Re:This can't be for real....me too
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Duct Tape
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· Score: 1
From the way it was written, and the fact that an event such as this would have over shadowed even the OJ Simpson trial but didn't all point to a parody, or joke. Certainly a simple Freedom of Information Act request would root out the truth. But it's seems to blatenly false, it would be a shame to waste the time an money. A little girl falls down a well, and everyone drops what they're doing for a week, but a kid who can't drive builds a breeder reactor and no one notices. Naw. The idea that people just believe anything they read, because someone wrote it, is pretty ammusing though. Such is life.
Glass is acctually pretty odd. This would acctually be somewhat less than ideal. I assume you're envisioning mixing the plutonium as small particles in the glass. But the reason this isn't terribly happy is well glass is very strong by not tough. (Strength in a material sence is how much a tension something can support with out permenently deforming, and of course breaking. Toughness is the ability of a material to resist a crack. Metals are, in a sence, gooie, so they resist cracks very well. Glass not so much.) Over very long times, molecules of glass will evaporate (all things have a vapor pressure, even the picutre tube you're looking at has a few molecules of silica hovering over it, and then falling back and sticking) and redeposit. This is why really old windows get thin at the top, thick at the bottom. Then since glass is not at all resistant to cracks, your block of glass and plutonium, will quickly fill with microcracks. These cracks create a nice little surfaces. These microcracks and evaporation/depostition of the glass will expose the plutonium particles, and the glass itself will flake off. As for the alpha particles, I can only imagine they would encourage microcracking. Then the bigger your block of glass, the more tension there will be on parts of it, and thus the more favorable the formation of large scale cracks. The idea was, originally regaurdless what I think of its merits, looking to suppress plutonium powder.
Don't be dissing Bob. Malinda ran with that bad boy, gave us crappy paperclips and other junk. Normally failed experiments with agents would be considered failed experiments. It's hard to argue with her track record, she married one of the richest guys in the world. And if she hides his Viagra, is all Yellow Moon and Red Ballon shaped mashmellow fun. When's the last time something crappy and ill conceived that you were involved with netted you a billionare husband?
We could pack the all Pu-239 in a small stick, call it a "space modulator", fly it to mars, and hope for the best.
The huddled masses will always win (perhaps not without suffering). But we got the money they want, and more importantly the guns. The RIAA might be dealing from the bottom of the deck, and being generally sneaky and deceitful bastards, but we've got an ace up our sleeves. But best of all we have technology on our side. And knowing is half the battle. Time to down load more foul Britney Spears singles in protest. No one said being moral was easy.
Does Keanu Reeves have something to say about what schemes the folks at The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists back?
They're talking about a structure which would have to stand intact for 8 half lives of Plutonium. Ummm. Ok. Sure, pyramids have gotten along ok, but they really haven't been around THAT long. Their talking about making a "facility" of some sort that will last a span of time much greater that seperating the creation of agriculture from the present. How long did "Lucy's" hut stand? But this isn't the only exceptionaly tall order.
The containers for plutonium itself are a monstrous feat of engineering, that would stretch our understanding of materials beyond the bleeding edge. Even underground in a steel container you have the effects of fatigue from every tremor they feel. With moisture present in the air no less. Ceramics and glass are no better. In periods such as these the glass will deform, the ceramics will crack, even under their own weight, and scaresly need the help of tremors to do so. Other qualities such as creep aren't easly extrapolated to very long lifetimes. And I'm talking about, in some cases, 50 years to say nothing of 100,000. Then there is the challenge of these containters being bathed in neutrons for many thousands of years, degrading the chosen materials.
While how some people obtained their doctorates is quite the conundrum. I some how doubt that this is actually serious, as in an attempt to actually build something. It seems far more likely that they might just be putting up $3000 to get some media attention for their cause, and spark discussion. That's certainly a worthy goal. Or maybe Ponds and Pal have found a place where that whole cold fusion stigma didn't follow them. The idea that professionals familiar with nuclear materials and their special challanges would consider something like this achievable, is in all honesty, inconceivable. And I do think that word means what I think it means.
I'm certainly used to watching movies dubbed and subbed. Quite frankly I much prefer to see a movie, almost any movie, in its language of origin. The intonations are more natural, and I read the subtitles without even really being aware of them. While I might be the exception in the American audiance, I would make the observation that subtitles are quite common in asia, and have been for a while now. Europe, well I don't know whether they tend to dub or sub, I imagine there might be cases where they would do both as in asia. At most people might consider it a slight inconvienence. It's also worth mentioning that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon suffered very little, in the US, for having been subtitled. And this in the US, one of the least multilinguistic cultures.
That said there are a fair amount of word fitting systems available.
Scary. I know. But fortunately, here in the present, the evil expressed in this one man play don't exist. Why the all in one motherboards from motherboard manufactures all but obliterated need for anything propritary. Why now the only magic left is that of a splash screen in the bios. Progress kids. Think about it, because, one day, you'll be working in cities on the moon. And once more, you'll never have to hear anything by bananarama again (they were like britney spears, but ugly in triplicate, and we didn't have the Studio Magic 5000).
Well the first sentence really says it all....
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Review: Pearl Harbor
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· Score: 1
You are totally wrong your first two both
It just bares repeating. The japanese commanders, many of whom had lived and studied in the US knew that eventually the US would prevail IF we decided to fight. Yamamoto only guaranteed six months of victory assuming the strike on Pearl Harbor went as planned. He knew the resources and industrial might of the US was something the Japanese could not match. We could grind them down in a war of attrition. That was why the strike on Pearl was so important. Then needed to hand the US such an awful defeat that the people (isolationists who didn't give a shit about anyone else anyway) would demand peace. Pearl Harbor was almost totally a psychological attack aimed not at the navy, but the american public. The tactical nature of the strike was secondary.
