These things are cool, but Legos will always be the best...they've survived longer than all sorts of cool building toys, and they're still going strong. If I had my legos here in my dorm room I would still drag them out from time to time...but I had to leave them at home. D'oh!
People like to talk about how building blocks and things of that sort encourage kids to learn, and so on...sometimes you wonder how much truth there really is in that. If a little kid is creative enough to build lots of stuff from legos, they're probably going to go build things (cities in the dirt, and the like) regardless of whether they have a lego set.
It would be kinda cool to see something like Mindstorms for other building blocks, like these Expandagons...nothing like more expensive toys to play with:) These things look kinda like K'Nex on crack...and those things were pretty fun.
I was going to put together a system last summer since I was going off to school, but my dad insisted that I buy a "boxed" system - he thought that for some reason I wouldn't be able to fix a custom box if something broke.
So, in August I ordered a Dimension T500, pretty much top of the line. P3 500, 256mb ram, 20 gig 7200 rpm Maxtor hard drive (yeah, I wouldn't have bought a Maxtor), 17" Trinitron monitor, and so on. Everything came to about $2400, and after shopping around, it would have cost me a few hundred dollars more to put together the same system.
Drawbacks? It, of course, came with a winmodem. I think I might hang that on my wall to ward off the evil winmodem spirits. Also, the Montego II soundcard isn't yet supported in Linux AFAIK, but I have a borrowed ES1371 that works fine.
Overall, I'm very happy with my system. The case design is nice, very easy to open (1 thumbscrew and 2 tabs that you press on for a side panel) and the inside is really clean - no tangled power or ribbon cables. It also has a neat little plastic vent over the CPU (nice, toasty P3) with a big fan (3" IIRC) that keeps it really cool. It happily runs 24/7 while I'm at school and so far I haven't had a single problem with it.
Should this article be moderated down as flamebait?
What a coincidence....
on
Gates of Fire
·
· Score: 1
I just finished reading this book less than 10 minutes ago, and now I get online and behold, its on Slashdot... I must say, this was an excellent book. I've always been a fan of fantasy type books, and its a nice change to see an interesting novel of this type thats actually based in history.
When we're walking, we don't always move in the direction that our feet are pointing - sometimes we sidestep, or even jump in another direction. But most of the systems described here would interpret walking sideways as walking forward. Of course, the problem could be worked around by tracking the orientation of the user's feet.
There are probably other problems that would require tracking of movement of other body parts, since we shift our weight and swing our arms and such to help keep balance or to give a little more force towards moving in a certain direction.
I would imagine that it would be more difficult to track a running person - feet hit the ground less often, and there would probably be more problems with stability and balance running on any sort of a trackball-like device.
Configurability creates confusion for most users, so you should keep configuration options down to a minimum.
For most users...how many of us are just common users? Sure, Linux would confuse the heck out of someone who is computer illiterate, but a lot of us love the extra power over configuration. There's not really an obvious solution for a mass market device like the Palm, but remember that configuration options are just that -- options.
The book is currently on back order....did Amazon get slashdotted?? Do they keep more detailed information about sales online, like how many copies were sold per day/week? I couldn't find anything like that.
Sorry we can't be perfect like that... So, if you had billions of dollars, would you just give away that much, for the sake of that "warm, fuzzy feeling you get inside"? Think of all the other things they could be spending that money on - expanding the corporation, hiring more programmers to fix all the problems in Windows, and the list goes on.
So, what do you do? Do you just give away the money all at once? Or do you wait until it will benfit you and others at the same time, then give it away? What's so wrong about that?
I like South Park, but it's not going to be anything like Python. It really looks like it's headed in the same direction as Beavis and Butthead - all the kids love it becuase it's the most vulgar show on TV, all the parents hate it for the same reason. Eventually, all the kids start realizing, "Hey....this isn't very funny anymore. Now it just kinda sucks." and then they change the channel.
But The Simpsons just keeps on going. By the way, Metallica will be the next Led Zeppelin, mark my words.
I don't follow Linux development too closely becuase I don't know enough (yet...) to understand many things, much less contribute. But, does anyone know about how many people actually work on Linux? That is, how many are active and submit code that actually gets added to the kernel? Is there anyone out there who has a fairly accurate count or even a guess?
