Personally, I love Lord of the Rings, but then again, I'm a big fan of the fantasy genre. LOTR has to be read for what it is, which is a beautifully detailed description of an amazingly well imagined world with an averagely detailed story (though still a very enjoyable one). If you are bored by fantasy, then the slow pace of a lot of sections of LOTR will probably put you off. If you want to try fantasy, head for something a bit more exciting like (personal favourite) Sara Douglass.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that Tolkien is the be all and end all of fantasy, and are sadly put off the genre because of it.
Check out a site like www.sffworld.com for book reviews and try to find something that interests you.
One of the tricks of 'Deep Blue' was a library with every game of chess played at the master level in the last century. That's what made it play like a human. Kasparov lost the first game because of an error in his training, he prepared himself to play with a machine and got an almost human player.
They also targeted deep blue to specifically beat Kasparov by analising all of his previous games (such that deep blue was more effective against Kasparov than other players, though it would still be extremely difficult (understatement) to beat). I think he actually complained about it because he didnt have any information on how deep blue played but deep blue had information on him.
It's not a hoax. My friend was an exchange student in Japan while it was on, he told me about it after he came back. So yeah, it's true, disturbingly...
I tried searching Amazon, but unforunately they don't seem to be available on CD. I actually have MP3s of all the radio shows, which I would really like to make available, but don't have the bandwidth to handle the onslaught.
If you live in Australia you can buy the CD's at your local ABC shop (i saw them a few months ago but they dont seem to be listed on the online store), as well as the tapes. The CD's/tapes of the radio shows _are_ still made and will probably get wider distribitution now (that being what happens when somebody dies).
I would dare say that the webmaster of the _official_ website would probably have known douglas adams personally and therefore at the moment would be thinking about other things than updating the website. Personally it's the last thing I would care about if somebody I knew died.
I have been using nautilis since I downloaded ximian gnome 1.4 and I must say I have been impressed. Sure, there are improvements that could be made, and some of the features are a little gimmicky, but its customisable enough to make that not so much of an issue.
<p>It is disapionting that one of the projects linux desperately needs (for mainstream use anyway) is a good graphical file manager. I wonder if Eazel does go under, if an indapendant group would be able to take over. One of the things needed for a good user interface is consistancy of vision which is always hard when dealing with a multitude of developers. We can only hope</p>
<p>RIP Eazel, I have no idea how you ever though you could make any money, but so long and thanks for the file manager.</P>
anything we get from a computer we tend to treat as absolute fact. It is all to easy to find some connection that implies plagiarism.
Obviously anyone who was using this system would compare the flagged assignments by hand, rather than linking the system up to an auto-enrolment-termination system;) In the case where the teacher is reasonably sure that cheating has occured then it is easy to check. Interview the two people seperately, the one who cant explain the assignment/program didnt make it...
The purpose teaching is, funnily enough, to teach people. The point of doing an assignment is not the end result, by doing the assignment the student learns a great deal. If they simply utilise someone elses code then they dont learn anything.
Code re-use is a good thing, learning from others work is a good, dont get me wrong here. Uni is not about how you would do things in the real world, it's about giving the student a grounding in a wide variety of base level computer science knowledge, and the only way you can get this knowledge is by implementing things..... yourself
Porn on cell phone? How desperate are people... how much enjoyment can you get from extremely poor resolution grey pixelled porn? I can see people scrolling around the picture trying to imagine what it all would look like if it fitted on one screen;)
For god sakes get a grip people! Then again, maybe I'm just getting old and have forgotten the thrill of recieving a seedy low quality CGA stip poker game on a disk from a mate at school...
I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system
Have you ever played a pokemon game? Regardless of what you think of the multi zillion dollar pokemon marketing empire, the gameboy games are actually quite good jap RPG's.
Yeah, I have the same problem when I'm watching DVD's on my computer, the dvd spin is annoying, it really takes away from the sound of my (admittedly, relatively modest) surround system. I therefore install "proffesional sound baffles" (also known as pillows;) around the case leaving enough gaps big enough for a bit of air flow (hoping the soft pillow material will absorb more sound than it reflects out.
