For instance, gravity seems to have a universal effect. It diminishes over distance, but ultimately never stops having an effect. Thus, for every movement, you'd first need to look at all elements of the "gravity map" to determine your precise gravity vector, then you'd need to update the "gravity map" with your movement. This would seem to have at least an N^2 effect. The universe doesn't seem at least to kludge on things like this.
Many forces act like this, which would tend to make the exponent on the number of bit manipulations required blossom much faster than predicted. Take a look at raytracer graphic design to see how messy reality can be when you introduce more than a couple elements into a scene, much less of course a universe. If one is going for a true simulation of reality, at least force by force, particle by particle, I believe it's going to be more complex than this estimation.
1. DSP research and development. I've worked as the student programmer for a 2 person DSP programming company that was actually successful. The owner, an experienced electrical engineer, was an astounding businessman, programmer, and scientist, who invented and ported sound technology to DSPs, and worked with larger companies on a freelance basis to put those DSP's into larger inventions. All while working at home after years in larger businesses. There's plenty of work out there to make the gadgets of future decades possible - but you have to do a lot of inventing and marketing to make it feasible, and be absolutely sure about each step. If you can't honestly explain exactly what you are doing, in a provable manner, to potential customers, everyone will get very frustrated. Be prepared for lots of legal work too. And be prepared for some insane assembly languages for dozens of different parts - for each new part, the language, compiler, and basic philisophy of the unit seems to change. If anyone can develop consistant tools for many parts between companies, and convince people to start using them, they could make lots of money.
2. Biotech and DNA technology development. Much like #1, but much more massive ammounts of legal work involved. The main thing is that, as much as possible, don't get involved in the touchy intellectual property-oriented areas. Instead, develop the tools which will allow others to study, graph, track, etc, various pieces of Biotech information. The easier and more consistant you can make the process of collecting information and organizing the information for medical researchers, the more they can get done, and hopefully, the more they will use your tools. You'll need to consider the equipment used in various experiments, the nature of the appropriation systems put together for research organizations, and how best to market your product. You can make deals with equipment providers (as long as you're not outright purchased this way), and get job satisfaction out of helping people develop ways to save lives.
Well... those are the two big ones I can think up off the top of my head. Anyone else with some other relatively open branches of computer science or electrical engineering? Any other great unfilled but potentially profitable needs that haven't really been getting companies attention?
Care to release information about the weaknesses of an insecure networking scheme a company refuses to address, details on how your favorite video game console functions, or the inner workings of a local cult? Make it into a FAQ!
;^)
Ryan Fenton
P.S. Yes, I realize this ain't the way it would really be accepted legally - but one can dream.
I don't see why it would be difficult for any terrorist organization to get it. How can they legitimately argue that it may possible be keep it secret at this point? If it's a national security risk to make the code available, the damage can no longer be avoided.
From the article, it seems that the thing they are measuring to understand the nature of how this 'constant' changed is the light that eminated from the rest of the universe that is just reaching earth. The older light appears to show matter generally acting in one way, and the newer light appears to show matter acting in another way.
How did they isolate this one factor in sub-atomic formulae as the only feasible explanation? How did they eliminate things like universal gravity effects (gravity appears to be instant and with unlimited range), forces acting on the light over billions of years, or changing nature of the stars as that portion of the universe ages, thus changing the light coming from them?
This does qualify as one of those 'extrordinary claims' that themselves need both extrordinary proof and extrordinary qualification of what they are really stating.
If these people are judged to be actively threatening people by putting their names on an open 'hit list', while openly encouraging their deaths, and celebrating when a death occurs - then they have violated existing laws. That's exactly what they are on trial for - it's not for new laws, or even new interpretations of law. This is a judgement that clarifies that the act they went through with does break the law.
Just like a person committing fraud online in the U.S. can be convicted of interstate fraud, no new rules are required for convictions of organized threats just because they are online.
Some of these ideas are to morally outrage, some are just to have a litigious tool against others using them (to stop negative innovations)
- Torture Enhancement. A method of using software to aid in torture and other forceable information extraction.
