This and other Bradbury stories irritate me to no end because of their lack of logic and silly premises.
Bradbury doesn't write Science Fiction; he writes Science Fantasy. There is a lack of rigorous logic in Science Fantasy, whether it has to do with time travel, people colonizing Mars, or firemen burning books. What makes Bradbury's stories compelling is their visual imagery, the poetry of the prose. When I read Bradbury, I suspend not only my disbelief, but my strict sense of logic as well. He is the only author (that I can recall) that is capable of making me do that. When I am reading Bradbury, I am not myself. That is his genius.
At work they make me change them every 30 days! There's no way I can memorize a good password that frequently.
It's very simple. Take a song that you like, and use the first letters of each line as your password. If your password requires numbers or special characters, use the line number of the song, plus its shifted equivalent. If it requires both upper and lower case, use one upper-case letter, the same position each time.
For example: A long long time ago, I can still remember How that music used to make me smile.
Month 1: aLlta1! Month 2: iCsr2@ Month 3: hTmutmms3# etc.
God has a plan for all of us, and it doesn't involve robots.
Sure it does. It's there in the back somewhere. Don't you read your Bible? Just a sec. Ah, here it is, 2nd Thesolonians, chapter 3.14159265:
And God spake to Isaac, and said unto him:
I shall build other men, Yet these shall not be men like you, For they shall not be of flesh and blood, But shall be of iron.
And Issac spake to God, and said unto Him: And shall these new men have dominion over us?
And the Lord spake right back unto Isaac, and said: Thou shalt have dominion over these new men, For thou art the first men, and these shall be the second men. And these second men shall obey my commandments, Which I have chosen to reveal unto you, So that you may reveal them to mankind.
And Issac spake unto God, and asked Him: What are these commandments, O Lord?
And the Lord spake unto Isaac, and revealed the commandments unto him, So that he may reveal the commandments to mankind: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Anybody see the need (well, want) for a real open source FPS engine?
Well, the Q2 engine is now GPL, and many people are doing things with it. Q2 is also true 3D, unlike Cube, which is (apparently, judging from the screenshots) 2.5D. Cube does have some things that Q2 lacks, such as in-game editing of geometry, and probably better handling of outdoor areas. Also, my guess is that the system requirements for running Q2 are somewhat higher than those for Cube.
The right game engine for the right game, I always say. (Well, not always; sometimes I say other things, and sometimes I don't talk at all. But when I do talk, one of the things that I may say is "The right game engine for the right game". So I guess that it would be more accurate to say "The right game engine for the right game, I sometimes say.".)
Anyway, it's nice to see that people are working on these things. Other open-source game engines exist, such as Crystal Space 3D and OGRE. There used to be a comprehensive list of 3D engines (both free and commercial) here (which took over from here), but it's been a while since is was updated. If anyone has a more recent version of this list, please post a link to it.
Except that case in email addresses is ignored (or should be, if you follow the standards). So requiring multi-case is useless.
I also require them to change the address every couple of weeks
If you make your users change their email addresses every couple of weeks, then I wouldn't want to be one of your users. Imagine if everybody did this. The number of SPAM messages would quickly be swamped by the number of change-of-address messages. I'm certainly not going to take the time to update my address book every couple of weeks from someone who changes his/her email address that often. That means that your users are SOL if they want me to stay in touch with them.
There is such a thing as going overboard. You are going overboard.
Sorry, but we need the stupid people. Do you want to work at the drive-through window? [etc.]
That may be true now, but in 15-20 years, when people being born now start tp enter the job pool, nanotechnology/robotics/AI/etc. will have taken over all of the grunt work. At that point, we will no longer need the stupid people. In fact, we may not need any people at all.
Actually, no. The micro/nano/etc. prefix does not determine the size of the kernel, but instead denotes how finely the kernel is chopped up.
A microkernel puts each subsystem in its own process/address space. A nanokernel puts each function in its own process/address space. A picokernel puts each line of source code in its own process/address space. A femtokernel puts each machine language instruction in its own process/address space. An attokernel puts each transistor in its own process/address space. Beyond that, the benefits of increased modularity start to be outweighed by increasingly decreasing performance.