As for Dolittle's raid. Well Sun Tzu would disagree. The Japanese mythos held that their homeland was protected. It was the chosen land, and they were chosen people. Dolittle's raid clearly contradicted this belief, cutting very deeply in to something the Japanese held dear. And quite frankly, for the movies and books that came later, it's makes for superb foreshadowing. That said, the industrial assets destroyed in Japan were not as easily replaced as our ships.
As for the begining of the end, the Japanese commanders would probably say it was when the United States decided to fight the War in the Pacific rather than cede Asia to Japan. The battle of Midway was an all or nothing gamble. If the Japanese prevailed, they might have time to gather their strength, and the US ability to project her power would be greatly diminished for some time. But to not take that gamble, was the end of the game. They were going to lose the war of attrition, they knew it, and they knew Midway was their last and only hope for something other than defeat.
Ever notice how nearly everyone thinks they have a lock on universal truth? To us the Japanese could be nothing but the bad guys, but if you look at what they did in its context, they were probably still the bad guys, but we weren't wearing the white hats. The attack on Pearl Harbor, and the foolish war against the US, might have been a defining moment for the Japanese. Why should the western powers rule Asia? Of the western powers, the US may well have been the kinder, but lets remember that the US invented gunboat diplomacy, and we did so in Japan. Japan knew full well, they could modernize their arms and industry or very possibly face the annihilation of their culture, following China's path. Japan did so, and did well. She became a power in her own right by crushing the russians in the russo japanese war in 1905. But they hadn't freed themselves from the west. We were their British. The Japanese wanted to be free of the west, not for entirely noble purposes. But who are we to question their call for a "manifest destiny"? As all empires do, the US made its enemy. What recourse did the japanese really have? The US wasn't very well going to let Japan slaughter whomever she wanted and then provide her the oil to do it. Our intrests were in conflict with Japan's due to one part cultural differences and one part design.
People are quick to throw around that pc lable. But as long as we're on the subject of honesty, how do you feel about America's role in bringing the Chinese empire to its knees and forcing Japan to open its society or die? As long as we're being honest, right. Sure, the Japanese commited truly horrific acts, but mostly against China, then korea, and somewhere far down the list prisoners of war, and then WAY down below that, typing the message to break off negotiations by the hunt-and-peck method. Was the diplomacy decitful? Sure. All diplomacy is, well almost. Did we know their diplomacy was decitful? Yes. Pearl Harbor was a skillful millitary manuver. But it was also an awakaning. It showed america, and particularly the isolationists, that it was a big world out there, and while we might be the biggest kid on the block, we sure as hell weren't the only one. Turns out the world was a little bit different that a Shirley Temple movie, or a Horatio Alger story. This simple fact is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as every bit as bad as our (the US's) use of nuclear weapons was on Japan. But it was no worse. A fair amount has been made of what is not taught to the Japanese in their history classes. It seems they are not alone in their omissions.
Interestingly enough, the betrayal of the emperor and people by the military leaders in WWII has GREATLY shaped Japan's culture. Typically, the people fighting the war, the everyman, are pure, good, and probably conflicted, but bound by their honor. The people running the war, are greedy, petty and evil. People are the top, of both sides, are bad, people at the bottom, of both sides, are good. But lets look at the people at the top. In Japan, they had leaders who conducted show trials and swiftly excecuted some of the captured americans involved in dolittle's raid. McCarthur had show trials and swiftly excecuted some of the Japanese butchers who killed allies in the philipeans. Americans sentenced the Japanese officers responsible to prision. Americans let McCarthur run Japan. Sure, this is an overly simplistic, and slightly skewed, representation. But it's accurate enough to tarnish the gleam on that greatest generation pride.
But let's face facts, movies are for entertainment, not stern moralizing as a case study in being an american. But for anyone else that goes to a Hollywood movie expecting anything other than to be pandered to relentlessly and professionally, "YOU ARE LOST AND DRUNK, ask someone for assistance."
A nicer board with on board SCSI is pretty likely to have on board ethernet. I might keep the sound off the motherboard. It usually sounds a little cleaner and is more responsive in a seperate card. But it all about what one wants to do. I'd look for an all in one card, the new ATI Radeon I would think you might have to choose between firewire and scsi on-board, but I don't have a magazine at arms reach to check. But I'm more than a little surprised that one would be locked into scsi at this point. It's nice, and maybe for a server important, but I can't imagine its critical. USB is definately the way to go with the serial ports though. Something like $50 US for 1 serial 1 parallel, and 2 more USB. You might also want to look at whether you really need those devices. USB peripherals are pretty sweet. USB hubs make nice almost port replicators too. And if try to get a motherboard that supports USB 2.
There are some trade offs to be sure. But now? How much are you really trading? Sure you can't really get Athlon laptops yet, but you can get a fair amount of power in your laptop. 1GHz P III, with 256 MB expandable to 512 with a 20 GB HD and 16 MB laptop 3d grafics card for about 3 grand (15.1 XGA/UXGA screen too). All this is only about 7 lbs. That's some pretty respectable power. Sure, PC's do offer more power, certainly for a fair amount less. No one can really argue that. But a high end laptop is about as powerful as a mid range desktop, maybe mid-high. And really the only programs out there that would tax them are games with all the effects enabled. But at that point the comfort issue is probably more significant.
The really sick thing is, with out a killer app to drive hardware demand forward, laptops will only look better, and get cheaper. As more people go with small, and often pretty laptops (Compaq 1700 series, some Viao's, new Powerbook) they might demand some of that modular design people take for granted in desktops. (It's not like desktops were created with everything super convienent to install.) So with more, and more varied, people looking for laptops, we might get a little more in the way of choice. Nothing says profit margin like add on sales. That's cool by me, I'll pay a little more for something that fits just right. As for me, I'd really be hard pressed to find a use for all the power available off the shelf in a laptop 99% of the time. Christ my favorite games on the PC are still Stars! and Bandit Kings of Ancient China (how sad is that). But when you look at what is just a year away for laptops, it's nuts.
