...laura, wondering how they would handle VCRs with Y2K bugs in Soviet Russia
You can set the year to 1974, the days work out the same as 2002. ie, 12th December is a Thursday in both 2002 and 1974.
It's funny how reliable old Russian technology can be, even with the cheap materials and comparatively primitive designs, the workmanship was sometimes very good. No need to ensure a stream of repeat business I suppose...
I saw a good example of that in a review of Everquest when it was released. The reviewer was amazed at the advanced AI, and described his experience of being stalked by a pair of wolves, acting co-operatively. It was something like one circling around in the hope of making a surprise attack, while the other followed him at walking pace.
In reality the wolves were just walking a random path which happened to look like something intelligent. Anyone who has played it for more than an hour will know that the creature AI is non-existent.
Drains, bridges, tunnels, bunkers, silos, abandoned power stations.
Maybe we're a little spoiled for this here in Sydney Aus., but there are some amazing places to visit under your feet or in some forgotten corner of your own city. Walking a 3km long drain is an amazing experience, and the atmosphere in an abandoned industrial site can be awe inspiring.
Just keep safety in mind at all times (especially don't go in drains if there is *any* chance of rain), and leave the sites as you found them. Of course, it can be illegal to be in drains, or other government property, but the police around here don't seem to mind too much if you look harmless and explain your crazy hobby.
There may be an urban exploration group in your city already, if not, find some like minded friends and start searching out the cool places. They are out there!
Re:sigh .. there is no such thing as "macroevoluti
on
Shapes of Time
·
· Score: 1
There's no way you can call Archaeopteryx weak evidence, what more could you want? If the gaps were never filled, what on earth do you think happened? Why is Archy so obviously reptilian if it's not descended from reptiles?
Re:Something from nothing?
on
Shapes of Time
·
· Score: 1
Hmm, never read Titan. Not sure I have any incentive to do so now either.
I think they all died in the end of Time too, and achieved nothing, but that was just a minor niggle in the whole scheme of things. I had almost forgotten about it until you mentioned the tables.
I think Sturgeons Law needs a revision for this one, "0.001% of everything is really, really unbelievably fscking bad".
Thanks for the tip on Time Ships, I might give it a go. I've been mystified as to why that crap ever got published for a while now, I suppose he must have done something decent before.
Yup, that's what I thought you meant. I was making the point that there's nothing unusual about us, we're just another animal. An animal which evolved from a previous population of different animals.
If you don't have a problem with say, penguins evolving from a 'standard' flying sea bird, why is it extreme to accept the evolution of humans? I suspect it's because it would mean we aren't "special", whereas said fairy-tale says we are "special".
The only thing 'extreme' about the origins of man is the extreme conflict with the fairy tale story the creationists seem to believe where man was just *poofed* into existance.
Otherwise we're a pretty cut and dried case of evolution from primate ancestors ( of which we have fossils ), and we still have many close living relatives.
How can you deny that you are an ape? Lack of independent thinking perhaps?
Oh, Langley devised the bolometer: It's really a kind of thermometer Which measures the heat From a polar bear's feet At a distance of half a kilometer
Maybe for my webservers but definitely not for my employees desktops and any mission critical databases.
If you think that there are currently no OSS databases or desktop OSes suitable for your needs then you have considered OSS before deciding to go for the proprietary solution. It's an ill-informed decision though, and I think that unless OSS is *required* for government usage, it will be too easy for the government PHBs to do the same: 'Of course we considered OSS before we blew that $2 million on Oracle licenses, but that MySQL thing just wasn't good enough'.
Comparing MySQL and Oracle is a bit silly. If you want something 'industrial strength' and GPL then SAP-DB may be worth a look.
If you were running a business, you would definitely look to OSS first before considering forking out big dollars for commercial software, right?. For the same reasons, wouldn't you like to see governments do the same? It's still 'your' money being thrown away even if the government is doing it.
I definitely agree with Lawrence Lessigs views on how to fix the 'copyright black hole'. If for instance copyright was limited to 3 years on music, I'd be quite happy to respect that when using a P2P file sharing app.
Many wouldn't I'm sure, but suppose Winamp honoured a copyright bit on files, and did not play those which had not entered the public domain. 99% of people wouldn't bother to find a cracked version. If you want to keep up with the latest music trends then you could buy the CD, maybe it would improve the quality of their offerings too. Actually, I can't see how *that* could get worse;)
I suppose though that this will never happen while Hollywood has their hand in the cookie jar:(
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but now your VCR thinks it's 1902, and still doesn't work properly. =)
...laura, wondering how they would handle VCRs with Y2K bugs in Soviet Russia
You can set the year to 1974, the days work out the same as 2002. ie, 12th December is a Thursday in both 2002 and 1974.
It's funny how reliable old Russian technology can be, even with the cheap materials and comparatively primitive designs, the workmanship was sometimes very good. No need to ensure a stream of repeat business I suppose...
I saw a good example of that in a review of Everquest when it was released. The reviewer was amazed at the advanced AI, and described his experience of being stalked by a pair of wolves, acting co-operatively. It was something like one circling around in the hope of making a surprise attack, while the other followed him at walking pace.