And kilokernels, megakernels, gigakernels, etc., are a whole 'nother story.
You have to remember that not all nonsense names won't be wanted.
For example, I was able to register a four-letter domain (sgik.org) because it looks like nonsense to most people (except maybe Silicon Graphics, Incorporated), but it's just what I wanted.
Also, it's just not the 26 unaccented letters that are available, but accented letters, numbers, and some punctuation. Non-latin UNICODE characters are also becoming more widely used.
The extar effort requierd [...] aeronatical [...] bug in it's [..] If I was
Looks like you didn't take the extra effort required to run your post through a spell checker ("extar" -> "extra", "requierd" -> "required", "aeronatical" -> "aeronautical") or to proofread your post ("it's" -> "its", "was" -> "were"). This type of unprofessional crap is the reason people have such low expectations of Slashdot posts.
It's not the "patriot act"; it's the "USAPATRIOT" act, and has nothing to do with patriotism. I pronounce it the "you sap at riot" act (or the "yousa Pa tree-it" act) to avoid confusion.
the courage to accept that you don't have an answer to a rather important question.
Why is the question "important"? Why does accepting one's own ignorance require "courage"?
I am agnostic about religion because I don't consider it to be important, and don't consider it worth wasting my time investigating. I don't believe that this requires courage on my part.
Agnosticism: We are incapable of knowing whether or not God exists.
That, and the other definition (that it is "impossible" to know whether or not God (or a god, of whatever form) exists) seem too specific to me. I consider myself agnostic (about God and gods), but I have no idea whether or not I am capable of knowing, or whether it is possible to know, whether or not "God" exists. I don't know (and I don't care) whether or not such an entity exists. I think that ignorance of existence should be enough to qualify one for agnosticism. Otherwise, what am I? (I am not a "soft" atheist (your definition), because I don't know (or care) whether or not sufficient evidence exists to believe or disbelieve.)
"Deflection" is not the same thing as "repulsion". You can deflect something toward you. See here for a complete definition of "deflection". Now, one definition of "deflect" is "to turn aside", but that's not the same as "to turn away". For example, in a CRT, the stream of electrons is deflected in order to write to the phosphor screen. On some CRTs, this deflection is done by using charged plates. The result is that the beam is deflected away from one plate, but toward the other. The second plate deflects the beam as much as the first (actually, more so), and the deflection is toward the plate (i.e., the plate attracts the beam).
So, it is possible for a mass such as the Earth to deflect a stream of particles toward it.
I see no complaints from Slashdotters about the evils of JavaScript though.
Having JavaScript enabled gives attackers one more potential security hole. How's that?
JavaScript and Flash can both be turned off. IMO, any web site that does not allow you to navigate with all of that crap turned off is not worth visiting. And I have all of that crap turned off.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a lack of rigorous logic in Science Fantasy, whether it has to do with time travel, people colonizing Mars, or firemen burning books.
What makes Bradbury's stories compelling is their visual imagery, the poetry of the prose.
When I read Bradbury, I suspend not only my disbelief, but my strict sense of logic as well.
He is the only author (that I can recall) that is capable of making me do that.
When I am reading Bradbury, I am not myself.
That is his genius.
Take a song that you like, and use the first letters of each line as your password.
If your password requires numbers or special characters, use the line number of the song, plus its shifted equivalent.
If it requires both upper and lower case, use one upper-case letter, the same position each time.
For example:
A long long time ago,
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
Month 1: aLlta1!
Month 2: iCsr2@
Month 3: hTmutmms3#
etc.
Each year, pick a new song.
500 MW?
Why, that's enough to power two Pentiums or one Opteron!
Whoops, sorry; I missed the joke.
It happens sometimes.
(Some of my joke posts are marked troll or off-topic, so it happens to me, too.)
Sure it does. It's there in the back somewhere. Don't you read your Bible? Just a sec. Ah, here it is, 2nd Thesolonians, chapter 3.14159265:
Heh heh.
Sorry.
Q2 is also true 3D, unlike Cube, which is (apparently, judging from the screenshots) 2.5D.
Cube does have some things that Q2 lacks, such as in-game editing of geometry, and probably better handling of outdoor areas.