Of course no one is debating that you do make some trade-offs. Laptops cost more, about a grand, they're not as comfortable, and they don't have as much power as a desk top. Those first two, totally subjective judgement call. But that last one, are you really using that extra power? I might be so bold as to suggest that VERY few people are. If a really big shift in how people do their computing IS comming, then this move to experimentation by Compaq is pretty prescient. So when is IBM (pdf file) comming out with a 70GBTravelstar HD?
As far as homogenious or hetrogenious, well you can make a case for each. By in large part I suppose it's whether you see the concept in terms of building what you want with legos, or giving form to formless clay. But provided you could have the best of all worlds you were interested in would you want it? I would. I'm sure there are a few others too. Quite frankly I've got a little more in the way of consumer electronics than I'd really like to have. At some point its really nice to be able to kill a few birds with one stone. I hear you can't be all things to all people, and in some circumstances I even believe it. But with hardware and software to various degrees you can. What's wrong with giving it a shot?:)
Unfortunately, the world is not as black and white as that.
Not black and white. Right and wrong! Attitudes such as these represent a clear and present danger to the intrests of myself, my country, the movie going public and Harrison Ford.
First of all, merger != stratigic partnership. Secondly, let's look at scale. It's not much like AOL and Time Warner, it's a little more like netzero and juno. But beyoned that, everyone, at least in America, has a soft spot for the little guy. You've got to give AMD props, they've come a long way. In many ways their origins are not so different from Intel's:). And companies cross licencing technology cheaply isn't less competition its more. That will keep prices down, and barriers for developing products low. In fact, if one had read the article (as brief as it was), one would know that AMD licenses some of their technology a prices that were described as "nearly free." Looks like AMD is making the chose to trade a little cash now for some market share down the road. And if you think this move to cut Intel's market share down to say 70%, is anticompetitive, take a moment and think about what you're saying.
People on slashdat, and rightly so, get a little worried about what happens when two super giants in related industries get together. If Intel and Microsoft merged into a single entity, well, after than Wintel would have a whole new sinister meaning. If AMD and Transmeta get together, damn skippy. Why, more choice, not less. At the end of the day we're all consumers, and we all want to be able to make an informed choice from a selection of products.
would ice by any other name explode as well?
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Fire and Ice
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· Score: 1
To be fair, even in technical publications it would be refered to as methane ice, even water ice, or what have you. Usually if there is the possiblity of ambiguity in a technical circle that is squashed at the earliest opportunity. In the press for the larger public, however, uses ambiguity as a hook to pique peoples interest. You can't really blame anyone but the editors. And even then it's a tricky proposition, because they're right. There might be an argument in that slashdot, specifically, is a somewhat more technical audiance and so methane hydrates might actually be MORE interesting to it's members. Usually, unless everyone present for the discussion knows what the ice in question is, it will be specifically stated.
But to bring this post back on track. I would say getting your hydrated methane from the tundra is fine. But I'm not so big on getting in from the continental shelf (Unless it's off NJ). Extreamly large landslides along the continental shelf are suspected to be related to releases of the hydrated methane. Sure, its barely a hypothesis at this point, but I would say the probability of a value sized tsunami would warrent a lot of investigation. Not to mention some atmospheric scientists think that huge releases of hydrated methanes (I think in the north sea) may have contributed greatly to createing a tropical earth before the last big iceage. A mistake in recovering this particular resource could prove quite devistating. As I understand it, it's the pressure that essentially traps the methane in the ice, and in the abscence of that you get liquid water and methane gas.
Obviously, I'm a guy. And I'll tell you right now, T&A in games, I don't care either way. Except for Duke Nuke'em it was pretty funny in that series. But nothing compared to Capture the flag in Quake. That was like silky smooth nectar of crack injected straight into an artery. There was nothing sweeter than doing the spiderman into the blue teams base killing everything you saw, grabbing the flag and killing every single one of them on the way to capture the flag. Naw there was one thing that was sweeter. When you found a game where someone else was really good, and he switched teams to make it fair. And you put him down like a dog in the street.
How long do you remember your sweet kills for? I remember sweet kills from DooM 1.666 on up to present. Beyond team organized killing, what's there? I'm not sure I really care. I would perhaps submitt that's why games have continued to add eye candy as a way of improving the experience. For their customers, that's what really counts. I've got to tell you, the high I would get off of killing people and talking smack while listening a good soundtrack to kill by was well...killer, and probably difficult to improve on.
As for T&A in games, certainly male targeted games. It will be around for a LONG time. It's not that we males are the lesser sex, it's that evil game companies are manipulating our endocrine system. The stupid fact is, males give hotties, even fake ones, attention. It's hard wired. This will always be, and sex will always be an effective and cheap ploy to sell anything. It's like in anime a good number of the protagonists are either female or have a female side kick. Why might that be? Well anyone from either sex can blow stuff up, but teenage males only enjoy watching one of the sexes in a shower scene. Look at baywatch, Lifeguards fighting crime, makeing the streets safe. Who in the hell would watch it if there weren't playboy bunnies running down the beach in superslomo wearing stretchy stretchy lycra with the new worst single you've ever heard? Shepards in Mongolia installed satellite dishes in their yurts to see this show. And it was not for the compelling story.
As for difference. Well it's the spice of life, so I'd literally be a fool to dissagree. But I would submit that most people aren't fans of risk, particularly people who are letting other people bet their money. And in games, like everywhere else, people gravitate to proven concepts.
