How many people that have ever picked up any type of game console (and most calculators with power) have never played tetris? The Article is right. There is a version of this game for practically every type of computer that exists today. Anything programmable by hackers (relatively) easily, and there's Tetris.
And I had the Original Version of Tetris for the PC in Canada. My Dad picked it up in 1988, and my family was hooked. EGA graphics, seeing earth from Mir. That was a game. Level 9 was virtually unachievable. And we played endlessly.
Then the Game Boy came out. Heaven. Two players! My brother and I played endless matches against each other. On road trips, there was nothing else. Scenery? Whatever. Trying to get a Tetris to send my brother over the top. Winning by completing lines faster wasn't HALF as satisfying as killing the other guy. A non-violent game where you killed your opponent! What could be better?
And my PARENTS joined in. My Dad was a big computer geek from the get-go, but with Game Boy, even my Mom got in to it. She turned out not-bad for a while too! Occasionally (VERY occasionally) my Dad would even stop driving and let Mom drive, so he could play against us! And in the Family Room at night, playing against each other was often a nightly occurance.
Then High School. Graphing Calculators. Tetris fever again! Jytris is hands-down the best Tetris clone for the HP48/49. Anybody who's played it would agree. Physics 20/30 was bearable (Easy 90s, but BORING) because of that game alone. And Babal I'll admit, but still, my tetris addiction helped.
And then Tetris for the N64 (The Next Tetris). Not a bad game at all. Purists would object to being able to "save" a piece (I felt like I was cheating for the longest time), but the look-ahead, and new mono-squares and multi-squares objectives made an enjoyable new twist to my old obsession. And when playing 4-players at parties, I found that me and my friend Simon were always the targets. We completely dominated the competition. It was ALWAYS down to us two. Got so bad that we had to play hot-potato or else we'd get EVERYBODY's garbage. Hmm. Maybe shouldn't have played so much. We were both a little dominant players. Oh well.
Still, I can't think of any other game I'm still playing from the mid 80s (besides Arkanoid and Rampart the Arcade, but that's another story). I'm always on the lookout for those little pieces made up of four deceptively simple blocks. What other game have you ever actually DREAMED about? What other game do you actually think of scenarios in your head while daydreaming? This happened. Who else will admit it?
I broke my obsession down to a mere addiction a number of years ago. Who else can just not stop with the blocks? Who has been there since (near) the beginning?
Unfortunately, you hit it exactly. 40 lives in Afghanistan are not as valuable as the lives lost in 9/11 to most people. This is just how people in "the west" are. In a more general sense, this is how everybody everywhere is as well, but with different priorities. If your neighbor dies, or even somebody two blocks over, that you didn't even know, it means more to you than if somebody on the other side of the world dies.
It's human nature to value some lives more than others, and to put it bluntly, Mr and Mrs Smith (and the 1000s others that joined them) that were killed by two collapsing buildings are worth a lot more than a few people in Afghanistan to most people, and especially most media.
I live in Canada, and we are being asked to reduce our emissions by stupid amounts in 8 years. I think its on the order of 10% (i'm probably way off, but correct me if i'm wrong). Now Canada has about 30M people in it. China has over 1 Billion. China is NOT bound by the Kyoto treaty in any way. If each member of their population increases their CO2 usage by a few percent, it will totally wipe out any benefits that Canada, the US, and many other countries could make happen.
If this is a global question, why isn't their anything approaching global participation? Shouldn't the largest country on earth be bound by it as well?
And for a 2nd perspective, there is a lot of controversy in my Province over a proposed Alternative strategy to CO2 reduction being developed in Alberta. Most people supporting Kyoto say "NO! Do Kyoto NOW! It's the only way!" Well Mr and Mrs Environmentalist, if other plans don't reduce enough, fast enough, then you must be in favor of mass genocide of all polluters! In fact, wipe out 99% of the world's population! That'll put a big dent in CO2 production! Or if not mass deaths right away, how about banning the use of all types of fuels that produce CO2! "Sorry Mr Freezing person. Your wood campfire doesn't follow Zero Emmissions Guidelines. You'll need to freeze in winter. Sorry." Anybody can see both of these are unreasonable (well i HOPE everybody thinks these are unreasonable...), but we have to realize that Kyoto is not necessarily the best way of doing things.