>Are you suggesting that David Peoples wrote Bladerunner?
>Thats a little strong. He co-wrote the screenplay with
>Hampton Fancher, which in turn is based on the book
>'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick.
I was at a book shop the other day and I was saw a copy of the book, except that it had a massive "Blade Runner" title with "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" written in small print, and artwork from the movie on the front. I understand the need to promote that it is the book that Blade Runner was based on, but it seems a little harsh to completely minimise the title of the book that Philip K Dick chose, especially seeing as "Blade Runner" is never mentioned in the book.
>Not to sound like a complete shit, but what about those of us who DIDN'T vandalize somebody else's property?
>But to wave the "wild and crazy youth" flag and expect everybody to salute it is poor thinking. There are enough people who were mature enough at 16 to understand that other people's property is to be respected, not trashed.
I (generally) fly by the straight and narrow, I dont have any police record, driving infringements and I think I'm a good person.
BUT, like everyone, I screw up. Just because somebody screws up in a way that results in them having a (very minor in this case) police record does not mean it should be held over them for the rest of thier life. Could you possibly imagine how bad that would be for them?
It's easy to say "well, they broke the law, this is the consequence of thier action" when you have no police record. Speaking hypothetically, how about if you had a police record for possesing a copy of windows 95 you made from a friend's cd. Now, such an indescretion would be regarded by most on slashdot as stupidly minor (infact, they would probably be more worried about that you felt the need to posses microsoft software). How would you feel if an employer decided not to hire you because of your police record? Victimised? Punished unjustly?
The point is, it is easy for a person to make a minor mistake. They should have to face consequences for thier action, but punishing them years after the fact doesn't do any body in society any good. All you get is a usefull member of society who feels increasingly rejected and alienated from the "mainstream" who dont regard them as perfect enough to have the same rights as others. This is why the current trend of large databases summarising people is so worrying.
There was doom2 (yes, doom) arcade machine. There was two of them hooked together in a laser games place i went to, needless to say I was mighty impressed at the time.
I think the difference between people who believe in the god method of creation vs. people who believe in the big bang method of creation, is that if a new discovery is made, you will probably have a much easier time getting people who believe in the big bang to consider it than those who are religious.
Religion's often tend to place a great importance on faith, that it is the most important thing you can have, religion claims that what it teaches is "the truth" (tm). Science on the other hand puts forth idea's and theory's, theory's are the best idea that we have at the moment as to what could have happened. Hence we call it the big bang _theory_, no claim would be made by anyone half sensible that it is definitely 100% of the truth (I know that sometimes people get very attatched to theory's being definite, but they are still theory's).
I definitely accept the possiblity that there is a god, but I believe that there isnt. I think you would have a much harder time getting someone who is religious to admit the possiblity that they are wrong.
I wonder how long before they get an "offer" from the oil industry in exchange for them moving their research in a "slightly different direction" (read: give up).
Sorry for the slightly cynical view of things, but I'm sure its what will go through an oil baron's head when he reads about this:)
I have to agree, subconscious association is fairly powerful (that is why coke spends $billions on advertising with lots of happy cool people drinking coke). People see spam's tin on slashdot and think "bad, spam is bad".
Everyone knows that they aren't referring to spam the "meat" product, but it can still have a subconscious effect.
I would think that only a small percentage of people on slashdot would consider buying spam anyway (hell, I wouldnt), but maybe we could cut the spam guys a break? They already have their name associated with something that 95% of internet users think is evil, the least we can do is not directly associate their can with it.
I actually thought it was well funny. But thats just me (hey I'm a sick guy). If you dont like it, thats alright, ur allowed not to, dont visit it, excercise the back button.
Slashdot Mirror
In short: no.
