Dean Kamen's new invention, code named Ginger, has been modified. This scooter-like device was designed to run on a Stirling engine, but new reports by Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos say it will run on a hydrogen powered jet running at Mach 7.6...
When I design a web page, there are two artistic elements involved. There is the interface and the back end. Two me, these two parts' aesthetics are equally important. A lot of the web pages I build could be made in Netscape Composer. But that would be Michaelangelo hiring an apprentice to paint the Sistine Chapel. Okay, maybe I've stretched the metaphor a bit, but you get the point. Similarly, I have friends who make nifty looking sites, but they do it entirely in Flash or Shockwave. Those web sites aren't art, because they are just pictures. They don't take advantage of all of the wonderful things HTML and dHTML can do. In the digital world, the structure of something, that is, what you can't see, is as important as what you can. All programmers, coders, etc, or at least all good ones, are artists.
Not 3 computers. Or one. If I have 300,000 computers running SETI@HOME, and each of them need to access the internet only once every 3 months (they're slow, okay?), then what's the problem with using only one line. If I'm not supposed to use the bandwidth the telco's have sold me, why don't they just sell me less?
While it's true that it is quite difficult to make qualitative selection of students instead of quantitative, it is certainly not impossible. I've taken the Preperation SAT tests in 10th grade, and although I did extremely well on them, I was struck by how totally irrelevant most of the questions were. 30% of the whole test involved figuring out where commas go. While this stuff might, just conceivably, be important for English majors, if I were planning to major in agriculture, I can't see how commas would constitute 30% of my education. More likely it would be cow shit instead.
Yes, it's true that it's difficult to qualitatively assess students, but now that Cal schools have done away with SATs and ACTs, do you think they are going to rely soley on GPA for admission? No. This move demonstrates that they are going to put more resources into more complete assessment of students, which is something I think colleges have overlooked for too long. Good for them.
Importance of military
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As a Popular Science reader wrote in a letter responding to a article about advanced combat gear, there is going to be less and less of a point to living in the future if all anybody can think to do with new technology is kill others with it.
Of course I do recognize that many if not most major technological advances to date have been made to advance a military cause, but as long as the immediate response to a new technology is to incorporate it in new pointy objects, we could be running into some serious problems in the near future.
Now my mom can not only get really pissed when she can't find a store to find goats milk and goats cheese in Florida, she can also get pissed when she can't find a store to buy replacements to her clothes made of goats milk that ripped execept that... goats silk doesn't rip... so I've sort of written myself into a corner... and I'll stop now.
I absolutely agree. At our school, there are guards posted everywhere to make sure no one leaves the lunch room early. Of course, all of the guards are mindless and imbecillic, and getting around them is a fairly simple task. But get this: I came in from lunch one day, through one of the side entrances. There was a guard posted there. I went to my locker which was about 20 feet from the guard, and in plain view, to put away my coat. He started threatening to suspend me! I was twenty feet from him. Furthermore, we are not allowed to wear hats or headbands in the school. That same guard was patroling the halls this morning with a megaphone telling people to take off hats. Also, twice a year we take off a day of school so teachers can practice for scenarios involving armed attackers! That's like 2 percent of the whole school year, gone to pot. It really is ridiculous.
Nope! I get the magazine free, and read it sometimes. They send me their email bullitens daily (which are identical to the mags), and I cannot for the life of me unsubscribe. Same with Inter@ctive Week, The Net Economy... all ZDNet publications. Happy unsubscribing!
Not quite. The total prizes are 50K, but it's only a couple K per successfully completed challenge, and there are lots.
Re:What's with the cover illustration?
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I think the reason they did away with the Josh Kirby illustrations is that, while some people might think they look nice, (I don't, but I like the new designs less) they aren't at all true the the descriptions and events in the story. There are people who should not be wearing robes wearinh robes, old people being young, young people being old, blatent incosistencies (Twoflower has glasses, not four eyes), and other irritating things like that. British people can handle inconsistencies (overgeneralization) but Americans... well, Americans sue over spilt coffee.
B.S. Johnson and the Assassins.
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I personally would like to see a book that goes into the details of the workings of the Assassins Guild, besides Men at Arms and that one with Mr. Teatime. I would also like to see a book with B.S. Johnson, but my understanding is that he died long before the Century of the Fruitbat, so an entire new Ankh-Morpork would have to be created, which could be cool. Hey, B.S. Johnson. That would explain why someone named BS would write the review. B.S. Bs. B.S. Bs. Get it?
I purchased and read this book very recently, and one of my favorite bits about it is that it finally incorporates some new characters into the Ankh-Morpork universe. It's been a long time since Ankh-Morpork has been anything but an excuse to write about foreign lands or a platform for Watch books. It's nice to see another aspect of the city addressed in detail. Also, I like the bums.
I read this book right after Neil Gaimen's Neverwhere and I can't help but notice the similarities between the New Firm and between Neverwhere's Croup and Vandemar. Has anyone else noticed this? Pratchett and Gaiman have worked together, and I can't help but wondering if Pratchett has started relying on his fellow authors for ideas.