There ARE better ways that reduce CO2 emmissions, perhaps not as fast, but not as devastating to economies traditionally dependant on "dirty" fuels. And ignoring other countries that aren't developed yet, just makes them more dependant on CO2, and doesn't help long-term. Get solutions for them implemented right away, because it is easier to change an infrastructure that isn't there yet, rather than try and make a dramatic shift.
In this great CRPG (kinda old now) you could make custom classes with primary, major, and minor skills, with everything else under misc. To gain levels, you just worked on your skills. If your primarys were long blade, then you fought to gain skill, but if it was spellcasting, you could go out and blast a monster, or just cast on yourself to get the skill up. It was a good way of leveling, because if you were a theif, you actually gained levels lockpicking into houses, or picking pockets, rather than killing things.
I think its a good RPG model. Hope something similar gets implemented here.
I'm suprised I haven't seen anyone else post this. Intel's compiler is EXPENSIVE! $499? I think since most programmers are not exactly rich (Gates excluded), I think most Linux people are not going to exactly embrace this new compiler.
I can't say I'm totally suprised by the move from HP. With their upcoming merger with Compaq, there is no doubt that they are worried about possible legal action from others while they are vulnerable. This move by them for DRM is really only to protect themselves. I don't like it, but I can't really blame them.
As for the 3Dwm, great idea! I hope you guys keep it going. Something like that could be very good for UIs in the future.
And the Apple stuff. Hmm. Not an Apple user myself since Elementary School, so I won't seriously comment.
Most of Your points are right, but....
on
Ternary Computing
·
· Score: 1
I can see the value of most of your points. You're right about the little tricks we engineers use to simplify logic circuits, but the potential advantages (might) outweigh the challenges. There has never really been an in-depth analysis of this, or a true attempt to make it work in quite some time.
As for the argument that it will take too much commitment in overhead before it becomes widespread, you are right. Inertia drives so many things in human nature, that it is extremely difficult for new concepts and/or ideas to gain broad acceptance. The same can be said for any radical change in technological architechture, be it Quantum Computing, Ternary logic, or Asynchronous Computing, all have great benefits to be offered, with few persueing them because of "Old-School" barriers. Don't say something will never be done, or shouldn't be done purely because of such barriers.
So he missed a site. Big deal. For the majority of the masses, he was right. I think most people that read/. regularaly are not the average "Wow! I can use a computer!" type people. WE know about alternate sources of news, but many just go to the TV news network equivalent sites. This guy was only talking about most.
You can ALWAYS find exceptions to a rule. Don't flame people for that.
Of course I forgot L.O.R.D. Because it S.U.C.K.E.D. You finish the game, and it starts you at the beginning. Plus, it really wasn't that interactive with others. Sure, you could fight if you wanted to, but for the most part it was independant. And not that fun either. What I was meaning are the persistent games, like Tradewars, and Galactic Empire. I didn't list them because I wanted people to say what THEY liked, not list all the ones that I used to play.
Eriol
P.S. Sorry everyone else for this flame. This post just seemed to be screaming for one back from sheer ignorance.
These guys COMPLETELY forgot the online genre before UO. BBS games were the first truly persistent online games. Later, some you could connect to over the internet (telnet into the BBS) so they were even worldwide in some cases. Other fans of this genre of games, suggest your favorites.
As well, how could tetris be that low on the list? It practically CREATED the graphical puzzle genre of games. In the review, they gave it quite high praise talking about it, but it got a crappy rating. They were right talking about "What other game are you still playing 10 years after it was made?", but they fail to see its significance.
All in all, quite a bad show from their staff and reviewers.
Erioll
P.S. Doom is #1? That is the funniest thing i ever saw.
You are missing the point of why such people exist. Leaving politicians out of it (too many contradictions both ways), the other "catagories" you are referring too are "generally" doing what they do for power, and/or they like to feel superior to someone else. You could almost call it part of the human condition. We like feeling superior to someone (anyone) else. That's why we like disaster news shows. Though it is never said, and rarely thought, when we see a whole state/country/region flooded, we say to ourselves "At least i'm superior to THEM!".