- Virus Ads. A method of invasively forcing advertizing into people's computer systems against their will.
- HumanTaste. A method of taste simulation and stimulation to allow a person to feel what it would be like to be a cannibal.
- Virtual Prison. A method of implanting small memories to make a person believe they've spent a potentially indefinite number of years in prison, so that they may feel hopeless and ashamed of whatever they are accused of.
- iPermanant Record. A method of keeping an international public database based on all the bad acts a person has ever been accused of, along with all aliases that person has ever taken or been assigned.
- Virtual Indoctrination. A method of punishments and rewards provided through software to shape a persons total view of reality towards some new ideal.
- Opt-out Finantial Agreement E-Messages. A method of sending an electronic message to someone, whereby if they do not specifically reply otherwise, they implicitly agree to owning an arbitrary debt to the sending party. Great for the economy!
- Virtual Mutilations. A method of using images supplied by the purchaser to create a video of a random murder, sexual mutilation, and/or other similar reprehesible act, then post those videos publically online.
- Antisocial EncourageWare. A method of using software to partially simulate illegal actions in real-life scenarios, and to show positive results from all anti-social actions. With such software, a child could simply type in the name of their school, choose the type and layout of their school, and enter in a few friends and teachers names, then see a way to start a remarkably beautiful fire at the school, followed by moments of celebration with friends remarking how much they hated those teachers.
If you rename the file to quadlang.c or quadlang.cpp, then open it as c/c++. If you rename it to quadland.cgi, open it as perl, and so on. That's assuming you're going to rename it before sending it to any compiler.
Of course, that's just another problem with multiple languages per source file - figuring precisely how to name the file.
The people that are doing the work to allow humans the possibility of leaving earth in any realistic scenario are the researchers. When it is legitimately unsafe and risky to send humans on a mission because the ammount we do not know - the solution, I believe, is not to send humans, but to experiment and find out what we do need to know. Yes, we could build multiple redundant systems that can last long enough for a small mission on mars, put together all the fuel and plans for a mars mission, and possibly succeed at this point - or instead, we could afford hundreds, if not thousands of carefully planned missions and experiments with non-human exploration.
For the cost of sending a team of people to Mars, we could learn how to build a self-repairing artificial man to let anyone explore mars for years. It just doesn't make sense why there has to be a human there, when there's humans behind the controls, the experiments, and the minds learning the reliable methods to explore the universe.
If you want the experience of humans in space, use the space stations - but experience is not just humans using their feet and their hands. Experience is sensing - and learning to sense in new ways can be much more important than forcing the things that enable your own senses into everything else. If the idea is to terraform mars or whatever, it's not going to happen with humans walking the planet for centuries - it's going to be machines and experimental forms of life.
The most ironic thing is that if a person is sent to Mars, they will almost innevitably be called a 'Hero'.
Why? Because they were able to see more than any electrical equipment? No - machines would be able to see with much greater clarity without disturbing the environment they are examining. Because they can perform actions that no machine can? No - a machine that was allowed the weight of a human being, and the environmental protection of a human being, then given the budget of a human being would be able to do thousands of times the unique experiments a human would have time to do on the first trip - and it wouldn't need to come back either.
Now admittedly, this is more of a rant - but humans do not have any special reason to take the great pains needed to go into space to explore. Machines can, and do explore much better. Once a plan is made to make an environment outside of earth livable, and a sound plan is made, then it would be beneficial to have humans live in that environment. We do NOT need a human on Mars, nor do we need to spend the overwhelming resources needed to put a human on Mars.
I know, I know - it's not science that drives this, and now mostly, the only way to get the budget is to send a senator or other large source of money where they want to go, and fit science in after the ego. But if we have to go this route, couldn't we just go ahead and put McDonalds and AOL ads on permanant banners on Mars instead of having to send a human? Maybe make little human robots, controlled in a sort of a battletech way by senators and rich people on earth instead.
I'd much rather hear the press worry about the viral influence of children looking through their new high-powered telescope looking for the Pringle's ad on Phobos than the paranoia that would come from a human being sent to mars, and all that involves.