Personally, I love Lord of the Rings, but then again, I'm a big fan of the fantasy genre. LOTR has to be read for what it is, which is a beautifully detailed description of an amazingly well imagined world with an averagely detailed story (though still a very enjoyable one). If you are bored by fantasy, then the slow pace of a lot of sections of LOTR will probably put you off. If you want to try fantasy, head for something a bit more exciting like (personal favourite) Sara Douglass.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that Tolkien is the be all and end all of fantasy, and are sadly put off the genre because of it.
Check out a site like www.sffworld.com for book reviews and try to find something that interests you.
They also targeted deep blue to specifically beat Kasparov by analising all of his previous games (such that deep blue was more effective against Kasparov than other players, though it would still be extremely difficult (understatement) to beat). I think he actually complained about it because he didnt have any information on how deep blue played but deep blue had information on him.
Similar to how Tiger Woods can command a few million in appearance money just for turning up.
It's not a hoax. My friend was an exchange student in Japan while it was on, he told me about it after he came back. So yeah, it's true, disturbingly...
120 XP for killing a field mouse? that's pretty tough for a field mouse, was it wearing +4 armour with +50% magic resistance or something?
I tried searching Amazon, but unforunately they don't seem to be available on CD. I actually have MP3s of all the radio shows, which I would really like to make available, but don't have the bandwidth to handle the onslaught.
If you live in Australia you can buy the CD's at your local ABC shop (i saw them a few months ago but they dont seem to be listed on the online store), as well as the tapes. The CD's/tapes of the radio shows _are_ still made and will probably get wider distribitution now (that being what happens when somebody dies).
I would dare say that the webmaster of the _official_ website would probably have known douglas adams personally and therefore at the moment would be thinking about other things than updating the website. Personally it's the last thing I would care about if somebody I knew died.
Yeah Yeah, I know, I forgot to select HTML and didnt use preview ;)
I have been using nautilis since I downloaded ximian gnome 1.4 and I must say I have been impressed. Sure, there are improvements that could be made, and some of the features are a little gimmicky, but its customisable enough to make that not so much of an issue.
<p>It is disapionting that one of the projects linux desperately needs (for mainstream use anyway) is a good graphical file manager. I wonder if Eazel does go under, if an indapendant group would be able to take over. One of the things needed for a good user interface is consistancy of vision which is always hard when dealing with a multitude of developers. We can only hope</p>
<p>RIP Eazel, I have no idea how you ever though you could make any money, but so long and thanks for the file manager.</P>
anything we get from a computer we tend to treat as absolute fact. It is all to easy to find some connection that implies plagiarism.
Obviously anyone who was using this system would compare the flagged assignments by hand, rather than linking the system up to an auto-enrolment-termination system ;) In the case where the teacher is reasonably sure that cheating has occured then it is easy to check. Interview the two people seperately, the one who cant explain the assignment/program didnt make it...
The purpose teaching is, funnily enough, to teach people. The point of doing an assignment is not the end result, by doing the assignment the student learns a great deal. If they simply utilise someone elses code then they dont learn anything.
Code re-use is a good thing, learning from others work is a good, dont get me wrong here. Uni is not about how you would do things in the real world, it's about giving the student a grounding in a wide variety of base level computer science knowledge, and the only way you can get this knowledge is by implementing things..... yourself
Porn on cell phone? How desperate are people... how much enjoyment can you get from extremely poor resolution grey pixelled porn? I can see people scrolling around the picture trying to imagine what it all would look like if it fitted on one screen ;)
For god sakes get a grip people! Then again, maybe I'm just getting old and have forgotten the thrill of recieving a seedy low quality CGA stip poker game on a disk from a mate at school...
I just hope Nintendo realizes that a large portion of gamers today are adults, and leaves the Pokemon crap off of this system
Have you ever played a pokemon game? Regardless of what you think of the multi zillion dollar pokemon marketing empire, the gameboy games are actually quite good jap RPG's.
Yeah, I have the same problem when I'm watching DVD's on my computer, the dvd spin is annoying, it really takes away from the sound of my (admittedly, relatively modest) surround system. I therefore install "proffesional sound baffles" (also known as pillows ;) around the case leaving enough gaps big enough for a bit of air flow (hoping the soft pillow material will absorb more sound than it reflects out.