I think a truly cross over game would have to simulate a true microworld and society. It would have to be nonlinear, open ended, and free form. We've seen a lot of baby steps towards something like this. But still, were really a long ways off. The only things that offer this kind of experience are MUDs and their ilk. To tell the truth. As far as new goes, I now start to find my self whistfully looking back. I started out with some pretty sweet games. Adventure...ah adventure, to this day I hate and love that bat. Mostly really hate. Conan for the Apple. Oh yeah. Karataka. Why you had to save the princess when she could obviously take care of herself, I'll never know. Bard's Tale. Damn skippy baby. Wolfenstien, where the revolution would begin. 3d, DooM and Quake et al. All the way up to Jet Grind/Set Radio. Maybe Shenmue was another little tiny baby step into a brave new world, as it stands it's OK. Well maybe a little better than that. But Shenmue won't be a game I look back on whistfully 15 years from now.
At the end of the day, I think the question really is do males and females like to play the same games the same way? My guess is a pretty solid no. Are their exceptions? Sure, by in large, people are individuals, but statistically those exceptions aren't meaningful, and won't factor in. Right now, targeted games might be better, as they're easier to make. To be all things to all people isn't an easy task, ask Al Gore. And in the future, when there are unisex games that all love and adore, well I bet boys and girls will play them differently. In fact, it might be an interesting sociological study to do on the sims. See how different genders play the same game. Actually you could study any set of demographics. That'd be kind of a cool add on.
Umm Women rent porn. Girls not so much. However, teenage girls have disposible income on par with that of teenage boys. Yet they don't seem to spend it on video games. There are probably a great many reasons for this, but I'd put my money on the fact it's a lot easier to make a 1st person shooter that preaches to the spear chucking hunter in us males, than it is to make a game that piques the feminin desire to fiddle with reatlation ships. Hell when a female type person asks me "so what are you thinking?" I have no idea what to say, how's a computer going to respond?
They're harder to make games for, I imagine Black and White might appeal to some girls, but there are a lot of other market forces competing for those dollars. Getting girls to shift some of their income to games, might be like getting boys to shift some of their income to nail polish for men (yeah right). In Japan I think the games that really have the attention of the ladies, are the relationship role-playing games which (from descriptions I've read elsewhere) seem to revolve around a girl picking some boy and convincing him to fall in love with her, in a game akin to an old skool pick-a-path adventure.
At the end of the day, it looks like good games are one of the rewards of being born a male. Hand-eye coordination is easier to code for than relationship building.
I've had a quite a few Dreamcast titles go tits up from time to time. Slave 0, Crazy Taxi, NFL2k (which had a mess of other non-fatal bugs),PSO (even off-line 3 days ago), Shenmue crashed once, and a few other that escape me now. I'm not saying its a frequent, but it has happened with far greater frequency than anyother system I've owned (never owed a PS btw). Usually I'm only a little annoyed, but that PSO crash really twisted my nibblets. But I really think the most disgraceful facet of PSO was their utter lack of foresight with respect to player killers, and theives. It's not like these problems hadn't been addressed earlier by well any MUD or like game that came before.
Honestly, I don't know if I'll buy another console. As for Microsofts first entry, it's interesting. But I would suspect that all consoles will become less and less stable as complexity increases. But with all the bells and wistles they might be fun to hack.
It depends on the games too I suppose. If Microsoft came out with Bandit Kings of Ancient China for the xBox I'd probably be pitching my tent outside Toys 'R Us. I still play that every now and again. Wu Song "The Hairy Priest" and his brother Bao Xu "The God of Death" shall unite China for one glorious moment before the mongol hoards deliver final ruination to the Emperor!
It's popular on laptops as well because laptops can be a little fiesty with all their extra devices. So while Win 2k might take a little more power to run, the users of the laptops can be more productive, and the IT people supporting them have it a little easier. But of course there's installing new USB devices:) (bad installs under win 2k aren't always fun).
Corell's distro wasn't bad if you had the right parts, just the version of LILO they used would wipeout a UDMA 66 hard drive. It still had the best install wizard I've seen. I certainly didn't intend to compare Linux straight across to windows in the sence I think you may have taken it. Just in the sence that Linux is, in its various flavors, the major alternative available. So regaurdless of how mature it is or might become, it's just whats there.
I used to really look down on VB. But I went in for a beta test of Mechwarrior 4, and I picked the most expensive thing off the shelf, more because I knew C, under unix and borland windows api, and what the hell. Started fiddling with the widgets, and VB intrigued me. So I go pick up a book, inside of week and 150 lines of code later I have a little toy program, that's fun, useful, and customizable. Imagine my shock. Just try. Some of VB's conventions were certainly close enough to C++. But what a difference. MFC is almost night and day for ease of use against the API, but Visual basic was like another planet.
Certainly the way you talk up Delphi my curiosity is piqued. How could one not be at least intrigued? I'll certainly look into that, currently I'm trying to figure out how to program a screen saver (eventually I hope to get to a 3d screen saver with my own, ugly, 3d models). (Some people watch TV, I whistfully remember my youth when TV was worth watching and only had 5 channels.)
Might not the road in your example be the OS, and the car an application? Sure, I think the OS could be a hell of a lot better. I think x86 chips could be better if they didn't have a legacy to support as well. Microsoft made some bad (occasionally really bad design choices). Do I think that windows should take care of themselves, and you shouldn't have to mess around as much with virtual windows or metafile? Hell yes. But that's not a choice I get to make now. And it's my responsibility as a programmer to put my tools away when I'm done and avoid memory leaks. Could windows the OS be better at trapping loops and more agressive when recovering memory? Uh yeah. I never said windows was the end all and be all of OS development. But the fact is, some versions of it are realitively stable (95, and I've had good luck with 2000 as well). I thought my anectode was certainly specific enough, although the tone might have been less than ideal:). Again Linux has its uses. Hell I even like linux. But it too has its limitations, and grated those are shrinking, but still its all about what one is looking for. I happen to really like raytracing. I suck at it. But I like it none the less. TrueSpace does windows, not linux. My choice is made for me. Simple. And I may be an ignorant savage who just doesn't know any better but I really like MSVC and VB much more than EMACS and gcc (VMS). When I built the system I'm writing this on, I chose 95 over 98 giving up USB and a few other things because of stability. Oddly enough I'd choose Me over 98. After all if you're going to have a metastable system why not have one that can unFUBAR'd simply. Does Me crash a little more than 98, yeah. That's a choice you make. Hell windows 2k, I acctually like it a little. Do I need to be much more careful installing devices, particularly USB, sure. Thems the breaks. No matter what you go with you pick a different brand or model of poison.