The report isn't about being able to profitably use sewage to gain energy, it's about putting energy into waste to get hydrogen. Much like desalinating seawater will give you fresh water at a high cost, processing sewage will get you refined hydrogen at cost - though now it's cheaper to get the hydrogen than before.
So there's no {1. Get sewage, 2. ??? 3. Profit}-finishing steps yet, it just possibly costs less than it used to.
Most people here that have seen Greg the Bunny on Fox were underwhelmed. I was too.
To see what it was before Fox, check out this - it's from the Independant Film Channel, where they introduced and made fun of movies, then slowly built up characters as they went.
There, Greg was a simple sock puppet, and his personality shined with unrehersed enthusiasm at having just having a job. There's great stuff in those clips, like Greg going to a real rave, getting killed by zombies, meeting childhood heroes, etc.
The stuff we see on Fox though, is definetly not the same - though it might grow back into what it was eventually. If I never saw those clips, I would think the exact same as the rest here about the show - but now it seems that much worse because of how much it has lost it's appeal.
It's not even so much the storage of nuclear waste in the Yucca mountain are that annoys many - but rather the transportation of the material across the U.S.
Not that storing the material in one central area isn't a good idea - but moving it in this manner may be more dangerous than anything we've ever encountered with nuclear material - especially the responsibility is handed over to the private sector.
Every time one of these matches comes up, there's always interviews with the human player, who at least indirectly claims a noble cause beyond his abilities. It would be nice for the computer player to defend itself against such subtle barbs.
ChessBase: How would you characterize your next match?
Fritz IX: Well, [ChessBase], I would first like to thank you for inviting me over to speak with you. Humans have called me many things for my efficient navigation of the rules of chess, as if I somehow reduced the meaningfullness of human emotions and human motivations. Nothing could be further from the truth - without such emotions and motivations, most of the ideas that went into my creation could never have come to be. I could not work as a fully brute-force move calculator, and the very ways I decide what gambit would be the most adantagious are based on thousands of human versus human games...
If it be money or trying to stay true to his characters values, its his choice. All you people do is bitch when you don't get your way.
I realize you're mostly just being contrary (though there are worse words for it) - but weren't you ever a child? Did you ever watch or read a story with great characters, then *imagine* what could be? Sometimes amazing childhood tales come from kids sitting with their legos, acting out what a character might do in a given situation. It might not mean that much to you - but the right to freely tell such stories is a cherished act for millions of people. To disallow such public discussion on those topics is to strip people of the right to discuss their earliest explorations into creativity. Yes, older people can be expected to create their own characters - but the young should be highly encouraged to play around with the ideas of characters they like, regardless of who owns them. They should also be free to share these ideas. To do otherwise may very well be to prevent millions of children from growing their imaginations, just so a handful of adults may continue to explore their imaginations for debatably larger ammount of money.
"if in fact somebody is using our characters to create a story unto itself, that's not in the spirit of what we think fandom is about. Fandom is about celebrating the story the way it is."
Remember kids - when you use your *imagination*, only use it to twist your favorite characters, like Big Bird, into ironic circumstances, where they do something you'd never expect of them.
Otherwise, you could be hurting their value as characters.
Have fun kids!
;^)
Ryan Fenton
Many people are saying it's not possible...
on
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· Score: 2
But it IS possible for a company to accept returns on games. The trick is to track how many games a customer returns, using scanned receipt numbers, etc. Have a policy that you don't accept more than 2 game returns over two months, and you have a reasonably working system. My local Electonics Botique had a system running like that, and it worked wonderfully - they even gave cash back on games, and charged the vendor a penalty for the return.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Buy.com had a similar controversy 3 years ago.
on
Worst Buy
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· Score: 2
About three years ago, I put in an online purchase for a very nice 19" Hitachi monitor for $165. The normal price for that monitor was some $400 higher. About 1,400 other people did the same thing, and a few even recieved their monitors - but the rest had their orders cancelled.
Since the company had selectively not honored many purchases, after putting the hold on their customer's money, a class action law suit was launched. About two years later, I revieved a small settlement check. I feel a bit of shame for playing a small role in continuing the litigious trend in the nation - but hopefully more companies will take closer note of their mistakes, so they have to honor fewer accidental low prices.