>Are you suggesting that David Peoples wrote Bladerunner?
>Thats a little strong. He co-wrote the screenplay with
>Hampton Fancher, which in turn is based on the book
>'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick.
I was at a book shop the other day and I was saw a copy of the book, except that it had a massive "Blade Runner" title with "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" written in small print, and artwork from the movie on the front. I understand the need to promote that it is the book that Blade Runner was based on, but it seems a little harsh to completely minimise the title of the book that Philip K Dick chose, especially seeing as "Blade Runner" is never mentioned in the book.
My other sig is does 0 - 100km in 4.9 seconds
>Not to sound like a complete shit, but what about those of us who DIDN'T vandalize somebody else's property?
>But to wave the "wild and crazy youth" flag and expect everybody to salute it is poor thinking. There are enough people who were mature enough at 16 to understand that other people's property is to be respected, not trashed.
I (generally) fly by the straight and narrow, I dont have any police record, driving infringements and I think I'm a good person.
BUT, like everyone, I screw up. Just because somebody screws up in a way that results in them having a (very minor in this case) police record does not mean it should be held over them for the rest of thier life. Could you possibly imagine how bad that would be for them?
It's easy to say "well, they broke the law, this is the consequence of thier action" when you have no police record. Speaking hypothetically, how about if you had a police record for possesing a copy of windows 95 you made from a friend's cd. Now, such an indescretion would be regarded by most on slashdot as stupidly minor (infact, they would probably be more worried about that you felt the need to posses microsoft software). How would you feel if an employer decided not to hire you because of your police record? Victimised? Punished unjustly?
The point is, it is easy for a person to make a minor mistake. They should have to face consequences for thier action, but punishing them years after the fact doesn't do any body in society any good. All you get is a usefull member of society who feels increasingly rejected and alienated from the "mainstream" who dont regard them as perfect enough to have the same rights as others. This is why the current trend of large databases summarising people is so worrying.
I dont know about anyone else, but Ximian sounds like an 80's computer game to me.
I can see a whole lot of emu freaks going "hmmmm, Ximian, yeah I remember that one! you had to shoot stuff or something, damn, that is one huge ROM"
There was doom2 (yes, doom) arcade machine. There was two of them hooked together in a laser games place i went to, needless to say I was mighty impressed at the time.
I think the difference between people who believe in the god method of creation vs. people who believe in the big bang method of creation, is that if a new discovery is made, you will probably have a much easier time getting people who believe in the big bang to consider it than those who are religious.
Religion's often tend to place a great importance on faith, that it is the most important thing you can have, religion claims that what it teaches is "the truth" (tm). Science on the other hand puts forth idea's and theory's, theory's are the best idea that we have at the moment as to what could have happened. Hence we call it the big bang _theory_, no claim would be made by anyone half sensible that it is definitely 100% of the truth (I know that sometimes people get very attatched to theory's being definite, but they are still theory's).
I definitely accept the possiblity that there is a god, but I believe that there isnt. I think you would have a much harder time getting someone who is religious to admit the possiblity that they are wrong.
I wonder how long before they get an "offer" from the oil industry in exchange for them moving their research in a "slightly different direction" (read: give up).
:)
Sorry for the slightly cynical view of things, but I'm sure its what will go through an oil baron's head when he reads about this
I have to agree, subconscious association is fairly powerful (that is why coke spends $billions on advertising with lots of happy cool people drinking coke). People see spam's tin on slashdot and think "bad, spam is bad".
Everyone knows that they aren't referring to spam the "meat" product, but it can still have a subconscious effect.
I would think that only a small percentage of people on slashdot would consider buying spam anyway (hell, I wouldnt), but maybe we could cut the spam guys a break? They already have their name associated with something that 95% of internet users think is evil, the least we can do is not directly associate their can with it.
I actually thought it was well funny. But thats just me (hey I'm a sick guy). If you dont like it, thats alright, ur allowed not to, dont visit it, excercise the back button.