It is all about being/feeling superior. That's why your idea that those "groups" will try and prevent utopia is probably not true. Those groups will probably go along with whatever happens, but will try and control the change so that they remain on top. If that doesn't happen, then other groups, usually those on the leading edge of the change will position themselves to take power in some new way, usually by means that were not available at the beginning of the massive societal change. Microsoft's position now is a perfect example of this. IBM was the "old-school" group that specialized in mainframes, and couldn't recognize the importance of PCs. Because of this, Microsoft, being the "new guy" on the leading edge of the technology was able to take control. And it will take an equally significant change to the computer industry (quantum computers maybie?) to displace them.
So while I believe that the somewhat-utopian change from nanotech will come, there will ALWAYS be those trying to be above or "superior" to others, just from basic human domination instinct.
Eriol
P.S. I guess I still AM the eternal cynic. Oh well.:)
Space is where industry needs to go, and unfortunately government usually needs to lead the way in new technologies. Of course this just leads to slowdowns when it is seen as "risky" by the public. If there were to be something really spactacular happen for space again -- like the cure for 99% of cancer can only be synthesized in zero-g -- then people would be taking the risks, but the benefits would be worth it.
Eriol
P.S. I can't remember who said it, but everyone should remember this: (paraphrased) "If we do not go to space, all of our art, history, and human achievments will be worth nothing when the earth ends, for nobody will survive."
One thing i remember reading a while ago, is that one strain of penicillin-resistant bacteria actually FEEDS off the antibiotic, and when put in an environment that is usually helpful to bacteria, it actually died. The point i'm trying to make is that when an organism evolves, they usually gain some benefits, but some "baggage" is taken with them, and sometimes old weaknesses can come again. I wouldn't be suprised if sometime in the future (100+ years) that most bacteria will be vulnerable to penecillin again, since if it isn't used AT ALL, there would be no need for the resistance, and would eventually be "bread out" (breeded out? hmmm...grammar...hate it). Its kind of like fish trapped in caves with NO light. Eventually the vestigal organs/abilities are cast off, and hence the fish are blind.
Ask ANYBODY who has flown a model airplane about your "10 feet off the ground" maneuver. Any little gust of wind will have it crashing. Whenever I do any maneuvers THAT close to the ground, it is the hardest, and most stressful part of flying. I can see small, light computers being able to fly a plane across the ocean using waypoints at a few thousand feet. Lots of time for compensation for gusts, etc. But terrain-following? Get real.
This isn't to say someone SHOULDN'T try flying a plane over Area 51. I think that'd be cool. Since you aren't going trans-ocean (maybie only from the next state, or somewhere similarly annonymous) a good high-resolution camera wouldn't be that difficult to mount. Flying at 300-400 feet AGL, you would still get awesome pictures. And with a transimitter, even if your plane gets shot down (by rifles, etc. Wouldn't be that difficult to hit, even at night. The heat of the engine would be easy to spot) you will still have the images.:)
Remember to multiply your figures for Spirit of Butts by 4. They made 4 of them "just in case"
Also, you forgot engine, radio, and automated systems. Here's my guestimate for them:
Radio: $250 (they get top of the line:))
Engine: $150 (a good.60 to.80 four-stroke)
GPS: you got me. Anybody else know how much this would be?
There are always other costs, the covering (at least $30 for a plane that size), and anything else other model plane builders can think of. Anybody else with expertese, keep the costs coming! But even if we got as nuts as we wanted, i think we'll still be just SLIGHTLY under the Global Hawk.:)
I fly Model Airplanes as well, and i know what you mean. Most people think that balsa wood is so weak. What most people don't know is that it is the strongest wood per pound in existance. And with the stuff we cover our planes in guarding against shear, they are really tough.
Anybody on Slashdot who doesn't believe me just search for model airplane club pages, and look for stories of what our models go through, and are still flyable!....okok...i guess most of the crashes qualify as still "repairable" ones.:)
I hope Square Returns to Nintendo
on
Mario's Revenge?