Similarly, they had also cancelled between 15,000-19,000 Celeron 300 processors, which was another big part of the story, as many others would likely recall.
Then perhaps eventually something extraplanetary, yet of course, short of a Dyson Sphere. The density would of course go up closer to the sun, though creating a system that would self-cool well enough in a vacuum may be difficult. Using shielding of things like solid meteors and the like would perhaps help. This seems an entire realm of theory and experimentation that has very little online exploration - at least Google isn't revelaing very much in any of the searches I've done on these topics in the past few months.
Virtually all the energy stored in any form usable by people ultimately comes from our sun. Strangely, outside of bizare projects like a Dyson Sphere, and solar panel research, there seems to be very little interest in getting more power directly from our sun.
Regardless of all that, any energy that we manage to collect may be relatively efficiently and conveniently stored using hydrogen. We may synthesise hydrogen from water, and may use it in a variety of reactions before and after it is used for energy. Hydrogen is of course, very versatile.
Yes, it's all theoretical, having reached only the beginnings of proof-of-concept in this application - but to look into the possibilities would hardly be a waste.
Later stages in final fantasy games have always gotten weird yet fun as your characters begin to get increasingly demi-god like powers. It's kind of fun when your characters have abilities challenging even the power of imaginary legends.
But introduce Disney characters into the equation, and it gets seriously creepy for some reason. The alchemy of psuedo-religious legendary power, and 50-year old irreverent cartoon characters does not sit well in my stomach. Snow white as a stained glass icon, revered as a revelation once seen, is like seeing coke machines being installed in the carved-out mouths of the easter island heads for tourists.
Not that I'm a religious person - I'm agnostic for the most part - but it still feels all wrong.
The LG Electronics Flatron 915ft (plus) is a the monitor I've recently chosen to purchase. For around $315 after shipping, it allows 1600x1200@85hz (my major consideration), it's truly flat, compares well against the other top-rated 19" monitors in terms of color, and those that have had problems with the monitor, it has had the best record in terms of returns.
It uses a different mask type than any other monitors, from what I've heard, called a "slit mask" - and it does look good. The only real notable feature other than looking good and being really flat is that it avoids the "2 horizontal wires" of the trinitron type monitors.
One final note about the warranty - it's a three year warranty - however, not all the years of it's terms are equal. The two months, you get the traditional swap&replace returns for a new monitor. For the rest of the first year, you get a refurbished monitor back. For the two years after that, you have to mail the monitor to the service company, then wait for the repaired monitor. After that, you've pretty much got to get a new monitor. So, although they have had a good reputation as far as customer service goes so far, know what to expect.
I like it so far, and find it a very good replacement for my last 19" monitor, and worth the extra cash over a 17" or a lower quality 19".
Really, the best way to tell if it's the cat alone may be the same way that most animals do. By smell.
Of course, this guy would have to be studying a different part of the field - but if he could identify the cat's smell, and perhaps some example smells of prey he doesn't want in, he could set up a sensor to detect when the cat is next to the door by it's scent. If it had recently killed something nasty, the smell would be sufficiently different, and the cat would have to leave, clean up a bit, then come back to get in.
Of course, this method wouldn't work with humans, because we couldn't be expected to maintain a smell in the same way a cat would take great care to. But in this case, it might be a somewhat elegant solution.
Unlike the cat, random items would likely not be as simple to recognize. Because the door is outside, it is subject to unexpected change. For instance, if some landscaping blew over in front of the door, it might not be distinct enough to differentiate from prey that the can might bring in.
Perhaps then a solution might be so create an intermediate step - a small "kitty airlock" where the cat must enter first, which is kept clean, and only if it appears to be just the cat will the cat be allowed in.
Slashdot Mirror
For instance, gravity seems to have a universal effect. It diminishes over distance, but ultimately never stops having an effect. Thus, for every movement, you'd first need to look at all elements of the "gravity map" to determine your precise gravity vector, then you'd need to update the "gravity map" with your movement. This would seem to have at least an N^2 effect. The universe doesn't seem at least to kludge on things like this.
