.
As such, I'm afraid I must boycott this article by not posting!
Yeah, it's hard to miss that WotC had their events in the Sagamore Ballroom for years, but Paizo has had that space for the past two years and WotC has been relegated to a small corner of Hall C.
I've played most editions of D&D going back to 1984. My gaming group and I generally play the "living" campaigns. I didn't mind 4e so much, and LFR is a great campaign setting. We were often tapped to play-test 4e LFR's a few months before the cons. I just thought the combats in 4e could take too long if not properly designed. I like the way LordLucless above regards 4e as a "tactical skirmish" game; I think he's right. We play-tested Next a few times and I wasn't impressed. I just did a 5e this past Saturday at Gen Con and hated every second of it. I played a pre-gen archer and it was 2.5 hours before I loosed my first arrow. WAY too much RP. That's obviously module-specific, but a poor choice to introduce 5e at a con.
We left D&D for Pathfinder PFS a year ago when WotC/Baldman dropped LFRs from the Gen Con lineup without warning, and with nearly nothing to replace it. It's ok. I think what really needs to happen in tabletop RPG's, at least with living campaigns, is that modules need to have rating system for how they've been written. I'd like to know in advance if this module is geared more towards combat or role-playing so I can choose accordingly.
I've been getting into Shadowrun 5th edition lately and liking it more and more.
Thanks to the awesome new browser plug-in called Greenhouse (how has this not been on slashdot?), here's a little context.
Congressman Mo Brooks gets his biggest financial contributions from the aerospace industry. Among his top-10 contributors are Lockheed Martin (1), Northrup Grumman (2), Boeing (6), and Raytheon(10).
Both congressmen Coffman and Gardner have Koch Industries in their top-10 at 7 and 5 respectively. At first, this didn't mean much to me, but I found the coincidence intriguing so I dug deeper. Koch Industries purchased Molex, Inc. in December for $7.2 billion. Among other things, Molex makes wiring and connectors for defense and aerospace. Is that enough to push a couple of congress critters to voice concerns about Space X? I don't know, but following the money is usually a good first step in determining motive.
I was thinking they smelled like a lost opportunity.
It's the reporting. This wasn't a peer reviewed scientific discovery, and it didn't claim to be. It was just a paper that laid out how the experiment was done, and what the results were, nothing more. Just because IFL Science, like every other tech/science site, picks up the story and hints at trips to Mars in a matter of weeks, doesn't mean that's what the experimenters were claiming.
This is how science works. You do experiments, you post your methods and results. Other scientists may do the same. If there is enough evidence that something may be at work, you do more. If you end up showing that everything we thought we knew about the universe was wrong, THEN YOU START CHANGING THE TEXTBOOKS.
The law of conservation of momentum, like all scientific laws, comes with the caveat that our understanding of how the universe works is correct. They are not immutable. Given reproduceability, predictability, and strong empirical evidence, it probably is correct; but that doesn't mean it may not need "tweaking" in the face of new evidence. It could also be that no scientific principles are being broken here, it's just there's something else at play we don't understand.
People who claim otherwise are really just religious zealots in a lab coat.
In the decades past, it was viewed as harmless...even cute when the little golf-cart like robots crawled across the surface doing their little experiments. But then in 2025, Earth attacked. It was without warning or provocation that the vicious spikes penetrated the community, and this action would not go without swift and formidable retribution. So the ships were fueled and armed, and a vast armada launched into the sky and made their way to seek...not revenge, but justice. The Earthlings, with their antiquated detection systems, didn't even notice the approaching fleet with weapons ready to unleash hell.
But alas, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog, and no justice was served that day or any other.
Apologies to Douglas Adams.
Obligatory South Park reference:
http://beta.southparkstudios.c...
As the video points out, this is not limited to Google Glass, any video capturing device will work. But beyond that, this is really kind of obvious. Yeah, video recording someone entering their password on a touch device will give you a fairly accurate idea of what that password is. Record, playback at 1/4 speed, password. I would bet that security camera footage might even be better to work with due to the angle. The custom software I suppose is a nice achievement, but I would guess it's not all that necessary.