·
· Score: 1
The biggest mistake in my mind that Nintendo made with its N64 was to use cartidges. They lost many of their impressive array of developers to Sony. The worst loss was Square. I have played (and beaten) every Final Fantasy, and a few other of their games. They were probably the best developer that Nintendo had, and they snubbed them by not using optical media. Hopefully with the GameCube, Square will come back, and make some kick-ass games for Nintendo. Other than the Nintendo franchises (Zelda, Mario, etc), i bought few games that were not Square.
Published in the Appendices of J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings is an interesting way of dividing the year up.
It is based on a year with 365 days, with leap years on the same intervals. The Calendar has 12 months of 30 days each, with the last day of the year being 1 Yule, and the first day of the new year being 2 Yule. In between the 6th and 7th months are the "Lithe" days. There is 1 Lithe, then Midsummers Day, then 2 Lithe. On leapyears an additional day is added, called Overlithe. Midyears day, and Overlithe when it occurs, have no weekday names.
Some people will say "Isn't that harder? Non-days?" It really isn't because with this system, every day of every month always falls on the same day year after year. After some time, you wouldn't even need to put the day when you date something. Everyone would just know.
Something to think about, since this has as much a chance at being implemented as the original idea.
I have had the local cable modem service here (Shaw@home) for 3 years, and i would expect that most of your problems in Toronto are from an immature network. For the first 6 months to a year after we got our service, it was terrible. Outages at LEAST twice a week, and we got to know the service number by heart.
That changed about 1 1/2 years ago. Nowadays, 1 outage in 2 months during the day is about the norm. And that is for like 10 minutes. They announce the midnight outages, and nobody complains. The price is good ($40 a month, plus 5 for an extra IP. Cdn dollars remember) and the service lately has been excellent.
Be patient Toronto and other places. Cable networks are harder to manage than POTS. Rogers and anybody else will eventually get the hang of it like Shaw has.
Well it said that it had a range of 150 miles at 80mph, so i guess that would be about 1 hour 52 minutes, but take into account fuel usage for takeoff/landing, and so it might be an even two hours.
Slashdot Mirror
How many people that have ever picked up any type of game console (and most calculators with power) have never played tetris? The Article is right. There is a version of this game for practically every type of computer that exists today. Anything programmable by hackers (relatively) easily, and there's Tetris.
And I had the Original Version of Tetris for the PC in Canada. My Dad picked it up in 1988, and my family was hooked. EGA graphics, seeing earth from Mir. That was a game. Level 9 was virtually unachievable. And we played endlessly.
Then the Game Boy came out. Heaven. Two players! My brother and I played endless matches against each other. On road trips, there was nothing else. Scenery? Whatever. Trying to get a Tetris to send my brother over the top. Winning by completing lines faster wasn't HALF as satisfying as killing the other guy. A non-violent game where you killed your opponent! What could be better?
And my PARENTS joined in. My Dad was a big computer geek from the get-go, but with Game Boy, even my Mom got in to it. She turned out not-bad for a while too! Occasionally (VERY occasionally) my Dad would even stop driving and let Mom drive, so he could play against us! And in the Family Room at night, playing against each other was often a nightly occurance.
Then High School. Graphing Calculators. Tetris fever again! Jytris is hands-down the best Tetris clone for the HP48/49. Anybody who's played it would agree. Physics 20/30 was bearable (Easy 90s, but BORING) because of that game alone. And Babal I'll admit, but still, my tetris addiction helped.
And then Tetris for the N64 (The Next Tetris). Not a bad game at all. Purists would object to being able to "save" a piece (I felt like I was cheating for the longest time), but the look-ahead, and new mono-squares and multi-squares objectives made an enjoyable new twist to my old obsession. And when playing 4-players at parties, I found that me and my friend Simon were always the targets. We completely dominated the competition. It was ALWAYS down to us two. Got so bad that we had to play hot-potato or else we'd get EVERYBODY's garbage. Hmm. Maybe shouldn't have played so much. We were both a little dominant players. Oh well.
Still, I can't think of any other game I'm still playing from the mid 80s (besides Arkanoid and Rampart the Arcade, but that's another story). I'm always on the lookout for those little pieces made up of four deceptively simple blocks. What other game have you ever actually DREAMED about? What other game do you actually think of scenarios in your head while daydreaming? This happened. Who else will admit it?