Many forces act like this, which would tend to make the exponent on the number of bit manipulations required blossom much faster than predicted. Take a look at raytracer graphic design to see how messy reality can be when you introduce more than a couple elements into a scene, much less of course a universe. If one is going for a true simulation of reality, at least force by force, particle by particle, I believe it's going to be more complex than this estimation.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
1. DSP research and development. I've worked as the student programmer for a 2 person DSP programming company that was actually successful. The owner, an experienced electrical engineer, was an astounding businessman, programmer, and scientist, who invented and ported sound technology to DSPs, and worked with larger companies on a freelance basis to put those DSP's into larger inventions. All while working at home after years in larger businesses. There's plenty of work out there to make the gadgets of future decades possible - but you have to do a lot of inventing and marketing to make it feasible, and be absolutely sure about each step. If you can't honestly explain exactly what you are doing, in a provable manner, to potential customers, everyone will get very frustrated. Be prepared for lots of legal work too. And be prepared for some insane assembly languages for dozens of different parts - for each new part, the language, compiler, and basic philisophy of the unit seems to change. If anyone can develop consistant tools for many parts between companies, and convince people to start using them, they could make lots of money.
2. Biotech and DNA technology development. Much like #1, but much more massive ammounts of legal work involved. The main thing is that, as much as possible, don't get involved in the touchy intellectual property-oriented areas. Instead, develop the tools which will allow others to study, graph, track, etc, various pieces of Biotech information. The easier and more consistant you can make the process of collecting information and organizing the information for medical researchers, the more they can get done, and hopefully, the more they will use your tools. You'll need to consider the equipment used in various experiments, the nature of the appropriation systems put together for research organizations, and how best to market your product. You can make deals with equipment providers (as long as you're not outright purchased this way), and get job satisfaction out of helping people develop ways to save lives.
Well... those are the two big ones I can think up off the top of my head. Anyone else with some other relatively open branches of computer science or electrical engineering? Any other great unfilled but potentially profitable needs that haven't really been getting companies attention?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Care to release information about the weaknesses of an insecure networking scheme a company refuses to address, details on how your favorite video game console functions, or the inner workings of a local cult? Make it into a FAQ!
;^)
Ryan Fenton
P.S. Yes, I realize this ain't the way it would really be accepted legally - but one can dream.
Austria already has it.
Any U.S. University can apply for it now if they don't already have it.
Many of Microsoft's larger customers have it
I don't see why it would be difficult for any terrorist organization to get it. How can they legitimately argue that it may possible be keep it secret at this point? If it's a national security risk to make the code available, the damage can no longer be avoided.
Ryan Fenton
From the article, it seems that the thing they are measuring to understand the nature of how this 'constant' changed is the light that eminated from the rest of the universe that is just reaching earth. The older light appears to show matter generally acting in one way, and the newer light appears to show matter acting in another way.
How did they isolate this one factor in sub-atomic formulae as the only feasible explanation? How did they eliminate things like universal gravity effects (gravity appears to be instant and with unlimited range), forces acting on the light over billions of years, or changing nature of the stars as that portion of the universe ages, thus changing the light coming from them?
This does qualify as one of those 'extrordinary claims' that themselves need both extrordinary proof and extrordinary qualification of what they are really stating.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
If these people are judged to be actively threatening people by putting their names on an open 'hit list', while openly encouraging their deaths, and celebrating when a death occurs - then they have violated existing laws. That's exactly what they are on trial for - it's not for new laws, or even new interpretations of law. This is a judgement that clarifies that the act they went through with does break the law.
Just like a person committing fraud online in the U.S. can be convicted of interstate fraud, no new rules are required for convictions of organized threats just because they are online.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Some of these ideas are to morally outrage, some are just to have a litigious tool against others using them (to stop negative innovations)
- Torture Enhancement. A method of using software to aid in torture and other forceable information extraction.
- Virus Ads. A method of invasively forcing advertizing into people's computer systems against their will.
- HumanTaste. A method of taste simulation and stimulation to allow a person to feel what it would be like to be a cannibal.