As I mentioned in the first post, I'm not a Microsoft fan. There's a hell of a lot they could do better. Some of the choices they made early on, I'm sure they wish they hadn't made. But many of windows failings come from a time long long ago, and to pretend that in some way the new version of windows was made in entirty just last year is naive. Hindsight is 20/20, but its hindsight. And to intone that because in the far flung past some bad design choices (that looked fine at the time) somehow absolves all developers who come to the OS of most, if not all responsability, is, quite frankly, retarded. Limitations of the Windows family are no different than any other complex set of design constraints. I wish steel was only 2.5 g/cm^3 and tensile strength of 2000 GPa. It doesn't. And if I build you a bridge you better damn well hope I don't behave as if it does.
My personal view is Microsoft is the Jolly Roger and Bill is its pirate captain and they just go around raping and pillaging. The true genius of it is that he foresaw quality didn't matter a lick. Only ease of use, and getting as large a proportion of the population as possible to buy into it did. He took advantage of the nearly universal, and quite compelling, desire to share information. It's evil genius, but genius none the less.
I'm all for rebellion and bucking the system. Why hell, the Star Spangled Banner is about a period in our history where we basically mooned the cops. And I certainly find a great deal of charm in a society that pretty much says it's ok to have an extended adolescence. But at some point isn't it nice to have a little bit of honesty? The very fact that people pay for this stuff, let alone grossly overpay, should clearly articulate that as flawed as microsofts products are they do have value. But none of this, nor much that has come before in anyway diminishes the truth that Windows 95 will, at least for some users, crash less than once a month. It's not like I'm not running anything either. I'm asking more of Windows 95 than even Microsoft thinks I should (they don't recommend Visual Studio 6 for use with 95.) Oddly, MSVC doesn't seem to crash on my machine, although I've seen in make unscheduled pitstops under 98. My whole problem with the orginal post is basically, if you're going to bash MS at least do it for the things they really *do* wrong, there's more than enough of that to go around. Making gross and false generallizations diminishes ones credibility even if, on some other occasion, one happens to be right. Like anything, and everything else in life, the truth is somewhere in between.
Yeah. It's all bullshit. Afterall who would know better than I how often I model objects and render scenes in TrueSpace than I? You of course. (TrueSpace uses python btw) I notice you pointed out one of the few exceptions that proves the rule with IE 5 (why I might even be so brazen as to call your obsession redundent). Fact is windows 95 is relatively stable. Why if I were to use YOUR logic, because a verson of LILO doesn't work with hard drives beyond UDMA 33, linux must suck. After all if applications make the operating system.... The fact is if programmers and managers really wanted to put out a quality product they could. It just so happens that the market place neither requires or even expects it. And even with the memory leaks I suffer from AT&T and IE 5.5 my box still crashes less than once a month. If your milage varies, there is a reason. If you've neither the time, nor inititive to look into it (as it's certainly not a matter of skill) then how can you blame anyone other than yourself? What some of you nut bars don't follow is that the reason so many use windows it takes no skill. Windows provides a common method for people to share information that is truly simple. That's all that really matters. Neither the quality of the information nor the method are an issue. Don't take my word for it, or even Bill Gates. The people have spoken, and that's it. Will linux get there? Maybe. It's getting closer. But take comfort in the fact I spend much less time maintaing windows that I would with linux. But more importantly linux doesn't run truespace.
Lemme leave off with VB. Hell it's not even programming. It's like painting, or legos. It's ridiculous, and sometimes that's more than enough, it's cool.
But the best part is. It's all true, and not seeing this makes you the plebian that you like to pretend others are. It's that irony which gives me that warm fuzzy giggly feeling. So thanks, just for being you.
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From the way it was written, and the fact that an event such as this would have over shadowed even the OJ Simpson trial but didn't all point to a parody, or joke. Certainly a simple Freedom of Information Act request would root out the truth. But it's seems to blatenly false, it would be a shame to waste the time an money. A little girl falls down a well, and everyone drops what they're doing for a week, but a kid who can't drive builds a breeder reactor and no one notices. Naw. The idea that people just believe anything they read, because someone wrote it, is pretty ammusing though. Such is life.
Glass is acctually pretty odd. This would acctually be somewhat less than ideal. I assume you're envisioning mixing the plutonium as small particles in the glass. But the reason this isn't terribly happy is well glass is very strong by not tough. (Strength in a material sence is how much a tension something can support with out permenently deforming, and of course breaking. Toughness is the ability of a material to resist a crack. Metals are, in a sence, gooie, so they resist cracks very well. Glass not so much.) Over very long times, molecules of glass will evaporate (all things have a vapor pressure, even the picutre tube you're looking at has a few molecules of silica hovering over it, and then falling back and sticking) and redeposit. This is why really old windows get thin at the top, thick at the bottom. Then since glass is not at all resistant to cracks, your block of glass and plutonium, will quickly fill with microcracks. These cracks create a nice little surfaces. These microcracks and evaporation/depostition of the glass will expose the plutonium particles, and the glass itself will flake off. As for the alpha particles, I can only imagine they would encourage microcracking. Then the bigger your block of glass, the more tension there will be on parts of it, and thus the more favorable the formation of large scale cracks. The idea was, originally regaurdless what I think of its merits, looking to suppress plutonium powder.
We could pack the all Pu-239 in a small stick, call it a "space modulator", fly it to mars, and hope for the best.