I broke my obsession down to a mere addiction a number of years ago. Who else can just not stop with the blocks? Who has been there since (near) the beginning?
Erioll
Unfortunately, you hit it exactly. 40 lives in Afghanistan are not as valuable as the lives lost in 9/11 to most people. This is just how people in "the west" are. In a more general sense, this is how everybody everywhere is as well, but with different priorities. If your neighbor dies, or even somebody two blocks over, that you didn't even know, it means more to you than if somebody on the other side of the world dies.
It's human nature to value some lives more than others, and to put it bluntly, Mr and Mrs Smith (and the 1000s others that joined them) that were killed by two collapsing buildings are worth a lot more than a few people in Afghanistan to most people, and especially most media.
Erioll
I live in Canada, and we are being asked to reduce our emissions by stupid amounts in 8 years. I think its on the order of 10% (i'm probably way off, but correct me if i'm wrong). Now Canada has about 30M people in it. China has over 1 Billion. China is NOT bound by the Kyoto treaty in any way. If each member of their population increases their CO2 usage by a few percent, it will totally wipe out any benefits that Canada, the US, and many other countries could make happen.
If this is a global question, why isn't their anything approaching global participation? Shouldn't the largest country on earth be bound by it as well?
And for a 2nd perspective, there is a lot of controversy in my Province over a proposed Alternative strategy to CO2 reduction being developed in Alberta. Most people supporting Kyoto say "NO! Do Kyoto NOW! It's the only way!" Well Mr and Mrs Environmentalist, if other plans don't reduce enough, fast enough, then you must be in favor of mass genocide of all polluters! In fact, wipe out 99% of the world's population! That'll put a big dent in CO2 production! Or if not mass deaths right away, how about banning the use of all types of fuels that produce CO2! "Sorry Mr Freezing person. Your wood campfire doesn't follow Zero Emmissions Guidelines. You'll need to freeze in winter. Sorry." Anybody can see both of these are unreasonable (well i HOPE everybody thinks these are unreasonable...), but we have to realize that Kyoto is not necessarily the best way of doing things.
There ARE better ways that reduce CO2 emmissions, perhaps not as fast, but not as devastating to economies traditionally dependant on "dirty" fuels. And ignoring other countries that aren't developed yet, just makes them more dependant on CO2, and doesn't help long-term. Get solutions for them implemented right away, because it is easier to change an infrastructure that isn't there yet, rather than try and make a dramatic shift.
Erioll
NT
Very true. TOO many bugs. I'm getting the sequel too. If there's one thing that I hope is improved, its that.
In this great CRPG (kinda old now) you could make custom classes with primary, major, and minor skills, with everything else under misc. To gain levels, you just worked on your skills. If your primarys were long blade, then you fought to gain skill, but if it was spellcasting, you could go out and blast a monster, or just cast on yourself to get the skill up. It was a good way of leveling, because if you were a theif, you actually gained levels lockpicking into houses, or picking pockets, rather than killing things.
I think its a good RPG model. Hope something similar gets implemented here.
Eriol
I'm suprised I haven't seen anyone else post this. Intel's compiler is EXPENSIVE! $499? I think since most programmers are not exactly rich (Gates excluded), I think most Linux people are not going to exactly embrace this new compiler.
$500? I paid less than that for my MS compiler!
Erioll
I can't say I'm totally suprised by the move from HP. With their upcoming merger with Compaq, there is no doubt that they are worried about possible legal action from others while they are vulnerable. This move by them for DRM is really only to protect themselves. I don't like it, but I can't really blame them.
As for the 3Dwm, great idea! I hope you guys keep it going. Something like that could be very good for UIs in the future.
And the Apple stuff. Hmm. Not an Apple user myself since Elementary School, so I won't seriously comment.
I can see the value of most of your points. You're right about the little tricks we engineers use to simplify logic circuits, but the potential advantages (might) outweigh the challenges. There has never really been an in-depth analysis of this, or a true attempt to make it work in quite some time.