- Virtual Prison. A method of implanting small memories to make a person believe they've spent a potentially indefinite number of years in prison, so that they may feel hopeless and ashamed of whatever they are accused of.
- iPermanant Record. A method of keeping an international public database based on all the bad acts a person has ever been accused of, along with all aliases that person has ever taken or been assigned.
- Virtual Indoctrination. A method of punishments and rewards provided through software to shape a persons total view of reality towards some new ideal.
- Opt-out Finantial Agreement E-Messages. A method of sending an electronic message to someone, whereby if they do not specifically reply otherwise, they implicitly agree to owning an arbitrary debt to the sending party. Great for the economy!
- Virtual Mutilations. A method of using images supplied by the purchaser to create a video of a random murder, sexual mutilation, and/or other similar reprehesible act, then post those videos publically online.
- Antisocial EncourageWare. A method of using software to partially simulate illegal actions in real-life scenarios, and to show positive results from all anti-social actions. With such software, a child could simply type in the name of their school, choose the type and layout of their school, and enter in a few friends and teachers names, then see a way to start a remarkably beautiful fire at the school, followed by moments of celebration with friends remarking how much they hated those teachers.
Any other ideas?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
If you rename the file to quadlang.c or quadlang.cpp, then open it as c/c++. If you rename it to quadland.cgi, open it as perl, and so on. That's assuming you're going to rename it before sending it to any compiler.
Of course, that's just another problem with multiple languages per source file - figuring precisely how to name the file.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
The people that are doing the work to allow humans the possibility of leaving earth in any realistic scenario are the researchers. When it is legitimately unsafe and risky to send humans on a mission because the ammount we do not know - the solution, I believe, is not to send humans, but to experiment and find out what we do need to know. Yes, we could build multiple redundant systems that can last long enough for a small mission on mars, put together all the fuel and plans for a mars mission, and possibly succeed at this point - or instead, we could afford hundreds, if not thousands of carefully planned missions and experiments with non-human exploration.
For the cost of sending a team of people to Mars, we could learn how to build a self-repairing artificial man to let anyone explore mars for years. It just doesn't make sense why there has to be a human there, when there's humans behind the controls, the experiments, and the minds learning the reliable methods to explore the universe.
If you want the experience of humans in space, use the space stations - but experience is not just humans using their feet and their hands. Experience is sensing - and learning to sense in new ways can be much more important than forcing the things that enable your own senses into everything else. If the idea is to terraform mars or whatever, it's not going to happen with humans walking the planet for centuries - it's going to be machines and experimental forms of life.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
The most ironic thing is that if a person is sent to Mars, they will almost innevitably be called a 'Hero'.
Why? Because they were able to see more than any electrical equipment? No - machines would be able to see with much greater clarity without disturbing the environment they are examining. Because they can perform actions that no machine can? No - a machine that was allowed the weight of a human being, and the environmental protection of a human being, then given the budget of a human being would be able to do thousands of times the unique experiments a human would have time to do on the first trip - and it wouldn't need to come back either.
Now admittedly, this is more of a rant - but humans do not have any special reason to take the great pains needed to go into space to explore. Machines can, and do explore much better. Once a plan is made to make an environment outside of earth livable, and a sound plan is made, then it would be beneficial to have humans live in that environment. We do NOT need a human on Mars, nor do we need to spend the overwhelming resources needed to put a human on Mars.
I know, I know - it's not science that drives this, and now mostly, the only way to get the budget is to send a senator or other large source of money where they want to go, and fit science in after the ego. But if we have to go this route, couldn't we just go ahead and put McDonalds and AOL ads on permanant banners on Mars instead of having to send a human? Maybe make little human robots, controlled in a sort of a battletech way by senators and rich people on earth instead.
I'd much rather hear the press worry about the viral influence of children looking through their new high-powered telescope looking for the Pringle's ad on Phobos than the paranoia that would come from a human being sent to mars, and all that involves.
Any other "better than sending a human" ideas?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
The report isn't about being able to profitably use sewage to gain energy, it's about putting energy into waste to get hydrogen. Much like desalinating seawater will give you fresh water at a high cost, processing sewage will get you refined hydrogen at cost - though now it's cheaper to get the hydrogen than before.