The huddled masses will always win (perhaps not without suffering). But we got the money they want, and more importantly the guns. The RIAA might be dealing from the bottom of the deck, and being generally sneaky and deceitful bastards, but we've got an ace up our sleeves. But best of all we have technology on our side. And knowing is half the battle. Time to down load more foul Britney Spears singles in protest. No one said being moral was easy.
They're talking about a structure which would have to stand intact for 8 half lives of Plutonium. Ummm. Ok. Sure, pyramids have gotten along ok, but they really haven't been around THAT long. Their talking about making a "facility" of some sort that will last a span of time much greater that seperating the creation of agriculture from the present. How long did "Lucy's" hut stand? But this isn't the only exceptionaly tall order.
The containers for plutonium itself are a monstrous feat of engineering, that would stretch our understanding of materials beyond the bleeding edge. Even underground in a steel container you have the effects of fatigue from every tremor they feel. With moisture present in the air no less. Ceramics and glass are no better. In periods such as these the glass will deform, the ceramics will crack, even under their own weight, and scaresly need the help of tremors to do so. Other qualities such as creep aren't easly extrapolated to very long lifetimes. And I'm talking about, in some cases, 50 years to say nothing of 100,000. Then there is the challenge of these containters being bathed in neutrons for many thousands of years, degrading the chosen materials.
While how some people obtained their doctorates is quite the conundrum. I some how doubt that this is actually serious, as in an attempt to actually build something. It seems far more likely that they might just be putting up $3000 to get some media attention for their cause, and spark discussion. That's certainly a worthy goal. Or maybe Ponds and Pal have found a place where that whole cold fusion stigma didn't follow them. The idea that professionals familiar with nuclear materials and their special challanges would consider something like this achievable, is in all honesty, inconceivable. And I do think that word means what I think it means.
That said there are a fair amount of word fitting systems available.
Scary. I know. But fortunately, here in the present, the evil expressed in this one man play don't exist. Why the all in one motherboards from motherboard manufactures all but obliterated need for anything propritary. Why now the only magic left is that of a splash screen in the bios. Progress kids. Think about it, because, one day, you'll be working in cities on the moon. And once more, you'll never have to hear anything by bananarama again (they were like britney spears, but ugly in triplicate, and we didn't have the Studio Magic 5000).
It just bares repeating. The japanese commanders, many of whom had lived and studied in the US knew that eventually the US would prevail IF we decided to fight. Yamamoto only guaranteed six months of victory assuming the strike on Pearl Harbor went as planned. He knew the resources and industrial might of the US was something the Japanese could not match. We could grind them down in a war of attrition. That was why the strike on Pearl was so important. Then needed to hand the US such an awful defeat that the people (isolationists who didn't give a shit about anyone else anyway) would demand peace. Pearl Harbor was almost totally a psychological attack aimed not at the navy, but the american public. The tactical nature of the strike was secondary.
As for Dolittle's raid. Well Sun Tzu would disagree. The Japanese mythos held that their homeland was protected. It was the chosen land, and they were chosen people. Dolittle's raid clearly contradicted this belief, cutting very deeply in to something the Japanese held dear. And quite frankly, for the movies and books that came later, it's makes for superb foreshadowing. That said, the industrial assets destroyed in Japan were not as easily replaced as our ships.
As for the begining of the end, the Japanese commanders would probably say it was when the United States decided to fight the War in the Pacific rather than cede Asia to Japan. The battle of Midway was an all or nothing gamble. If the Japanese prevailed, they might have time to gather their strength, and the US ability to project her power would be greatly diminished for some time. But to not take that gamble, was the end of the game. They were going to lose the war of attrition, they knew it, and they knew Midway was their last and only hope for something other than defeat.
People are quick to throw around that pc lable. But as long as we're on the subject of honesty, how do you feel about America's role in bringing the Chinese empire to its knees and forcing Japan to open its society or die? As long as we're being honest, right. Sure, the Japanese commited truly horrific acts, but mostly against China, then korea, and somewhere far down the list prisoners of war, and then WAY down below that, typing the message to break off negotiations by the hunt-and-peck method. Was the diplomacy decitful? Sure. All diplomacy is, well almost. Did we know their diplomacy was decitful? Yes. Pearl Harbor was a skillful millitary manuver. But it was also an awakaning. It showed america, and particularly the isolationists, that it was a big world out there, and while we might be the biggest kid on the block, we sure as hell weren't the only one. Turns out the world was a little bit different that a Shirley Temple movie, or a Horatio Alger story. This simple fact is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as every bit as bad as our (the US's) use of nuclear weapons was on Japan. But it was no worse. A fair amount has been made of what is not taught to the Japanese in their history classes. It seems they are not alone in their omissions.
Interestingly enough, the betrayal of the emperor and people by the military leaders in WWII has GREATLY shaped Japan's culture. Typically, the people fighting the war, the everyman, are pure, good, and probably conflicted, but bound by their honor. The people running the war, are greedy, petty and evil. People are the top, of both sides, are bad, people at the bottom, of both sides, are good. But lets look at the people at the top. In Japan, they had leaders who conducted show trials and swiftly excecuted some of the captured americans involved in dolittle's raid. McCarthur had show trials and swiftly excecuted some of the Japanese butchers who killed allies in the philipeans. Americans sentenced the Japanese officers responsible to prision. Americans let McCarthur run Japan. Sure, this is an overly simplistic, and slightly skewed, representation. But it's accurate enough to tarnish the gleam on that greatest generation pride.
But let's face facts, movies are for entertainment, not stern moralizing as a case study in being an american. But for anyone else that goes to a Hollywood movie expecting anything other than to be pandered to relentlessly and professionally, "YOU ARE LOST AND DRUNK, ask someone for assistance."