Scorched Earth is still around...I have a copy that came off of IRC (all those warez idiots trade it around because it's small and gets them credit on ratio servers).
There's a farily new game called Worms that is basically a pretty version of Scorch, and a sequel called Worms II : Armageddon (I think)
Or, you could just play Gorillas, the game that usually came with Qbasic.
Are there any laser sights out there that can be seen in broad daylight? I have a Daisy laser sight that I tried on my paintball gun, but during the daytime you can only see it up to a few feet away. Laser pointers are the same if not worse.
Anyone ever try skeet shooting with a frisbee and a super soaker? It's very fun...plus, with all that practice, you could move on up to other moving targets, like, say, squirrels.
Someone please make a video of a squirrel getting taken down by a Super Soaker and put it on the web. It could join the ranks of classics like the sheep running into the wall. My Boot: Movies has that classic bit of cinematography and some other gems, too.
What do we send in the mail? Money. The bills come in and the checks go out. Sure, you can just get many places to automatically bill your credit card, but you still have to pay your credit card bill. You may even be able to have the money taken straight from your bank account but you still get your bank statement.
Sure, you could do most of those things online, but a lot of people (myself included) don't trust the internet for financial stuff. Most software used for email and such is too insecure and unstable. I'll just keep doing finances through snail mail if you don't mind.
You aren't daydreaming...that's where I'm going next year. I'm a sophomore in a public high school, and next year I'm going away to a program at the University of North Texas called TAMS (Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science). It's an early college program where you complete HS and the 1st 2 years of college concurrently.
Every year, 200 new students are accepted, for a total of 400 in the dorm (yes, its residential). It's a pretty selective program, as they select the 200 from about 600 applicants who are among the best students in the state. Just imagine, instead of maybe five people who you can really identify with at your high school (thats about it for me anyways...), you live in a dorm 24/7 with 400 of them.
The best part is that the Texas Legislature foots the tuition bill, so all you have to pay is about $3500 for room and board, although you can even get scholarships for that.
And yes, there will be a 100-base-T in every room.
If you want to know more about the program, they have a small website at http://www.tams.unt.edu/
Slashdot Mirror
These things are cool, but Legos will always be the best...they've survived longer than all sorts of cool building toys, and they're still going strong. If I had my legos here in my dorm room I would still drag them out from time to time...but I had to leave them at home. D'oh!
:)
People like to talk about how building blocks and things of that sort encourage kids to learn, and so on...sometimes you wonder how much truth there really is in that. If a little kid is creative enough to build lots of stuff from legos, they're probably going to go build things (cities in the dirt, and the like) regardless of whether they have a lego set.
It would be kinda cool to see something like Mindstorms for other building blocks, like these Expandagons...nothing like more expensive toys to play with
These things look kinda like K'Nex on crack...and those things were pretty fun.
I was going to put together a system last summer since I was going off to school, but my dad insisted that I buy a "boxed" system - he thought that for some reason I wouldn't be able to fix a custom box if something broke.
So, in August I ordered a Dimension T500, pretty much top of the line. P3 500, 256mb ram, 20 gig 7200 rpm Maxtor hard drive (yeah, I wouldn't have bought a Maxtor), 17" Trinitron monitor, and so on. Everything came to about $2400, and after shopping around, it would have cost me a few hundred dollars more to put together the same system.
Drawbacks? It, of course, came with a winmodem. I think I might hang that on my wall to ward off the evil winmodem spirits. Also, the Montego II soundcard isn't yet supported in Linux AFAIK, but I have a borrowed ES1371 that works fine.
Overall, I'm very happy with my system. The case design is nice, very easy to open (1 thumbscrew and 2 tabs that you press on for a side panel) and the inside is really clean - no tangled power or ribbon cables. It also has a neat little plastic vent over the CPU (nice, toasty P3) with a big fan (3" IIRC) that keeps it really cool. It happily runs 24/7 while I'm at school and so far I haven't had a single problem with it.
I have seen several USB modems, and I would assume that they are winmodems...I think Creative has a USB Modem Blaster out, but I'm not sure.
That would be fun to work with in linux...a USB winmodem. Ye gods...
Should this article be moderated down as flamebait?
I just finished reading this book less than 10 minutes ago, and now I get online and behold, its on Slashdot... I must say, this was an excellent book. I've always been a fan of fantasy type books, and its a nice change to see an interesting novel of this type thats actually based in history.