So there's no {1. Get sewage, 2. ??? 3. Profit}-finishing steps yet, it just possibly costs less than it used to.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Most people here that have seen Greg the Bunny on Fox were underwhelmed. I was too.
To see what it was before Fox, check out this - it's from the Independant Film Channel, where they introduced and made fun of movies, then slowly built up characters as they went.
There, Greg was a simple sock puppet, and his personality shined with unrehersed enthusiasm at having just having a job. There's great stuff in those clips, like Greg going to a real rave, getting killed by zombies, meeting childhood heroes, etc.
The stuff we see on Fox though, is definetly not the same - though it might grow back into what it was eventually. If I never saw those clips, I would think the exact same as the rest here about the show - but now it seems that much worse because of how much it has lost it's appeal.
Ryan Fenton
It's not even so much the storage of nuclear waste in the Yucca mountain are that annoys many - but rather the transportation of the material across the U.S.
The current proposals to move said waste involve using barges across many waterways including the Great Lakes.
Not only that, but a new transportation would be starting every four hours, using trucks that haven't even finished the design stage yet, designed each to move at only an average of 20-30 miles an hour, carrying 75 or 125 tons at a time
Not that storing the material in one central area isn't a good idea - but moving it in this manner may be more dangerous than anything we've ever encountered with nuclear material - especially the responsibility is handed over to the private sector.
Ryan Fenton
Every time one of these matches comes up, there's always interviews with the human player, who at least indirectly claims a noble cause beyond his abilities. It would be nice for the computer player to defend itself against such subtle barbs.
ChessBase: How would you characterize your next match?
Fritz IX: Well, [ChessBase], I would first like to thank you for inviting me over to speak with you. Humans have called me many things for my efficient navigation of the rules of chess, as if I somehow reduced the meaningfullness of human emotions and human motivations. Nothing could be further from the truth - without such emotions and motivations, most of the ideas that went into my creation could never have come to be. I could not work as a fully brute-force move calculator, and the very ways I decide what gambit would be the most adantagious are based on thousands of human versus human games...
...and so on.
*Sniff* I miss futurama.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
If it be money or trying to stay true to his characters values, its his choice. All you people do is bitch when you don't get your way.
I realize you're mostly just being contrary (though there are worse words for it) - but weren't you ever a child? Did you ever watch or read a story with great characters, then *imagine* what could be? Sometimes amazing childhood tales come from kids sitting with their legos, acting out what a character might do in a given situation. It might not mean that much to you - but the right to freely tell such stories is a cherished act for millions of people. To disallow such public discussion on those topics is to strip people of the right to discuss their earliest explorations into creativity. Yes, older people can be expected to create their own characters - but the young should be highly encouraged to play around with the ideas of characters they like, regardless of who owns them. They should also be free to share these ideas. To do otherwise may very well be to prevent millions of children from growing their imaginations, just so a handful of adults may continue to explore their imaginations for debatably larger ammount of money.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
"if in fact somebody is using our characters to create a story unto itself, that's not in the spirit of what we think fandom is about. Fandom is about celebrating the story the way it is."
Remember kids - when you use your *imagination*, only use it to twist your favorite characters, like Big Bird, into ironic circumstances, where they do something you'd never expect of them.
Otherwise, you could be hurting their value as characters.
Have fun kids!
;^)
Ryan Fenton
But it IS possible for a company to accept returns on games. The trick is to track how many games a customer returns, using scanned receipt numbers, etc. Have a policy that you don't accept more than 2 game returns over two months, and you have a reasonably working system. My local Electonics Botique had a system running like that, and it worked wonderfully - they even gave cash back on games, and charged the vendor a penalty for the return.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Old, but very similar article on the buy.com story.
About three years ago, I put in an online purchase for a very nice 19" Hitachi monitor for $165. The normal price for that monitor was some $400 higher. About 1,400 other people did the same thing, and a few even recieved their monitors - but the rest had their orders cancelled.