A nicer board with on board SCSI is pretty likely to have on board ethernet. I might keep the sound off the motherboard. It usually sounds a little cleaner and is more responsive in a seperate card. But it all about what one wants to do. I'd look for an all in one card, the new ATI Radeon
I would think you might have to choose between firewire and scsi on-board, but I don't have a magazine at arms reach to check. But I'm more than a little surprised that one would be locked into scsi at this point. It's nice, and maybe for a server important, but I can't imagine its critical.
USB is definately the way to go with the serial ports though. Something like $50 US for 1 serial 1 parallel, and 2 more USB. You might also want to look at whether you really need those devices. USB peripherals are pretty sweet. USB hubs make nice almost port replicators too. And if try to get a motherboard that supports USB 2.
They reserved the right to modify.
The really sick thing is, with out a killer app to drive hardware demand forward, laptops will only look better, and get cheaper. As more people go with small, and often pretty laptops (Compaq 1700 series, some Viao's, new Powerbook) they might demand some of that modular design people take for granted in desktops. (It's not like desktops were created with everything super convienent to install.) So with more, and more varied, people looking for laptops, we might get a little more in the way of choice. Nothing says profit margin like add on sales. That's cool by me, I'll pay a little more for something that fits just right. As for me, I'd really be hard pressed to find a use for all the power available off the shelf in a laptop 99% of the time. Christ my favorite games on the PC are still Stars! and Bandit Kings of Ancient China (how sad is that). But when you look at what is just a year away for laptops, it's nuts.
Of course no one is debating that you do make some trade-offs. Laptops cost more, about a grand, they're not as comfortable, and they don't have as much power as a desk top. Those first two, totally subjective judgement call. But that last one, are you really using that extra power? I might be so bold as to suggest that VERY few people are. If a really big shift in how people do their computing IS comming, then this move to experimentation by Compaq is pretty prescient. So when is IBM (pdf file) comming out with a 70GB Travelstar HD?
As far as homogenious or hetrogenious, well you can make a case for each. By in large part I suppose it's whether you see the concept in terms of building what you want with legos, or giving form to formless clay. But provided you could have the best of all worlds you were interested in would you want it? I would. I'm sure there are a few others too. Quite frankly I've got a little more in the way of consumer electronics than I'd really like to have. At some point its really nice to be able to kill a few birds with one stone. I hear you can't be all things to all people, and in some circumstances I even believe it. But with hardware and software to various degrees you can. What's wrong with giving it a shot? :)
Not black and white. Right and wrong! Attitudes such as these represent a clear and present danger to the intrests of myself, my country, the movie going public and Harrison Ford.
People on slashdat, and rightly so, get a little worried about what happens when two super giants in related industries get together. If Intel and Microsoft merged into a single entity, well, after than Wintel would have a whole new sinister meaning. If AMD and Transmeta get together, damn skippy. Why, more choice, not less. At the end of the day we're all consumers, and we all want to be able to make an informed choice from a selection of products.
But to bring this post back on track. I would say getting your hydrated methane from the tundra is fine. But I'm not so big on getting in from the continental shelf (Unless it's off NJ). Extreamly large landslides along the continental shelf are suspected to be related to releases of the hydrated methane. Sure, its barely a hypothesis at this point, but I would say the probability of a value sized tsunami would warrent a lot of investigation. Not to mention some atmospheric scientists think that huge releases of hydrated methanes (I think in the north sea) may have contributed greatly to createing a tropical earth before the last big iceage. A mistake in recovering this particular resource could prove quite devistating. As I understand it, it's the pressure that essentially traps the methane in the ice, and in the abscence of that you get liquid water and methane gas.
How long do you remember your sweet kills for? I remember sweet kills from DooM 1.666 on up to present. Beyond team organized killing, what's there? I'm not sure I really care. I would perhaps submitt that's why games have continued to add eye candy as a way of improving the experience. For their customers, that's what really counts. I've got to tell you, the high I would get off of killing people and talking smack while listening a good soundtrack to kill by was well...killer, and probably difficult to improve on.
As for T&A in games, certainly male targeted games. It will be around for a LONG time. It's not that we males are the lesser sex, it's that evil game companies are manipulating our endocrine system. The stupid fact is, males give hotties, even fake ones, attention. It's hard wired. This will always be, and sex will always be an effective and cheap ploy to sell anything. It's like in anime a good number of the protagonists are either female or have a female side kick. Why might that be? Well anyone from either sex can blow stuff up, but teenage males only enjoy watching one of the sexes in a shower scene. Look at baywatch, Lifeguards fighting crime, makeing the streets safe. Who in the hell would watch it if there weren't playboy bunnies running down the beach in superslomo wearing stretchy stretchy lycra with the new worst single you've ever heard? Shepards in Mongolia installed satellite dishes in their yurts to see this show. And it was not for the compelling story.
As for difference. Well it's the spice of life, so I'd literally be a fool to dissagree. But I would submit that most people aren't fans of risk, particularly people who are letting other people bet their money. And in games, like everywhere else, people gravitate to proven concepts.
I think a truly cross over game would have to simulate a true microworld and society. It would have to be nonlinear, open ended, and free form. We've seen a lot of baby steps towards something like this. But still, were really a long ways off. The only things that offer this kind of experience are MUDs and their ilk. To tell the truth. As far as new goes, I now start to find my self whistfully looking back. I started out with some pretty sweet games. Adventure...ah adventure, to this day I hate and love that bat. Mostly really hate. Conan for the Apple. Oh yeah. Karataka. Why you had to save the princess when she could obviously take care of herself, I'll never know. Bard's Tale. Damn skippy baby. Wolfenstien, where the revolution would begin. 3d, DooM and Quake et al. All the way up to Jet Grind/Set Radio. Maybe Shenmue was another little tiny baby step into a brave new world, as it stands it's OK. Well maybe a little better than that. But Shenmue won't be a game I look back on whistfully 15 years from now.