When we're walking, we don't always move in the direction that our feet are pointing - sometimes we sidestep, or even jump in another direction. But most of the systems described here would interpret walking sideways as walking forward. Of course, the problem could be worked around by tracking the orientation of the user's feet.
There are probably other problems that would require tracking of movement of other body parts, since we shift our weight and swing our arms and such to help keep balance or to give a little more force towards moving in a certain direction.
I would imagine that it would be more difficult to track a running person - feet hit the ground less often, and there would probably be more problems with stability and balance running on any sort of a trackball-like device.
Configurability creates confusion for most users, so you should keep configuration options down to a minimum.
For most users...how many of us are just common users? Sure, Linux would confuse the heck out of someone who is computer illiterate, but a lot of us love the extra power over configuration. There's not really an obvious solution for a mass market device like the Palm, but remember that configuration options are just that -- options.
The book is currently on back order....did Amazon get slashdotted?? Do they keep more detailed information about sales online, like how many copies were sold per day/week? I couldn't find anything like that.
Sorry we can't be perfect like that...
So, if you had billions of dollars, would you just give away that much, for the sake of that "warm, fuzzy feeling you get inside"? Think of all the other things they could be spending that money on - expanding the corporation, hiring more programmers to fix all the problems in Windows, and the list goes on.
So, what do you do? Do you just give away the money all at once? Or do you wait until it will benfit you and others at the same time, then give it away? What's so wrong about that?
I like South Park, but it's not going to be anything like Python. It really looks like it's headed in the same direction as Beavis and Butthead - all the kids love it becuase it's the most vulgar show on TV, all the parents hate it for the same reason. Eventually, all the kids start realizing, "Hey....this isn't very funny anymore. Now it just kinda sucks." and then they change the channel.
But The Simpsons just keeps on going. By the way, Metallica will be the next Led Zeppelin, mark my words.
I don't follow Linux development too closely becuase I don't know enough (yet...) to understand many things, much less contribute. But, does anyone know about how many people actually work on Linux? That is, how many are active and submit code that actually gets added to the kernel? Is there anyone out there who has a fairly accurate count or even a guess?
Scorched Earth is still around...I have a copy that came off of IRC (all those warez idiots trade it around because it's small and gets them credit on ratio servers).
There's a farily new game called Worms that is basically a pretty version of Scorch, and a sequel called Worms II : Armageddon (I think)
Or, you could just play Gorillas, the game that usually came with Qbasic.
Are there any laser sights out there that can be seen in broad daylight? I have a Daisy laser sight that I tried on my paintball gun, but during the daytime you can only see it up to a few feet away. Laser pointers are the same if not worse.
Anyone ever try skeet shooting with a frisbee and a super soaker? It's very fun...plus, with all that practice, you could move on up to other moving targets, like, say, squirrels.
Someone please make a video of a squirrel getting taken down by a Super Soaker and put it on the web. It could join the ranks of classics like the sheep running into the wall.
My Boot: Movies has that classic bit of cinematography and some other gems, too.
What do we send in the mail? Money. The bills come in and the checks go out. Sure, you can just get many places to automatically bill your credit card, but you still have to pay your credit card bill. You may even be able to have the money taken straight from your bank account but you still get your bank statement.
Sure, you could do most of those things online, but a lot of people (myself included) don't trust the internet for financial stuff. Most software used for email and such is too insecure and unstable. I'll just keep doing finances through snail mail if you don't mind.
You aren't daydreaming...that's where I'm going next year. I'm a sophomore in a public high school, and next year I'm going away to a program at the University of North Texas called TAMS (Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science). It's an early college program where you complete HS and the 1st 2 years of college concurrently.
Every year, 200 new students are accepted, for a total of 400 in the dorm (yes, its residential). It's a pretty selective program, as they select the 200 from about 600 applicants who are among the best students in the state. Just imagine, instead of maybe five people who you can really identify with at your high school (thats about it for me anyways...), you live in a dorm 24/7 with 400 of them.
The best part is that the Texas Legislature foots the tuition bill, so all you have to pay is about $3500 for room and board, although you can even get scholarships for that.
And yes, there will be a 100-base-T in every room.
If you want to know more about the program, they have a small website at http://www.tams.unt.edu/