Slashdot Mirror
Dean Kamen's new invention, code named Ginger, has been modified. This scooter-like device was designed to run on a Stirling engine, but new reports by Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos say it will run on a hydrogen powered jet running at Mach 7.6...
What kind of wearable displays are available commercially? What kind of resolution, etc? Are there any displays available commercially?
When I design a web page, there are two artistic elements involved. There is the interface and the back end. Two me, these two parts' aesthetics are equally important. A lot of the web pages I build could be made in Netscape Composer. But that would be Michaelangelo hiring an apprentice to paint the Sistine Chapel. Okay, maybe I've stretched the metaphor a bit, but you get the point. Similarly, I have friends who make nifty looking sites, but they do it entirely in Flash or Shockwave. Those web sites aren't art, because they are just pictures. They don't take advantage of all of the wonderful things HTML and dHTML can do. In the digital world, the structure of something, that is, what you can't see, is as important as what you can. All programmers, coders, etc, or at least all good ones, are artists.
Not 3 computers. Or one. If I have 300,000 computers running SETI@HOME, and each of them need to access the internet only once every 3 months (they're slow, okay?), then what's the problem with using only one line. If I'm not supposed to use the bandwidth the telco's have sold me, why don't they just sell me less?
While it's true that it is quite difficult to make qualitative selection of students instead of quantitative, it is certainly not impossible. I've taken the Preperation SAT tests in 10th grade, and although I did extremely well on them, I was struck by how totally irrelevant most of the questions were. 30% of the whole test involved figuring out where commas go. While this stuff might, just conceivably, be important for English majors, if I were planning to major in agriculture, I can't see how commas would constitute 30% of my education. More likely it would be cow shit instead.
Yes, it's true that it's difficult to qualitatively assess students, but now that Cal schools have done away with SATs and ACTs, do you think they are going to rely soley on GPA for admission? No. This move demonstrates that they are going to put more resources into more complete assessment of students, which is something I think colleges have overlooked for too long. Good for them.
As a Popular Science reader wrote in a letter responding to a article about advanced combat gear, there is going to be less and less of a point to living in the future if all anybody can think to do with new technology is kill others with it. Of course I do recognize that many if not most major technological advances to date have been made to advance a military cause, but as long as the immediate response to a new technology is to incorporate it in new pointy objects, we could be running into some serious problems in the near future.
Now my mom can not only get really pissed when she can't find a store to find goats milk and goats cheese in Florida, she can also get pissed when she can't find a store to buy replacements to her clothes made of goats milk that ripped execept that... goats silk doesn't rip... so I've sort of written myself into a corner... and I'll stop now.
I absolutely agree. At our school, there are guards posted everywhere to make sure no one leaves the lunch room early. Of course, all of the guards are mindless and imbecillic, and getting around them is a fairly simple task. But get this: I came in from lunch one day, through one of the side entrances. There was a guard posted there. I went to my locker which was about 20 feet from the guard, and in plain view, to put away my coat. He started threatening to suspend me! I was twenty feet from him. Furthermore, we are not allowed to wear hats or headbands in the school. That same guard was patroling the halls this morning with a megaphone telling people to take off hats. Also, twice a year we take off a day of school so teachers can practice for scenarios involving armed attackers! That's like 2 percent of the whole school year, gone to pot. It really is ridiculous.
Nope! I get the magazine free, and read it sometimes. They send me their email bullitens daily (which are identical to the mags), and I cannot for the life of me unsubscribe. Same with Inter@ctive Week, The Net Economy... all ZDNet publications. Happy unsubscribing!
Not quite. The total prizes are 50K, but it's only a couple K per successfully completed challenge, and there are lots.
I think the reason they did away with the Josh Kirby illustrations is that, while some people might think they look nice, (I don't, but I like the new designs less) they aren't at all true the the descriptions and events in the story. There are people who should not be wearing robes wearinh robes, old people being young, young people being old, blatent incosistencies (Twoflower has glasses, not four eyes), and other irritating things like that. British people can handle inconsistencies (overgeneralization) but Americans... well, Americans sue over spilt coffee.
I personally would like to see a book that goes into the details of the workings of the Assassins Guild, besides Men at Arms and that one with Mr. Teatime. I would also like to see a book with B.S. Johnson, but my understanding is that he died long before the Century of the Fruitbat, so an entire new Ankh-Morpork would have to be created, which could be cool. Hey, B.S. Johnson. That would explain why someone named BS would write the review. B.S. Bs. B.S. Bs. Get it?
I purchased and read this book very recently, and one of my favorite bits about it is that it finally incorporates some new characters into the Ankh-Morpork universe. It's been a long time since Ankh-Morpork has been anything but an excuse to write about foreign lands or a platform for Watch books. It's nice to see another aspect of the city addressed in detail. Also, I like the bums. I read this book right after Neil Gaimen's Neverwhere and I can't help but notice the similarities between the New Firm and between Neverwhere's Croup and Vandemar. Has anyone else noticed this? Pratchett and Gaiman have worked together, and I can't help but wondering if Pratchett has started relying on his fellow authors for ideas.