At the end of the day, I think the question really is do males and females like to play the same games the same way? My guess is a pretty solid no. Are their exceptions? Sure, by in large, people are individuals, but statistically those exceptions aren't meaningful, and won't factor in. Right now, targeted games might be better, as they're easier to make. To be all things to all people isn't an easy task, ask Al Gore. And in the future, when there are unisex games that all love and adore, well I bet boys and girls will play them differently. In fact, it might be an interesting sociological study to do on the sims. See how different genders play the same game. Actually you could study any set of demographics. That'd be kind of a cool add on.
Do not listen to Tom Leykus.
Do not goto This website.
Do read Cosmo.
Do make your boyfriend take those tests as they really will tell you what's going on in your relationship.
Do ask him what he is thinking, preferably if he's watching his favorite sports team.
However, if he's watching his team in the playoffs: Turn off the TV and tell him you want to talk about your relationship.
Your boyfriend was actualy a composit of all man and so is an accurate depiction of any individual man. Your milage will not vary.
Do generalize all of his traits to the larger population, as they will certainly hold true.
But most importantly, make sure the next guy pays in full for the crimes of the last.
Only in this way will two people ever find true love.
They're harder to make games for, I imagine Black and White might appeal to some girls, but there are a lot of other market forces competing for those dollars. Getting girls to shift some of their income to games, might be like getting boys to shift some of their income to nail polish for men (yeah right). In Japan I think the games that really have the attention of the ladies, are the relationship role-playing games which (from descriptions I've read elsewhere) seem to revolve around a girl picking some boy and convincing him to fall in love with her, in a game akin to an old skool pick-a-path adventure.
At the end of the day, it looks like good games are one of the rewards of being born a male. Hand-eye coordination is easier to code for than relationship building.
The top few layers of your skin are dead and more or less desicated.
Honestly, I don't know if I'll buy another console. As for Microsofts first entry, it's interesting. But I would suspect that all consoles will become less and less stable as complexity increases. But with all the bells and wistles they might be fun to hack.
It depends on the games too I suppose. If Microsoft came out with Bandit Kings of Ancient China for the xBox I'd probably be pitching my tent outside Toys 'R Us. I still play that every now and again. Wu Song "The Hairy Priest" and his brother Bao Xu "The God of Death" shall unite China for one glorious moment before the mongol hoards deliver final ruination to the Emperor!
It's not like the Xbox will be _less_ stable than the dreamcast.
It's popular on laptops as well because laptops can be a little fiesty with all their extra devices. So while Win 2k might take a little more power to run, the users of the laptops can be more productive, and the IT people supporting them have it a little easier. But of course there's installing new USB devices :) (bad installs under win 2k aren't always fun).
I used to really look down on VB. But I went in for a beta test of Mechwarrior 4, and I picked the most expensive thing off the shelf, more because I knew C, under unix and borland windows api, and what the hell. Started fiddling with the widgets, and VB intrigued me. So I go pick up a book, inside of week and 150 lines of code later I have a little toy program, that's fun, useful, and customizable. Imagine my shock. Just try. Some of VB's conventions were certainly close enough to C++. But what a difference. MFC is almost night and day for ease of use against the API, but Visual basic was like another planet.
Certainly the way you talk up Delphi my curiosity is piqued. How could one not be at least intrigued? I'll certainly look into that, currently I'm trying to figure out how to program a screen saver (eventually I hope to get to a 3d screen saver with my own, ugly, 3d models). (Some people watch TV, I whistfully remember my youth when TV was worth watching and only had 5 channels.)
As I mentioned in the first post, I'm not a Microsoft fan. There's a hell of a lot they could do better. Some of the choices they made early on, I'm sure they wish they hadn't made. But many of windows failings come from a time long long ago, and to pretend that in some way the new version of windows was made in entirty just last year is naive. Hindsight is 20/20, but its hindsight. And to intone that because in the far flung past some bad design choices (that looked fine at the time) somehow absolves all developers who come to the OS of most, if not all responsability, is, quite frankly, retarded. Limitations of the Windows family are no different than any other complex set of design constraints. I wish steel was only 2.5 g/cm^3 and tensile strength of 2000 GPa. It doesn't. And if I build you a bridge you better damn well hope I don't behave as if it does.
My personal view is Microsoft is the Jolly Roger and Bill is its pirate captain and they just go around raping and pillaging. The true genius of it is that he foresaw quality didn't matter a lick. Only ease of use, and getting as large a proportion of the population as possible to buy into it did. He took advantage of the nearly universal, and quite compelling, desire to share information. It's evil genius, but genius none the less.
I'm all for rebellion and bucking the system. Why hell, the Star Spangled Banner is about a period in our history where we basically mooned the cops. And I certainly find a great deal of charm in a society that pretty much says it's ok to have an extended adolescence. But at some point isn't it nice to have a little bit of honesty? The very fact that people pay for this stuff, let alone grossly overpay, should clearly articulate that as flawed as microsofts products are they do have value. But none of this, nor much that has come before in anyway diminishes the truth that Windows 95 will, at least for some users, crash less than once a month. It's not like I'm not running anything either. I'm asking more of Windows 95 than even Microsoft thinks I should (they don't recommend Visual Studio 6 for use with 95.) Oddly, MSVC doesn't seem to crash on my machine, although I've seen in make unscheduled pitstops under 98. My whole problem with the orginal post is basically, if you're going to bash MS at least do it for the things they really *do* wrong, there's more than enough of that to go around. Making gross and false generallizations diminishes ones credibility even if, on some other occasion, one happens to be right. Like anything, and everything else in life, the truth is somewhere in between.
Lemme leave off with VB. Hell it's not even programming. It's like painting, or legos. It's ridiculous, and sometimes that's more than enough, it's cool.
But the best part is. It's all true, and not seeing this makes you the plebian that you like to pretend others are. It's that irony which gives me that warm fuzzy giggly feeling. So thanks, just for being you.