As for the argument that it will take too much commitment in overhead before it becomes widespread, you are right. Inertia drives so many things in human nature, that it is extremely difficult for new concepts and/or ideas to gain broad acceptance. The same can be said for any radical change in technological architechture, be it Quantum Computing, Ternary logic, or Asynchronous Computing, all have great benefits to be offered, with few persueing them because of "Old-School" barriers. Don't say something will never be done, or shouldn't be done purely because of such barriers.
Erioll
So he missed a site. Big deal. For the majority of the masses, he was right. I think most people that read /. regularaly are not the average "Wow! I can use a computer!" type people. WE know about alternate sources of news, but many just go to the TV news network equivalent sites. This guy was only talking about most.
You can ALWAYS find exceptions to a rule. Don't flame people for that.
Of course I forgot L.O.R.D. Because it S.U.C.K.E.D. You finish the game, and it starts you at the beginning. Plus, it really wasn't that interactive with others. Sure, you could fight if you wanted to, but for the most part it was independant. And not that fun either. What I was meaning are the persistent games, like Tradewars, and Galactic Empire. I didn't list them because I wanted people to say what THEY liked, not list all the ones that I used to play.
Eriol
P.S. Sorry everyone else for this flame. This post just seemed to be screaming for one back from sheer ignorance.
These guys COMPLETELY forgot the online genre before UO. BBS games were the first truly persistent online games. Later, some you could connect to over the internet (telnet into the BBS) so they were even worldwide in some cases. Other fans of this genre of games, suggest your favorites.
As well, how could tetris be that low on the list? It practically CREATED the graphical puzzle genre of games. In the review, they gave it quite high praise talking about it, but it got a crappy rating. They were right talking about "What other game are you still playing 10 years after it was made?", but they fail to see its significance.
All in all, quite a bad show from their staff and reviewers.
Erioll
P.S. Doom is #1? That is the funniest thing i ever saw.
You are missing the point of why such people exist. Leaving politicians out of it (too many contradictions both ways), the other "catagories" you are referring too are "generally" doing what they do for power, and/or they like to feel superior to someone else. You could almost call it part of the human condition. We like feeling superior to someone (anyone) else. That's why we like disaster news shows. Though it is never said, and rarely thought, when we see a whole state/country/region flooded, we say to ourselves "At least i'm superior to THEM!".
It is all about being/feeling superior. That's why your idea that those "groups" will try and prevent utopia is probably not true. Those groups will probably go along with whatever happens, but will try and control the change so that they remain on top. If that doesn't happen, then other groups, usually those on the leading edge of the change will position themselves to take power in some new way, usually by means that were not available at the beginning of the massive societal change. Microsoft's position now is a perfect example of this. IBM was the "old-school" group that specialized in mainframes, and couldn't recognize the importance of PCs. Because of this, Microsoft, being the "new guy" on the leading edge of the technology was able to take control. And it will take an equally significant change to the computer industry (quantum computers maybie?) to displace them.
So while I believe that the somewhat-utopian change from nanotech will come, there will ALWAYS be those trying to be above or "superior" to others, just from basic human domination instinct.
Eriol
P.S. I guess I still AM the eternal cynic. Oh well. :)
Space is where industry needs to go, and unfortunately government usually needs to lead the way in new technologies. Of course this just leads to slowdowns when it is seen as "risky" by the public. If there were to be something really spactacular happen for space again -- like the cure for 99% of cancer can only be synthesized in zero-g -- then people would be taking the risks, but the benefits would be worth it.
Eriol
P.S. I can't remember who said it, but everyone should remember this: (paraphrased) "If we do not go to space, all of our art, history, and human achievments will be worth nothing when the earth ends, for nobody will survive."
One thing i remember reading a while ago, is that one strain of penicillin-resistant bacteria actually FEEDS off the antibiotic, and when put in an environment that is usually helpful to bacteria, it actually died. The point i'm trying to make is that when an organism evolves, they usually gain some benefits, but some "baggage" is taken with them, and sometimes old weaknesses can come again. I wouldn't be suprised if sometime in the future (100+ years) that most bacteria will be vulnerable to penecillin again, since if it isn't used AT ALL, there would be no need for the resistance, and would eventually be "bread out" (breeded out? hmmm...grammar...hate it). Its kind of like fish trapped in caves with NO light. Eventually the vestigal organs/abilities are cast off, and hence the fish are blind.
