I have only read one issue of Shift, and that was some time ago, but I have to say I wasn't impressed. Remember in the late 90's how desperately people were trying to believe that the new cyber-lifestyle was the coolest shit ever? Well, that was Shift all over. I care about high speed internet and geeky cartoons, but I don't need to get it all wrapped up in "we want to be like the kids in Hackers" attitude. They didn't get my money twice.
-aiabx
It was a good movie, and the cast are definitely us, but it isn't a realistic portrayal of my day to day job, which involves a lot of sitting in a cubicle and going to meetings. It's a good job, but it would make a lousy movie.
-aiabx
Whenever you see a "Dummies" book for sale for a piece of software you've written, it should be a reminder that your software and documentation are so unusable that users need to go to third parties to get the simplest instructions.
-aiabx
I understand that some 160 or so Russians died after a launch accident where a rocket failed to launch and then exploded when it was swarming with engineers trying to get it running. Anyone else heard this?
-aiabx
In one sense what you say is true, but you have to remember the other factors involved; why they were there and the prospective outcome of the deaths. I don't want to get into an argument about the rights and wrongs of American military intervention across the globe, but I believe that the exploration of space is a nobler and finer cause than any military action since 1945. I also believe that a disaster like this has the potential to derail the manned exploration of space for decades to come, whereas the deaths of soldiers is just a price of politics.
-aiabx
but it isn't a shock like when the Challenger blew up. I was always hoping that the next generation shuttle would be ready before probability caught up with the next shuttle, but I guess I was wrong.
-aiabx
This is weird, but you may want to see a doctor. The desire to eat ice is a frequent indicator of anemia. Strange but true. I don't know what eating tape means, though.
-aiabx
AI doesn't care about the censorship. They care about the torture, imprisonment and death of people caught looking at things they aren't allowed to. IHBT. IWHAND.
-aiabx
People will cheerfully line up once every six months to see a big special effects laden space opera, but that doesn't make them fans. It doesn't make them obsessive enough to tune in every week to watch something much less spectacular on TV. My personal opinion is that the hard core nerds they are trying to appeal to have more interesting things to do than sit around watching a lot of television. I know I do.
-aiabx
Vacuum only acts as an insulator as far as conduction of heat is concerned. You will still radiate away all of your heat, and pretty quickly too, though probably not as quickly as you would asphyxiate.
-aiabx
No, temperature is a characteristic of energy. And there's enough microwave radiation floating around in space to bring anything up to equilibrium at 4K.
-aiabx
I can't remember whose CD's are playable on my equipment and which manufacturers use which copy protection, so I'm not going to buy anything. It just isn't worth the trouble.
-aiabx
The Leonids have a very short peak period which will be at the same time everywhere. Your 5am peak is probably the same as my 11pm peak. However, the non-peak meteors will start to arrive close to local midnight, when your side of the earth starts to face into the direction of the earths travel (toward Leo) and stop around dawn, when you can't see them any more.
-aiabx
Re:Check your toy store for even later versions
on
Fanwing Planes?
·
· Score: 1
I was under the impression that the Testor's F-19 was deliberate misinformation, which also showed up in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. I was fooled. I saw little flying triangles way above Yosemite Park in the late eighties, and had no idea they were stealth fighters until years later. I would have expected funny curvy things.
-aiabx
Re:Earth has made it this long w/out our intervent
on
Stopping Killer Asteroids
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The earth made it this long, but the dinosaurs didn't, and neither did the trilobites, or the megatheria, or the wixwaxia... Extinctions happen, and I'd like to prevent ours if at all possible.
-aiabx
And if you leave your wallet at home, you get everything for free since there aren't any cashiers or guards. Of course, you'd better be wearing shoes made before 2003 so you can't be tracked by the chips in them.
-aiabx
The space pens/pencils story is a pretty funny one, but you have to remember that wood and graphite are dangerously combustible in a pure oxygen atmosphere, and graphite dust is the last thing you want floating around in a cabin full of computers. *I* will fly on a spacecraft that can afford the money for a Fisher Space Pen, thanks.
-aiabx
You see the most meteors when the side of the earth you are on is facing into the direction the earth is travelling. No matter where you are, the meteor show will start around 11 local time, and finish around dawn local time.
-aiabx
I had always felt (and this is not an original idea) that the telegraph was the invention of the information age. Before the telegraph, you found out about gold discoveries in Australia when a ship arrived 2 months later. After the telegraph, the information flow was instantaneous (with some latency for retransmission). Everything since - the telephone, radio, TV, the internet - are all just refinements of the telegraph. Bandwidth is higher, you can go wireless, but it's still ust information transmission.