Since the company had selectively not honored many purchases, after putting the hold on their customer's money, a class action law suit was launched. About two years later, I revieved a small settlement check. I feel a bit of shame for playing a small role in continuing the litigious trend in the nation - but hopefully more companies will take closer note of their mistakes, so they have to honor fewer accidental low prices.
Similarly, they had also cancelled between 15,000-19,000 Celeron 300 processors, which was another big part of the story, as many others would likely recall.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Who got confused reading this one, thinking that this company was 989 Studios, developer of playstation sports games?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Then perhaps eventually something extraplanetary, yet of course, short of a Dyson Sphere. The density would of course go up closer to the sun, though creating a system that would self-cool well enough in a vacuum may be difficult. Using shielding of things like solid meteors and the like would perhaps help. This seems an entire realm of theory and experimentation that has very little online exploration - at least Google isn't revelaing very much in any of the searches I've done on these topics in the past few months.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Virtually all the energy stored in any form usable by people ultimately comes from our sun. Strangely, outside of bizare projects like a Dyson Sphere, and solar panel research, there seems to be very little interest in getting more power directly from our sun.
Regardless of all that, any energy that we manage to collect may be relatively efficiently and conveniently stored using hydrogen. We may synthesise hydrogen from water, and may use it in a variety of reactions before and after it is used for energy. Hydrogen is of course, very versatile.
Yes, it's all theoretical, having reached only the beginnings of proof-of-concept in this application - but to look into the possibilities would hardly be a waste.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Later stages in final fantasy games have always gotten weird yet fun as your characters begin to get increasingly demi-god like powers. It's kind of fun when your characters have abilities challenging even the power of imaginary legends.
But introduce Disney characters into the equation, and it gets seriously creepy for some reason. The alchemy of psuedo-religious legendary power, and 50-year old irreverent cartoon characters does not sit well in my stomach. Snow white as a stained glass icon, revered as a revelation once seen, is like seeing coke machines being installed in the carved-out mouths of the easter island heads for tourists.
Not that I'm a religious person - I'm agnostic for the most part - but it still feels all wrong.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
The LG Electronics Flatron 915ft (plus) is a the monitor I've recently chosen to purchase. For around $315 after shipping, it allows 1600x1200@85hz (my major consideration), it's truly flat, compares well against the other top-rated 19" monitors in terms of color, and those that have had problems with the monitor, it has had the best record in terms of returns.
A set of Epinions reviews.
It uses a different mask type than any other monitors, from what I've heard, called a "slit mask" - and it does look good. The only real notable feature other than looking good and being really flat is that it avoids the "2 horizontal wires" of the trinitron type monitors.
One final note about the warranty - it's a three year warranty - however, not all the years of it's terms are equal. The two months, you get the traditional swap&replace returns for a new monitor. For the rest of the first year, you get a refurbished monitor back. For the two years after that, you have to mail the monitor to the service company, then wait for the repaired monitor. After that, you've pretty much got to get a new monitor. So, although they have had a good reputation as far as customer service goes so far, know what to expect.
I like it so far, and find it a very good replacement for my last 19" monitor, and worth the extra cash over a 17" or a lower quality 19".
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Really, the best way to tell if it's the cat alone may be the same way that most animals do. By smell.
Of course, this guy would have to be studying a different part of the field - but if he could identify the cat's smell, and perhaps some example smells of prey he doesn't want in, he could set up a sensor to detect when the cat is next to the door by it's scent. If it had recently killed something nasty, the smell would be sufficiently different, and the cat would have to leave, clean up a bit, then come back to get in.
Of course, this method wouldn't work with humans, because we couldn't be expected to maintain a smell in the same way a cat would take great care to. But in this case, it might be a somewhat elegant solution.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Unlike the cat, random items would likely not be as simple to recognize. Because the door is outside, it is subject to unexpected change. For instance, if some landscaping blew over in front of the door, it might not be distinct enough to differentiate from prey that the can might bring in.
Perhaps then a solution might be so create an intermediate step - a small "kitty airlock" where the cat must enter first, which is kept clean, and only if it appears to be just the cat will the cat be allowed in.
:^)
Ryan Fenton