Ask ANYBODY who has flown a model airplane about your "10 feet off the ground" maneuver. Any little gust of wind will have it crashing. Whenever I do any maneuvers THAT close to the ground, it is the hardest, and most stressful part of flying. I can see small, light computers being able to fly a plane across the ocean using waypoints at a few thousand feet. Lots of time for compensation for gusts, etc. But terrain-following? Get real.
This isn't to say someone SHOULDN'T try flying a plane over Area 51. I think that'd be cool. Since you aren't going trans-ocean (maybie only from the next state, or somewhere similarly annonymous) a good high-resolution camera wouldn't be that difficult to mount. Flying at 300-400 feet AGL, you would still get awesome pictures. And with a transimitter, even if your plane gets shot down (by rifles, etc. Wouldn't be that difficult to hit, even at night. The heat of the engine would be easy to spot) you will still have the images. :)
Remember to multiply your figures for Spirit of Butts by 4. They made 4 of them "just in case"
Also, you forgot engine, radio, and automated systems. Here's my guestimate for them:
Radio: $250 (they get top of the line :))
Engine: $150 (a good .60 to .80 four-stroke)
GPS: you got me. Anybody else know how much this would be?
There are always other costs, the covering (at least $30 for a plane that size), and anything else other model plane builders can think of. Anybody else with expertese, keep the costs coming! But even if we got as nuts as we wanted, i think we'll still be just SLIGHTLY under the Global Hawk. :)
I fly Model Airplanes as well, and i know what you mean. Most people think that balsa wood is so weak. What most people don't know is that it is the strongest wood per pound in existance. And with the stuff we cover our planes in guarding against shear, they are really tough.
Anybody on Slashdot who doesn't believe me just search for model airplane club pages, and look for stories of what our models go through, and are still flyable!....okok...i guess most of the crashes qualify as still "repairable" ones. :)
The biggest mistake in my mind that Nintendo made with its N64 was to use cartidges. They lost many of their impressive array of developers to Sony. The worst loss was Square. I have played (and beaten) every Final Fantasy, and a few other of their games. They were probably the best developer that Nintendo had, and they snubbed them by not using optical media. Hopefully with the GameCube, Square will come back, and make some kick-ass games for Nintendo. Other than the Nintendo franchises (Zelda, Mario, etc), i bought few games that were not Square.
Published in the Appendices of J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings is an interesting way of dividing the year up.
It is based on a year with 365 days, with leap years on the same intervals. The Calendar has 12 months of 30 days each, with the last day of the year being 1 Yule, and the first day of the new year being 2 Yule. In between the 6th and 7th months are the "Lithe" days. There is 1 Lithe, then Midsummers Day, then 2 Lithe. On leapyears an additional day is added, called Overlithe. Midyears day, and Overlithe when it occurs, have no weekday names.
Some people will say "Isn't that harder? Non-days?" It really isn't because with this system, every day of every month always falls on the same day year after year. After some time, you wouldn't even need to put the day when you date something. Everyone would just know.
Something to think about, since this has as much a chance at being implemented as the original idea.
I have had the local cable modem service here (Shaw@home) for 3 years, and i would expect that most of your problems in Toronto are from an immature network. For the first 6 months to a year after we got our service, it was terrible. Outages at LEAST twice a week, and we got to know the service number by heart. That changed about 1 1/2 years ago. Nowadays, 1 outage in 2 months during the day is about the norm. And that is for like 10 minutes. They announce the midnight outages, and nobody complains. The price is good ($40 a month, plus 5 for an extra IP. Cdn dollars remember) and the service lately has been excellent. Be patient Toronto and other places. Cable networks are harder to manage than POTS. Rogers and anybody else will eventually get the hang of it like Shaw has.
Well it said that it had a range of 150 miles at 80mph, so i guess that would be about 1 hour 52 minutes, but take into account fuel usage for takeoff/landing, and so it might be an even two hours.