A couple months ago, I had a very sharp pain in my lower back and so I went to see a physiotherapist. As it turned out, I was sitting improperly in my chair, causing the fluid inside two of my spinal discs to be forced backwards. This puts pressure on the nerves, which of course causes pain.
Probably the simplest thing you can do is to put your hands to your hips and lean far backwards, repeating ten times. Do this every thirty or so minutes when you're working at your computer (you should, after all, get up and do *something* at least once an hour). This helps tremendously! Once the pain is gone, you can still continue this activity every once in a while, to maintain your back.
How do you expect Slashdot to be running something that they *just* released? It's common sense that they should finish the product, then move Slashdot over to it, not move Slashdot, then finish debugging. Give them a couple days to rest, and then a couple more to make the move. No sweat.
do you use the XMMS Alarm plugin or a conventional alarm clock?
I take it you have a computer in your bedroom, and that it stays on overnight. Don't do that.
You'll get a much better sleep if you don't have the computer on. Sure, it acts as white noise, but it still does provide a lot of noise in an otherwise quiet room. Do yourself a favour and shut it down when you finish for the night.
If you absolutely must use XMMS Alarm or a rough equivalent, go into your BIOS and set an automatic boot-up time, perhaps 15 minutes before you normally would wake up. The noise it generates will probably start to wake you up, and your alarm program will surely do the rest.
This isn't to say that there aren't other things to do to get a good night's rest. I've seen some excellent comments posted in this thread, so I won't rehash them.
Last month the whole of the province of Ontario (in Canada, for whoever doesn't know =) lost out on Rogers@Home cable twice, but not due to Internet attacks. It was more along the line of pure stupidity, really.
The first outage was the result of thieves trying to steal copper cabling. They accidentally cut the ONE fibre-optic cable that services our province (located between Toronto and Buffalo). Brilliant, no? Rogers does have redundancy servers and connections in place, but chose at the time not to use them because they were so outdated, the service would slow to a crawl and crash anyway. So much fun!
The second instance of a problem was a server crash in California that brought us down again. Why Ontario servers are located in California is anyone's guess. Very dumb, IMO, but who am I to tell Rogers what to do? (To be fair, they are currently relocating the servers, but far too late).
At least the service is decent for the most part, and Rogers has the cable monopoly here, so I can't do much about it but live it out;-)
(I did, however, have a *lot* of fun when they sent out a customer satisfaction survey a couple weeks ago!)
I absolutely agree that wiring through ducts is convenient. Occasionally, the ducts don't go where you want them to, or they take a longer route, but that's the price to pay for great convenience.
One thing I find very helpful when doing this is to first of all take a ball (NOT a roll) of heavy string or nylon and pass that down from the exit. Hopefully you'll be able to guide it a little by tapping on the ducts on the way down.
When you reach the bottom, tie the string to the end of the cable, and pull back up. I find it particularly helpful to put a small sandwich bag over the end of the cable, tied in place with an elastic band. This ensures that the cable stays clean.
I'm no optometrist, but I'm pretty sure that the answer to this is "Yes". Poor refresh rates have been proven to cause headaches and eye strain, and I sure can attest to that. I highly recommend you get a new monitor if you can afford it. I imagine your 1993 model is also releasing a fair amount of radiation (when compared to today's models), which surely doesn't help your eyesight either.
The single most important thing you need to consider is the refresh rate when you're staring at a monitor for hours on end.
In theory, a monitor that displays past 72Hz is extraneous (because supposedly that's all the eye can see), but believe me, the difference between 72Hz and 85Hz becomes painfully obvious within a few hours.
If your department's budget can't afford an LCD (which is best for your eyes because refresh rate really doesn't exist, and the light is softer), see if you can get something that can do about 1280*1024 @ 85Hz. This is good for a 17" or a 19" conventional monitor. Even if you don't need that high a resolution, it is still helpful. The smaller the pixel size, the more fluid the screen appears. Always helpful.
After testing a few monitors for my own use, I settled on an LG Flatron 795FT Plus. It's flat, which is really nice because it also reduces glare. However, you really should take a look around a computer store and see for yourself. Test different resolutions and if it possible, see what it looks like in the dark (will *not* be possible in your average big box store).
One last note. Check to see what the white is. The purest white you find on most monitors is a 9300K (Kelvin) white, while cheaper monitors opt for around 6500K, which is more beige. A whiter white makes for better clarity, but for some monitors, may impair refresh rate.
You miss the point. It's not a question of "why do we do it?", but rather one of "can we do it?"
Humanity has always tried making new things for the sake of making new things. It is part of our inherent nature. Almost all of scientific progress is made through trial and error, along with "can we do it?" episodes such as this.
