Cool concept in theory, but what happens in the real world when you hit congestion, or a client goes offline, or there's some other interruption? Could put a kink in things, a would definately slow things down. By having X clients be necessitated, you leave yourself vulnerable. You know, the whole "chain is only as strong as its weakest link" thing.
Not true. There have been several times in US history where first amendment rights have been suspended. The government also has the right to suspend first amendment rights in times of crisis, or in the interests of preventing a clear and present danger to the country.
Also, slander, libel, certain obscenities, and "fighting words" are not protected by the first amendment. You can get your butt hauled off to jail for them, even though they are speech.
There was a supreme court case (Can't remember which off the top of my head) where a protesting citizen (In New York) was jailed for speaking out against Truman. The Supreme Court ruled that his being jailed did not interfere with his right to speech. Basically, you can say whatever you want, but you can be punished for what you say in certain cases. Yeah, it's not the intent of the Framers, but that's judicial activism for you.
I play UT. One common technique I use is to use shadows to my advantage - there are certain spots where a player can all but disappear, and these often times make excellent sniping spots, or hiding spots when you're being pursued and are low on health. I find it's quite simple to identify those who are using some kind of modified display - upped gamma or wireframe or whatever - as they're the ones that will instantly see me and blow me apart, whereas 95% of the other players will run right by without even blinking. Brightness/gamma mods are definately an advantage, but its not like you can prevent it.
I've played against aimbots, and they're infuriating. But thanks to them, experienced snipers are discredited. I spent days perfecting the art of the headshot playing against god bots in sniper areas, but now, when I make a less-than-newbie-probable shot, I'm accused of cheating.
I don't cheat in online gaming. Never have, never will. Sure, you can raise your FPH with it, but it's not going to make you a better player. What satisfaction you can get out of being highly ranked just isn't there when you cheat your way to the top. But it's incredibly irritating for those of us who do play legitimately, and want a fair match.
We've got a number of genomes already. Our parts list is equivalent to a spool of wire, a hunk of coal, and a pair of pliers with the task being to build an Athlon. *sigh*
Sure, just takes brighter textures. The ones that come as samples are pretty dark. You can brighten them up, or just adjust the gamma as necessary. It is a game engine, after all.
There's an open source 3D engine out there that has a huge community behind it, and is capable of decent graphics quality. Find it at their web site. They will be releasing a next-generation engine soon, called Genesis Classic, which, among other things, will feature deformable geometry. It's written for C++, but I belive there are Delphi and VB wrappers out there for it too.
You're right - I meant second level. My mistake. Second point - such as no content. Maybe I should have said that domain owners should have to demonstrate a legitimate use of the domain name within 60 days to keep it, or something like that. Basically, to make domains available to the people that would actually have a use for them. I'm not about to pay $4000 for a domain name that no one is using and I could register for $30 if it weren't for the fool that registered it and sat on it.
On the flip side, it makes it incredibly infuriating to try to find a name for an internet startup. I was recently trying to find a name for a non-porn teen site I'm building, and it's just nearly impossible. People register TLDs by the hundreds. What percentage of them are actually used? I'd like to see all TLDs that don't have content hosted on them after, say, 60 days, freed up. Use it or lose it.
Same restrictions apply here, but it's simple enough to get around them. I've set up one box as a proxy server/firewall for the rest of the network, and run 4 other computers with cable access through that. Sure, it's against the TOS, but how are they gonna know without actually physically being there? When they hafta come fix something, that second cable in the back of my proxy magically disappears. Bandwidth isn't much of an issue, either apparently. I pulled down 2 GB of Linux ISOs the other day, and it didn't seem to bother them one bit.
I'm on cable, and love it. We recently moved, and don't get outages anymore (Something wrong with out old neighborhood hub), which is a huge plus. Speeds are really fast, even during peak times - I typically get about 100-120 kbps (That's bytes, not bits) downstream. I've maxed out at about 280 kbps. On peak times, I typically get about 80-100kbps, which is still plenty fast to play UT. Customer service (Cox@Home) sucks, but as long as you don't need anyone to tell you how to config your computer for DHCP, you're fine. I'd recommend it.
Seems like these DSL providers going out of business may be one of the forces driving the popularity of cable. People get hooked on broadband, then eventually switch to cable, as cable is typically run by companies that aren't going out of business soon, and there's no way that someone who's used broadband is going back to dialup.
I'm on Cox@Home, and while their customer service has a tendancy towards suckage, and we get a few hour outage every 4 months or so due to "hub upgrades", it's reliable and fast the rest of the time. I've looked into DSL, but there's really few reasons to switch at this point, seeing as we can be at least relatively sure of the cable service always being there. DSL may be faster during peak times or in neighborhoods where there's a large amount of cable users, but it's not as solid from a business standpoint.
Maybe if a few big companies (Like a Baby Bell?) were providing access, people'd be more inclined towards it.
20-40kbps on off hours? I'm on cable, and depending on the server, I can get insane speeds - I recently downloaded a Mandrake ISO at an average speed of about 380 kbps frm a server 2 states away. This was about at 7pm, too. I typically get about 120 kbps. I've never had a problem, even during peak times. Any idea how many people are on his neighborhood hub?
Well, at 2000 feet, you'll get some pretty strong winds, and balsa's not exactly that strong. Wouldn't suprise me if a good gust just snapped a wing off.
Also, 45 mph (Target speed) == 66 ft/sec. If the wind was to, say, force the nose down (As you say, it'll move - or change orientation), it would take just over 30 seconds for the plane to descend to ocean level, and that's not taking into consideration the extra velocity added by the wind. Granted, the engineers could probably pull it out before then, but what if they encountered a strong, continual downdraft?