In reality the wolves were just walking a random path which happened to look like something intelligent. Anyone who has played it for more than an hour will know that the creature AI is non-existent.
Drains, bridges, tunnels, bunkers, silos, abandoned power stations.
Maybe we're a little spoiled for this here in Sydney Aus., but there are some amazing places to visit under your feet or in some forgotten corner of your own city. Walking a 3km long drain is an amazing experience, and the atmosphere in an abandoned industrial site can be awe inspiring.
Just keep safety in mind at all times (especially don't go in drains if there is *any* chance of rain), and leave the sites as you found them. Of course, it can be illegal to be in drains, or other government property, but the police around here don't seem to mind too much if you look harmless and explain your crazy hobby.
There may be an urban exploration group in your city already, if not, find some like minded friends and start searching out the cool places. They are out there!
Sydney Cave Clan
Melbourne Clan
There's no way you can call Archaeopteryx weak evidence, what more could you want? If the gaps were never filled, what on earth do you think happened? Why is Archy so obviously reptilian if it's not descended from reptiles?
Where does new genetic information come from?
/dev/random
grep HERE
Hmm, never read Titan. Not sure I have any incentive to do so now either.
I think they all died in the end of Time too, and achieved nothing, but that was just a minor niggle in the whole scheme of things. I had almost forgotten about it until you mentioned the tables.
I think Sturgeons Law needs a revision for this one, "0.001% of everything is really, really unbelievably fscking bad".
Thanks for the tip on Time Ships, I might give it a go. I've been mystified as to why that crap ever got published for a while now, I suppose he must have done something decent before.
Baxter?? Believable?? *hawk* spit
Have you read Time? (Don't do it!!)
Human civilisation is going to end (soon!) because it's so unlikely that we should all be born so early in it's history.
Prototype intelligent squid are taken on a space mission (why???), escape and build a civilisation on an asteroid.
If the story wasn't pointless and confusing enough already, the children from Midwich Cuckoos by Wyndham are thrown into the seething mess.
Arrrgh, I want a memory wipe to remove the horror from my brain!
If you can't handle a bit of technical lingo then maybe you're on the wrong site. You could always RTFA for the 'for dummies' version.
"Recognition of non-self by murine immune cells", ahh, better than Shakespeare that is. Thanks scientistguy.
Yup, that's what I thought you meant. I was making the point that there's nothing unusual about us, we're just another animal. An animal which evolved from a previous population of different animals.
If you don't have a problem with say, penguins evolving from a 'standard' flying sea bird, why is it extreme to accept the evolution of humans? I suspect it's because it would mean we aren't "special", whereas said fairy-tale says we are "special".
The only thing 'extreme' about the origins of man is the extreme conflict with the fairy tale story the creationists seem to believe where man was just *poofed* into existance.
Otherwise we're a pretty cut and dried case of evolution from primate ancestors ( of which we have fossils ), and we still have many close living relatives.
How can you deny that you are an ape? Lack of independent thinking perhaps?
Gun Death - International Comparisons
Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):
Homicide Suicide Unintentional
USA 4.08 (1999) 6.08 (1999) 0.42 (1999)
Canada 0.54 (1999) 2.65 (1997) 0.15 (1997)
Switzerland 0.50 (1999) 5.78 (1998) -
Scotland 0.12 (1999) 0.27 (1999) -
England/Wales 0.12 (99/00) 0.22 (1999) 0.01 (1999)
Japan 0.04* (1998) 0.04 (1995) <0.01 (1997)
* Homicide & attempted homicide by handgun
Data collected by Philip Alpers, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and HELP Network
from: http://www.gun-control-network.org/facts.htm
Oh, Langley devised the bolometer:
It's really a kind of thermometer
Which measures the heat
From a polar bear's feet
At a distance of half a kilometer
- Unknown
This might be what you're looking for:
t ml
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/isochron-dating.h
Maybe for my webservers but definitely not for my employees desktops and any mission critical databases.
If you think that there are currently no OSS databases or desktop OSes suitable for your needs then you have considered OSS before deciding to go for the proprietary solution. It's an ill-informed decision though, and I think that unless OSS is *required* for government usage, it will be too easy for the government PHBs to do the same: 'Of course we considered OSS before we blew that $2 million on Oracle licenses, but that MySQL thing just wasn't good enough'.
Comparing MySQL and Oracle is a bit silly. If you want something 'industrial strength' and GPL then SAP-DB may be worth a look.
If you were running a business, you would definitely look to OSS first before considering forking out big dollars for commercial software, right?. For the same reasons, wouldn't you like to see governments do the same? It's still 'your' money being thrown away even if the government is doing it.
I definitely agree with Lawrence Lessigs views on how to fix the 'copyright black hole'. If for instance copyright was limited to 3 years on music, I'd be quite happy to respect that when using a P2P file sharing app.
;)
:(
Many wouldn't I'm sure, but suppose Winamp honoured a copyright bit on files, and did not play those which had not entered the public domain. 99% of people wouldn't bother to find a cracked version. If you want to keep up with the latest music trends then you could buy the CD, maybe it would improve the quality of their offerings too. Actually, I can't see how *that* could get worse
I suppose though that this will never happen while Hollywood has their hand in the cookie jar