-aiabx
Slashdot Mirror
I have only read one issue of Shift, and that was some time ago, but I have to say I wasn't impressed. Remember in the late 90's how desperately people were trying to believe that the new cyber-lifestyle was the coolest shit ever? Well, that was Shift all over. I care about high speed internet and geeky cartoons, but I don't need to get it all wrapped up in "we want to be like the kids in Hackers" attitude. They didn't get my money twice.
-aiabx
It was a good movie, and the cast are definitely us, but it isn't a realistic portrayal of my day to day job, which involves a lot of sitting in a cubicle and going to meetings. It's a good job, but it would make a lousy movie.
-aiabx
Whenever you see a "Dummies" book for sale for a piece of software you've written, it should be a reminder that your software and documentation are so unusable that users need to go to third parties to get the simplest instructions.
-aiabx
I understand that some 160 or so Russians died after a launch accident where a rocket failed to launch and then exploded when it was swarming with engineers trying to get it running. Anyone else heard this?
-aiabx
In one sense what you say is true, but you have to remember the other factors involved; why they were there and the prospective outcome of the deaths. I don't want to get into an argument about the rights and wrongs of American military intervention across the globe, but I believe that the exploration of space is a nobler and finer cause than any military action since 1945. I also believe that a disaster like this has the potential to derail the manned exploration of space for decades to come, whereas the deaths of soldiers is just a price of politics.
-aiabx
but it isn't a shock like when the Challenger blew up. I was always hoping that the next generation shuttle would be ready before probability caught up with the next shuttle, but I guess I was wrong.
-aiabx
Schwarzenegger? Definitely non-human.
-aiabx
This is weird, but you may want to see a doctor. The desire to eat ice is a frequent indicator of anemia. Strange but true. I don't know what eating tape means, though.
-aiabx
We measure temperature by observing the effect of energy on matter, but the energy is there whether the thermometer is there or not.
-aiabx
AI doesn't care about the censorship. They care about the torture, imprisonment and death of people caught looking at things they aren't allowed to.
IHBT. IWHAND.
-aiabx
People will cheerfully line up once every six months to see a big special effects laden space opera, but that doesn't make them fans. It doesn't make them obsessive enough to tune in every week to watch something much less spectacular on TV.
My personal opinion is that the hard core nerds they are trying to appeal to have more interesting things to do than sit around watching a lot of television. I know I do.
-aiabx
Vacuum only acts as an insulator as far as conduction of heat is concerned. You will still radiate away all of your heat, and pretty quickly too, though probably not as quickly as you would asphyxiate.
-aiabx
No, temperature is a characteristic of energy. And there's enough microwave radiation floating around in space to bring anything up to equilibrium at 4K.
-aiabx
What I find even more interesting is the belief that profiling software indicates that the machine cares about them.
-aiabx
I can't remember whose CD's are playable on my equipment and which manufacturers use which copy protection, so I'm not going to buy anything. It just isn't worth the trouble.
-aiabx
I sure did. I'm old!
-aiabx
The Leonids have a very short peak period which will be at the same time everywhere. Your 5am peak is probably the same as my 11pm peak. However, the non-peak meteors will start to arrive close to local midnight, when your side of the earth starts to face into the direction of the earths travel (toward Leo) and stop around dawn, when you can't see them any more.
-aiabx
I was under the impression that the Testor's F-19 was deliberate misinformation, which also showed up in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. I was fooled. I saw little flying triangles way above Yosemite Park in the late eighties, and had no idea they were stealth fighters until years later. I would have expected funny curvy things.
-aiabx
d'oh. That's wiwaxia.
-aiabx
The earth made it this long, but the dinosaurs didn't, and neither did the trilobites, or the megatheria, or the wixwaxia... Extinctions happen, and I'd like to prevent ours if at all possible.
-aiabx
And if you leave your wallet at home, you get everything for free since there aren't any cashiers or guards.
Of course, you'd better be wearing shoes made before 2003 so you can't be tracked by the chips in them.
-aiabx
The space pens/pencils story is a pretty funny one, but you have to remember that wood and graphite are dangerously combustible in a pure oxygen atmosphere, and graphite dust is the last thing you want floating around in a cabin full of computers.
*I* will fly on a spacecraft that can afford the money for a Fisher Space Pen, thanks.
-aiabx
You see the most meteors when the side of the earth you are on is facing into the direction the earth is travelling. No matter where you are, the meteor show will start around 11 local time, and finish around dawn local time.
-aiabx
Keep in mind this is two days before the full moon, so you're going to miss a lot of low magnitude meteors.
-aiabx
I had always felt (and this is not an original idea) that the telegraph was the invention of the information age. Before the telegraph, you found out about gold discoveries in Australia when a ship arrived 2 months later. After the telegraph, the information flow was instantaneous (with some latency for retransmission).
Everything since - the telephone, radio, TV, the internet - are all just refinements of the telegraph. Bandwidth is higher, you can go wireless, but it's still ust information transmission.
-aiabx