We went to the Moon so we could say we had gone there. Now we're aiming for Mars. Who cares if it doesn't *immediately* benefit us? Some day it will. When we get to Mars we'll be asking ourselves why we didn't do it sooner.
Nanotechnology has many, many possible applications, from medicine to disaster clean-ups. Choosing a wine glass was just one way of showing it *is* possible to do that. Of course, it would take billions of these things to intoxicate anyone, but intoxication was never the point.
It was necessary to start somewhere, so they chose to start there. I applaud them for getting this far!
A little correction actually. The moon is headed to Earth, not distant space. Some simple laser-aided telemetry shows that the Moon is approaching us at about 1 foot per year. Nothing to be worried about for the next few billion years.
So really, tidal forces will increase over time, but not measurably in any way. Oh, just to add, tides and waves work by gravity. The only way to affect them would be to actually blow away a significant portion of the Moon into distant space, where gravity wouldn't affect us. THEN we'd see tides weaken.
Your concern is that removing kinetic energy from the waves will cause unwanted harm.
Can't happen.
As a wave hits the coastline, it starts to break up. Eventually, it spills over itself and the wave ends. This is the point of zero remaining kinetic energy, and the point of maximum potential energy. The wave retreats, as always.
From what I can tell, this technology uses both kinetic and potential energies to generate electricity. However, it doesn't remove any more energy than the wave would remove on its own. There is absolutely no way that the climate would be harmed by having a man-made structure remove the same kinetic and potential energy from a wave, that it would lose without man's help.
We're looking at 3D traffic here. We've got at least a couple kilometres of vertical space to deal with before the temperatures drop significantly. Added to this the now-unobstructed horizontal flight path, and you actually increase traffic capacity by a factor of over a thousand, allowing for safety room between the flying packs.
It would take us decades to fill up that much space:P
Doesn't that get annoying at one point or another? "Slash-dot-dot-dot"... Honestly I'm surprised that.dot was released as a TLD, since it's going to get it many tongues' way...
DivX;-) the codec was named as such (and with the smiley) deliberately to make fun of DivX the secure movie player. DivX (player) had encryption detection algorithms built in so that it could only play authorised movies. DivX codec deliberately avoids encryption, sort of.
More than anything, the name of the codec is a parody on the name of the technology, since they're in effect one-uping Circuit City...
A singularity, which is the very centre of a black hole and in theory a point of infinite gravity, is (once again in theory) infinitely small. So we'd actually be talking about one heck of a small pinpoint here;)
"Come on if u just read the documents its quite easy"
The problem with this is that the average user doesn't have the slightest clue about configuring files or looking for hidden options in a GUI without a mouse. It simply doesn't work. That's why the USB development is so important: it helps bring Linux to the average user. Yes, that's what everyone says, but everyone says it because it's true.
I have the same mouse as you (Intellimouse Explorer) and haven't seen Red Hat or SuSE get it to work without at least some hacking of config files. Mandrake 7 works, but not quite. So, now that the USB drivers are nearing completion, anyone with a USB mouse, or any other USB device for that matter, will now be able to adopt Linux more easily.
Think about it. It's largely psychological. If Joe Newbie takes the plunge and installs Linux, only to find that he can't do the slightest thing because his mouse doesn't work and he just clicked OK throughout the install, he's not going to be impressed. In fact, he will probably shun Linux as a whole because of his sloppiness.
Anyhow, that's my long-winded way of saying this is a Good Thing (tm).
If you're lucky, that is. I do agree that the arcos weren't nearly as interesting as they sounded, but the launch arco did, in the win95 version of the game (the DOS version didn't do this), launch. It was kind of funny actually, since the arcos were just replaced by smoke, in the same way as they'd burn down or be destroyed by an earthquake.
There was a rather unfortunate problem though with the SC2K design, which was that the population limit was around 9.1M, no matter how many arcos you had. After 9.1M people, the arcos and any other buildings would just say None under all the categories. (Okay, this is poor planning on their behalf, but they could have forseen people building 1022 launch arcos to have a multi-billion people population:))
But back to your point, I agree that the arcos in general weren't overly interesting, save for increasing density by a ridiculous amount.
It looks like there's now a very good reason for buying an X-Box, aside from playing games (we must wait and see what the quality and performance are like, sometime next year). If this thing can record standard TV shows, it will actually be a benefit to the public.
Sooner or later, the VCR will have to disappear, and if we can get a cheap digital replacement, that's great. Add a DVD burner (they should be within the "affordable" range within the next couple of years) and you're set for permanent and high-quality recordings.
Yes, I know it's Microsoft and all, but I do actually think it could work. Of course, it's all speculation, but if it does become reality, it will be VERY useful and influential.
Slashdot Mirror
Since this thing is based on the Ford Explorer, you can probably expect oil usage to increase only slightly when deploying oil slicks.
A couple months ago, I had a very sharp pain in my lower back and so I went to see a physiotherapist. As it turned out, I was sitting improperly in my chair, causing the fluid inside two of my spinal discs to be forced backwards. This puts pressure on the nerves, which of course causes pain.
Probably the simplest thing you can do is to put your hands to your hips and lean far backwards, repeating ten times. Do this every thirty or so minutes when you're working at your computer (you should, after all, get up and do *something* at least once an hour). This helps tremendously! Once the pain is gone, you can still continue this activity every once in a while, to maintain your back.
How do you expect Slashdot to be running something that they *just* released? It's common sense that they should finish the product, then move Slashdot over to it, not move Slashdot, then finish debugging. Give them a couple days to rest, and then a couple more to make the move. No sweat.
I take it you have a computer in your bedroom, and that it stays on overnight. Don't do that.
You'll get a much better sleep if you don't have the computer on. Sure, it acts as white noise, but it still does provide a lot of noise in an otherwise quiet room. Do yourself a favour and shut it down when you finish for the night.
If you absolutely must use XMMS Alarm or a rough equivalent, go into your BIOS and set an automatic boot-up time, perhaps 15 minutes before you normally would wake up. The noise it generates will probably start to wake you up, and your alarm program will surely do the rest.
This isn't to say that there aren't other things to do to get a good night's rest. I've seen some excellent comments posted in this thread, so I won't rehash them.
Last month the whole of the province of Ontario (in Canada, for whoever doesn't know =) lost out on Rogers@Home cable twice, but not due to Internet attacks. It was more along the line of pure stupidity, really.
;-)
The first outage was the result of thieves trying to steal copper cabling. They accidentally cut the ONE fibre-optic cable that services our province (located between Toronto and Buffalo). Brilliant, no? Rogers does have redundancy servers and connections in place, but chose at the time not to use them because they were so outdated, the service would slow to a crawl and crash anyway. So much fun!
The second instance of a problem was a server crash in California that brought us down again. Why Ontario servers are located in California is anyone's guess. Very dumb, IMO, but who am I to tell Rogers what to do? (To be fair, they are currently relocating the servers, but far too late).
At least the service is decent for the most part, and Rogers has the cable monopoly here, so I can't do much about it but live it out
(I did, however, have a *lot* of fun when they sent out a customer satisfaction survey a couple weeks ago!)
I absolutely agree that wiring through ducts is convenient. Occasionally, the ducts don't go where you want them to, or they take a longer route, but that's the price to pay for great convenience.
One thing I find very helpful when doing this is to first of all take a ball (NOT a roll) of heavy string or nylon and pass that down from the exit. Hopefully you'll be able to guide it a little by tapping on the ducts on the way down.
When you reach the bottom, tie the string to the end of the cable, and pull back up. I find it particularly helpful to put a small sandwich bag over the end of the cable, tied in place with an elastic band. This ensures that the cable stays clean.
Good luck!
I'm no optometrist, but I'm pretty sure that the answer to this is "Yes". Poor refresh rates have been proven to cause headaches and eye strain, and I sure can attest to that. I highly recommend you get a new monitor if you can afford it. I imagine your 1993 model is also releasing a fair amount of radiation (when compared to today's models), which surely doesn't help your eyesight either.
The single most important thing you need to consider is the refresh rate when you're staring at a monitor for hours on end.
In theory, a monitor that displays past 72Hz is extraneous (because supposedly that's all the eye can see), but believe me, the difference between 72Hz and 85Hz becomes painfully obvious within a few hours.
If your department's budget can't afford an LCD (which is best for your eyes because refresh rate really doesn't exist, and the light is softer), see if you can get something that can do about 1280*1024 @ 85Hz. This is good for a 17" or a 19" conventional monitor. Even if you don't need that high a resolution, it is still helpful. The smaller the pixel size, the more fluid the screen appears. Always helpful.
After testing a few monitors for my own use, I settled on an LG Flatron 795FT Plus. It's flat, which is really nice because it also reduces glare. However, you really should take a look around a computer store and see for yourself. Test different resolutions and if it possible, see what it looks like in the dark (will *not* be possible in your average big box store).
One last note. Check to see what the white is. The purest white you find on most monitors is a 9300K (Kelvin) white, while cheaper monitors opt for around 6500K, which is more beige. A whiter white makes for better clarity, but for some monitors, may impair refresh rate.
Happy hunting!
You miss the point. It's not a question of "why do we do it?", but rather one of "can we do it?"
Humanity has always tried making new things for the sake of making new things. It is part of our inherent nature. Almost all of scientific progress is made through trial and error, along with "can we do it?" episodes such as this.
We went to the Moon so we could say we had gone there. Now we're aiming for Mars. Who cares if it doesn't *immediately* benefit us? Some day it will. When we get to Mars we'll be asking ourselves why we didn't do it sooner.
Nanotechnology has many, many possible applications, from medicine to disaster clean-ups. Choosing a wine glass was just one way of showing it *is* possible to do that. Of course, it would take billions of these things to intoxicate anyone, but intoxication was never the point.
It was necessary to start somewhere, so they chose to start there. I applaud them for getting this far!
I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out... Wow, I'm out of touch on the Moon's distance :)
A little correction actually. The moon is headed to Earth, not distant space. Some simple laser-aided telemetry shows that the Moon is approaching us at about 1 foot per year. Nothing to be worried about for the next few billion years.
So really, tidal forces will increase over time, but not measurably in any way. Oh, just to add, tides and waves work by gravity. The only way to affect them would be to actually blow away a significant portion of the Moon into distant space, where gravity wouldn't affect us. THEN we'd see tides weaken.
Your concern is that removing kinetic energy from the waves will cause unwanted harm.
Can't happen.
As a wave hits the coastline, it starts to break up. Eventually, it spills over itself and the wave ends. This is the point of zero remaining kinetic energy, and the point of maximum potential energy. The wave retreats, as always.
From what I can tell, this technology uses both kinetic and potential energies to generate electricity. However, it doesn't remove any more energy than the wave would remove on its own. There is absolutely no way that the climate would be harmed by having a man-made structure remove the same kinetic and potential energy from a wave, that it would lose without man's help.
We're looking at 3D traffic here. We've got at least a couple kilometres of vertical space to deal with before the temperatures drop significantly. Added to this the now-unobstructed horizontal flight path, and you actually increase traffic capacity by a factor of over a thousand, allowing for safety room between the flying packs.
:P
It would take us decades to fill up that much space
three times fast:
.dot was released as a TLD, since it's going to get it many tongues' way...
slashdot.dot
Doesn't that get annoying at one point or another? "Slash-dot-dot-dot"... Honestly I'm surprised that
DivX ;-) the codec was named as such (and with the smiley) deliberately to make fun of DivX the secure movie player. DivX (player) had encryption detection algorithms built in so that it could only play authorised movies. DivX codec deliberately avoids encryption, sort of.
More than anything, the name of the codec is a parody on the name of the technology, since they're in effect one-uping Circuit City...
A singularity, which is the very centre of a black hole and in theory a point of infinite gravity, is (once again in theory) infinitely small. So we'd actually be talking about one heck of a small pinpoint here ;)
"Come on if u just read the documents its quite easy"
The problem with this is that the average user doesn't have the slightest clue about configuring files or looking for hidden options in a GUI without a mouse. It simply doesn't work. That's why the USB development is so important: it helps bring Linux to the average user. Yes, that's what everyone says, but everyone says it because it's true.
I have the same mouse as you (Intellimouse Explorer) and haven't seen Red Hat or SuSE get it to work without at least some hacking of config files. Mandrake 7 works, but not quite. So, now that the USB drivers are nearing completion, anyone with a USB mouse, or any other USB device for that matter, will now be able to adopt Linux more easily.
Think about it. It's largely psychological. If Joe Newbie takes the plunge and installs Linux, only to find that he can't do the slightest thing because his mouse doesn't work and he just clicked OK throughout the install, he's not going to be impressed. In fact, he will probably shun Linux as a whole because of his sloppiness.
Anyhow, that's my long-winded way of saying this is a Good Thing (tm).
With the current growth trends in SUVs, it won't have to be all that much smaller than a fridge to blend right into the styling ;-)
If you're lucky, that is. I do agree that the arcos weren't nearly as interesting as they sounded, but the launch arco did, in the win95 version of the game (the DOS version didn't do this), launch. It was kind of funny actually, since the arcos were just replaced by smoke, in the same way as they'd burn down or be destroyed by an earthquake.
:))
There was a rather unfortunate problem though with the SC2K design, which was that the population limit was around 9.1M, no matter how many arcos you had. After 9.1M people, the arcos and any other buildings would just say None under all the categories. (Okay, this is poor planning on their behalf, but they could have forseen people building 1022 launch arcos to have a multi-billion people population
But back to your point, I agree that the arcos in general weren't overly interesting, save for increasing density by a ridiculous amount.
It looks like there's now a very good reason for buying an X-Box, aside from playing games (we must wait and see what the quality and performance are like, sometime next year). If this thing can record standard TV shows, it will actually be a benefit to the public.
Sooner or later, the VCR will have to disappear, and if we can get a cheap digital replacement, that's great. Add a DVD burner (they should be within the "affordable" range within the next couple of years) and you're set for permanent and high-quality recordings.
Yes, I know it's Microsoft and all, but I do actually think it could work. Of course, it's all speculation, but if it does become reality, it will be VERY useful and influential.