At 11 pounds, won't it be incredibly susceptible to winds, especially over the open ocean? Towards the end of the journey when its gas is almost gone, it's going to weigh probably something near 5 pounds - it seems like it would be too easy for it to get caught in a gust of wind and slammed into the ocean, or torn apart.
Great. Another way to erode Joe Average's privacy.
I suppose you'll want chips implanted in people's heads next so that the government can tell if they're thinking about committing a crime. Or microphones implanted in people's teeth so that every time some high school student says "I'm going to kill you" the county does into lockdown. Brilliant.
And besides, some l337 h4x0r would just figure out some way to turn it into a (mp3 player|linux box|wireless networking card) or hack it to transmit the legal speed limit at all times.
The AHRA says that individuals trading copies is exempt from copyright law, as part of fair use. Napster merely facilitates this behavior. At no time is any copyrighted material on Napster's servers. Why should they be punished?
This argument's been used since the very beginning of the Napster controversy. Anyone know what the official answer to it has been in court, or if it's been addressed?
It looks like it's solid to me (Although IANAL), so there has to be some reason why it hasn't closed the book on this case.
I saw a story a few weeks back about how Patel had said something to the effect of "if users can find the songs, you should be able to block them" (At least, this was my interpretation. I could be totally off.) Her lack of insightfulness was really quite frightening - she was basically demanding that Napster implement a sentient filtering program that could out-think the human mind - something most people know to be impossible with our current technologies, and probably won't be available for a very long time. It's quite relieving to hear that she's no longer expecting that kind of thing. It's really not so much the possibility of a ruling against Napster that had me worried - it was the precedent. Had such a ruling been established and enforced, if could have meant that the RIAA/MPAA could probably have gotten away with demanding that [insert data provider/carrier here] install such filtering systems, or shut down. Whoa.
Technological incompetence and ignorance in our judicial system is scary. Those making the rules don't understand the nature of the game, and when that happens, you get things like the DMCA. Lord knows we don't need another piece of legislation like that disaster...
Slashdot Mirror
-- Chris
-- Chris
Also, slander, libel, certain obscenities, and "fighting words" are not protected by the first amendment. You can get your butt hauled off to jail for them, even though they are speech.
There was a supreme court case (Can't remember which off the top of my head) where a protesting citizen (In New York) was jailed for speaking out against Truman. The Supreme Court ruled that his being jailed did not interfere with his right to speech. Basically, you can say whatever you want, but you can be punished for what you say in certain cases. Yeah, it's not the intent of the Framers, but that's judicial activism for you.
Scary, isn't it?
-- Chris
I've played against aimbots, and they're infuriating. But thanks to them, experienced snipers are discredited. I spent days perfecting the art of the headshot playing against god bots in sniper areas, but now, when I make a less-than-newbie-probable shot, I'm accused of cheating.
I don't cheat in online gaming. Never have, never will. Sure, you can raise your FPH with it, but it's not going to make you a better player. What satisfaction you can get out of being highly ranked just isn't there when you cheat your way to the top. But it's incredibly irritating for those of us who do play legitimately, and want a fair match.
-- Chris
If you don't like what Microsoft is doing, it's not like there aren't alternatives.
-- Chris
Hey, they did it on Apollo 13, didn't they?
"...square peg in a round hole..."
-- Chris
-- Chris
-- Chris
</rant mode>
Sorry...just one of those things that annoys me.
-- Chris
What about fu.com? Is it taken? I'd like that one...maybe I'll start a country, names, let see, Fundavia!
-- Chris
-- Chris
Does this mean I can't register IANAL.com?
Maybe if IWAL (I was a lawyer) I could get away with it.
Tyranny, I tell you! Tyranny!
-- Chris
-- Chris
-- Chris
I'm on Cox@Home, and while their customer service has a tendancy towards suckage, and we get a few hour outage every 4 months or so due to "hub upgrades", it's reliable and fast the rest of the time. I've looked into DSL, but there's really few reasons to switch at this point, seeing as we can be at least relatively sure of the cable service always being there. DSL may be faster during peak times or in neighborhoods where there's a large amount of cable users, but it's not as solid from a business standpoint.
Maybe if a few big companies (Like a Baby Bell?) were providing access, people'd be more inclined towards it.
-- Chris
-- Chris
The funny thing is, he'll probably put more effort into avoiding effort than he would have if he'd just solved the problem right off.
-- Chris
Also, 45 mph (Target speed) == 66 ft/sec. If the wind was to, say, force the nose down (As you say, it'll move - or change orientation), it would take just over 30 seconds for the plane to descend to ocean level, and that's not taking into consideration the extra velocity added by the wind. Granted, the engineers could probably pull it out before then, but what if they encountered a strong, continual downdraft?
-- Chris
Don't you mean the Rebel Alliance?
"Great shot kid, that was one in a million!"
-- Chris
-- Chris
Not unless you can get something like that for less than $1.60.
-- Chris
I suppose you'll want chips implanted in people's heads next so that the government can tell if they're thinking about committing a crime. Or microphones implanted in people's teeth so that every time some high school student says "I'm going to kill you" the county does into lockdown. Brilliant.
And besides, some l337 h4x0r would just figure out some way to turn it into a (mp3 player|linux box|wireless networking card) or hack it to transmit the legal speed limit at all times.
Thinking is good!
-- Chris
This argument's been used since the very beginning of the Napster controversy. Anyone know what the official answer to it has been in court, or if it's been addressed?
It looks like it's solid to me (Although IANAL), so there has to be some reason why it hasn't closed the book on this case.
-- Chris
No thanks, I'll take reality.
-- Chris
Technological incompetence and ignorance in our judicial system is scary. Those making the rules don't understand the nature of the game, and when that happens, you get things like the DMCA. Lord knows we don't need another piece of legislation like that disaster...
-- Chris