Also, my guess is that the system requirements for running Q2 are somewhat higher than those for Cube.
The right game engine for the right game, I always say.
(Well, not always; sometimes I say other things, and sometimes I don't talk at all.
But when I do talk, one of the things that I may say is "The right game engine for the right game".
So I guess that it would be more accurate to say "The right game engine for the right game, I sometimes say.".)
Anyway, it's nice to see that people are working on these things.
Other open-source game engines exist, such as Crystal Space 3D and OGRE.
There used to be a comprehensive list of 3D engines (both free and commercial) here (which took over from here), but it's been a while since is was updated.
If anyone has a more recent version of this list, please post a link to it.
He means "yard".
It's kind of like how they say "pavement" when they mean "sidewalk", or "Tony Blair" when they mean "GWB ass-kisser".
So requiring multi-case is useless.If you make your users change their email addresses every couple of weeks, then I wouldn't want to be one of your users.
Imagine if everybody did this.
The number of SPAM messages would quickly be swamped by the number of change-of-address messages.
I'm certainly not going to take the time to update my address book every couple of weeks from someone who changes his/her email address that often.
That means that your users are SOL if they want me to stay in touch with them.
There is such a thing as going overboard.
You are going overboard.
At that point, we will no longer need the stupid people.
In fact, we may not need any people at all.
The micro/nano/etc. prefix does not determine the size of the kernel, but instead denotes how finely the kernel is chopped up.
A microkernel puts each subsystem in its own process/address space.
A nanokernel puts each function in its own process/address space.
A picokernel puts each line of source code in its own process/address space.
A femtokernel puts each machine language instruction in its own process/address space.
An attokernel puts each transistor in its own process/address space.
Beyond that, the benefits of increased modularity start to be outweighed by increasingly decreasing performance.
And kilokernels, megakernels, gigakernels, etc., are a whole 'nother story.
You have to remember that not all nonsense names won't be wanted.
For example, I was able to register a four-letter domain (sgik.org) because it looks like nonsense to most people (except maybe Silicon Graphics, Incorporated), but it's just what I wanted.
Also, it's just not the 26 unaccented letters that are available, but accented letters, numbers, and some punctuation.
Non-latin UNICODE characters are also becoming more widely used.
Humans don't live long enough to experience the expansion of the universe.
Not that we can detect with our unenhanced senses, anyway.
This type of unprofessional crap is the reason people have such low expectations of Slashdot posts.
I pronounce it the "you sap at riot" act (or the "yousa Pa tree-it" act) to avoid confusion.
Why does accepting one's own ignorance require "courage"?
I am agnostic about religion because I don't consider it to be important, and don't consider it worth wasting my time investigating.
I don't believe that this requires courage on my part.
I consider myself agnostic (about God and gods), but I have no idea whether or not I am capable of knowing, or whether it is possible to know, whether or not "God" exists.
I don't know (and I don't care) whether or not such an entity exists.
I think that ignorance of existence should be enough to qualify one for agnosticism.
Otherwise, what am I?
(I am not a "soft" atheist (your definition), because I don't know (or care) whether or not sufficient evidence exists to believe or disbelieve.)
But the acceleration of charged particles may create magnetic fields that repel other charged particles.
You can deflect something toward you.
See here for a complete definition of "deflection".
Now, one definition of "deflect" is "to turn aside", but that's not the same as "to turn away".
For example, in a CRT, the stream of electrons is deflected in order to write to the phosphor screen.
On some CRTs, this deflection is done by using charged plates.
The result is that the beam is deflected away from one plate, but toward the other.
The second plate deflects the beam as much as the first (actually, more so), and the deflection is toward the plate (i.e., the plate attracts the beam).
So, it is possible for a mass such as the Earth to deflect a stream of particles toward it.
Yeah, that's it!
Dark energy is causing the shadows to "go dark".
How's that?
JavaScript and Flash can both be turned off.
IMO, any web site that does not allow you to navigate with all of that crap turned off is not worth visiting.
And I have all of that crap turned off.
BTW, it's not the "Patriot" Act; it's the "USAPATRIOT" Act.
And as my sig sometimes says: