that someone with the handle "Tasty Penis" is posting in this thread.
The moderators were clearly on crack.
on
Comic Book Physics
·
· Score: 1
. . . how else do you explain my post getting modded "Interesting"?!?
I took this guy's class.
on
Comic Book Physics
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I found it very engaging. It was somewhat lightweight, but very entertaining! The U of MN is doing good with this guy.
However, he mentioned a few superheroes that I've never heard of before -- maybe/. can help me out? Lefsa-Man, The IceFisher, SnowmoBelly . . . maybe these are DC characters?
Hmmmm. Actually, given that heat helps to speed up this reaction, I would think that the best initial color would probably be black (absorbs heat). That would be the right way.:P
But I think that even outside of personality and ego factors, the thing that hurt Wolfram the most is the way that the material he is presenting lies directly at the intersection of "the sciences" and "mathematics". (Or "the sciences" and "programming").
You say that he 'solves nor resolves NO existing problem, he just shows how CA behavior maps to real systems and says "aha!" and moves on.'
That's bullshit. I've read the book as well -- and learned to use mathematica and implemented a good variety of the actual programs described therein. And he does NOT show how CA behavior "maps" to anything, and he would probably be offended by the suggestion. Wolfram was a physical scientist who then developed his own program for pure mathematical research, and his understanding of the divide between the two really shows itself in the text.
Wolfram knows only too well that he is venturing into No Man's Land. Unlike the vast majority of physical sciences, anyone can triple-check his ideas against absolutely perfect data -- yet his ideas, by their very definition, defy authoritative proof. Running 'experiments' on simple programs, gathering data and analyzing output -- this all seems incredibly passe to most mathematicians, who quite correctly point out that he hasn't really delivered a proof of anything. And on the other side of the fence are the physical scientists, who laughingly point out that he hasn't demonstrated anything LIKE really serious physical proof -- he hasn't "mapped" CA behavior to the real world in a meaningful way, they think.
Wolfram's work falls at a very tricky place -- it deals with the kind of uncertainty issues that plague the highest-level physical research, but it occurs in a mostly discrete world of his own making. Therefore, when he uses the results of his research to engage in the same kind of theorizing that physical scientists do -- "the evidence seems to indicate", "these experiments may demonstrate", etc -- he is ridiculed.
I think that says more about the state of science than Wolfram, frankly. The way I see it, Wolfram practiced good science in the making of A New Kind of Science (albeit not practicing good manners). I can't think of a single objection to Wolfram's work that I wouldn't also accuse every active field of science of engaging in.
And taken as a whole, I would say that his body of work represents an amazing aggregation of good, great and brilliant ideas. As a longtime Lisp programmer, I appreciate good ideas, and don't object to the occasional parenthetical reference.;)
On the DCude site. It looks like their hand model must be having a heart attack off-camera; if the picture gets slashdotted, just imagine a hand with fingers contorted into a clawed husk, with the nice little dCube in the center of the hand.
Technically, if it was truly inside out, then wouldn't that make the size of its case infinitely large? Or maybe infinitely small, and the contents would be infinitely large . . . hmmm . . . this reminds me of that futurama episode with the Universe Boxes.
. . . I am very interested in eventually moving to Mars. It would be a bonus if there were lakes, so I could go ice fishing, but you can get the full "ice fishing experience" without them.
My real question, as someone who has camped outdoors in very cold temperatures, is this: could the combination of a shallow (half-meter) trench, a heavy-duty lean-to, and a heavy-duty sealed winter sleeping back (along with oxygen, of course) get one through the night?
Also, as Minnesotans are well-known for their masochistic, 'can-do' approach to weathering winter weather, are there any Minnesotans planned for the manned Mars mission?
You mention that 'large groups of people' use Excel as a 'general-purpose everybody-has-it environment for numerical computation'.
You also mention that you 'went back to school'.
I would say: that doesn't extrapolate terribly well to the real world.
Sure -- in school, you use whatever's at hand, and particularly for teaching a WIDE variety of accounting-style problem-solving scenarios, and demonstrating particular ideas and even procedural/algorithmic logic, Excel might be the Weapon of Choice.
But the Real World is an altogether different scenario. Who, in the business world, would honestly (rationally, while sober) propose building any kind of serious, vital accounting code with Excel? I can see a limited number of intradepartmental uses; sometimes an employee is given a couple of excel files and told "massage numbers from them". That is what MS is counting on.
But the fact of the matter is, in a serious, intelligent, centralized solution, that horribly inefficient scenario won't happen. People will be dealing with shared access to centralized, managed data, stored in a REAL database solution. Instead of informal "here's the file, right here on this CDR/floppy that I was carrying in my jacket pocket with my motherfucking KEY RINGS/fridge magnet collection" networks, you have systems that are designed to get *actual* *work* done. Systems with real user permissions in place.
For general-purpose theoretical fudging, or making the best of a bad situation (read: any situation where you HAVE to use Excel), Excel will be fine, and even vital.
But if you can design the system right from the ground up -- as IBM is at least trying to do -- you won't have the mishmash of operational and organizational blunders that require you to use Excel on a regular basis.
There is an enormous amount of negativity that I have seen thrtown around in this thread.
But to my mind, Wikipedia is one of the gemlike projects out there that has an enormous amount of unadulterated MERIT.
Many of the posts decrying the cry for funds fall into two camps:
1) What the hell, $20k for your website infrastructure? Plan better, you assholes!
or
2) Wikipedia is useless/not worth it.
Many of the posts SOUND like 1), but are driven by a strong desire to demonstrate 2) -- for instance, the large number of posts that are claiming that "Wikipedia has become too political".
I don't think that people realize what the real issue here is. The issue is nothing less than total freedom of information.
Articles on wiki are moderated by public opinion -- and while this has a moderate negative influence in HIGHLY CHARGED, HIGHLY CURRENT topics -- political ones, particularly -- the bottom line is that wikipedia provides an incredible way for the truth to be heard and recorded. Everyone can contribute to this record of defined "truth", and if a revelation is made, it can be judged on its merits by millions of people.
Essentially, in this age of enormous uncertainty, slanted polls, (corrupt?) (liberal? conservative?) "corporate media", in this age where the visible "barometers" of world opinion (polls/interviews/random tests/scientific research) -- the informational underpinnings of representative democracy! -- may be subject to large-scale manipulation, and freedom of information is being decided for years to come, Wikipedia provides, if not "absolute truth", a body of information that has been thoroughly bathed in the democratic process. It may not be as white and pure as if it were written by the existing information aristocracy/meritocracy, but it is most assuredly free to all, and as unbiased as that process can make it.
Support of Wikipedia is, in a sense, support of the principles of democracy/communism itself -- support of the idea that fairness is most reliably and safely accomplished by even "unqualified" consensus. It's everyone's information. This just makes the process transparent, and rips the lid off of "true" and "false", right and wrong, belief and disbelief, and transfers the power to the people.
Go Wikipedia! If there ever was a project with real, LONG-TERM value . . .
You mean that Legends is incredibly similar to Tribes 1, but with better graphics? That it is bringing an innovative, unheralded and mostly ignored late-emerging game mechanic (that represents the most seamless and original integration of player movement with combat to date) into a format that people can enjoy visually?
There is a great game being developed with Garagegames' "Torque" engine. It has rock-solid 32-player multiplayer, high fps, emboss terrain bump-mapping, and, most importantly -- great, unique movement dynamics.
Well, not unique entirely. Some might even argue that the game is nothing more than an independent resurrection of a type of gameplay that was accidentally (bug) introduced in the first game of a franchise, was LOVED TO PEICES by the fanbase and introduced thousands of players to the game, and then was nixed in the second installment because an arrogant jackass (*cough*he made Planetside*cough*) who got owned every time he played the game in multiplayer decided that player skill was overrated and unfair to the majority of players.
http://hosted.tribalwar.com/legends
My work here is done.:) Great guys on that dev team, though -- download the game, it comes with a modified version of a stable auto-updater program. Download it once, and if nobody is playing, you'll always have it -- when the next release comes out, you can autoupdate! Also, the team is very good about arranging regular scrimmages for everyone that is interested.
Summary: Legends. A team-based multiplayer FPS with a very deep and well-developed movement-and-combat model.
You don't like one of the most fun movies of the last year because:
1) The movie used a storytelling effect that differed from your interpretation of the comic book.
2) 4 seconds of seeing a guy's muscles made you uncomfortable, and you didn't like seeing Dunst in a wet shirt.
3) You disagree with the one thing that the movie did to really improve on the credibility of the story (web-shooters; what the hell, that was the stupidest part of the comic book, like a teenage kid is going to make those on his own), but your suspension of disbelief hinges on the credibility of the supposed actions or inactions of a bit character in an introductory subplot.
Not only does 1) make it clear that someone has funnelled the Saharah into your vagina, and not only does 2) make us question your sexuality -- but "Spider Man 2099!ONOZ!!" -- wtf.
I direct your attention to every episode of the Simpsons where Comic Book Guy is remotely involved.
Now, in classic Bart fashion, go and write on the blackboard 10 times "I WILL NOT EMULATE COMIC BOOK GUY".
I tried those, and it threw off my depth perception. It's probably because I'm an elitist tribes-playing fucker, but all 3d glasses I've tried so far work well for corridor-based games and very poorly for games like Tribes, where your position and perspective change so rapidly.
If you look at this thing and read up on it a bit -- it's big, but I'll bet you could break it down easily enough to fit it into a big EconoLine.:D Well, heh, maybe something a little bigger -- a UHAUL or something -- but still we aren't talking commanche here by a long shot.
The article says that the intensity would be less than 1/20th of noontime sunlight.
Shit, you honestly probably do worse when you bend down and peer into the microwave to check the status of your microwavable Fat Fucker (tm) Breakfast Burrito.
SCO Response: Sign this NDA plz. We will explain all if u do. No need to read the 'Soul Transfer' subheading . . . err, legal jargon, you understand . . .
Slashdot Mirror
that someone with the handle "Tasty Penis" is posting in this thread.
. . . how else do you explain my post getting modded "Interesting"?!?
I found it very engaging. It was somewhat lightweight, but very entertaining! The U of MN is doing good with this guy.
/. can help me out? Lefsa-Man, The IceFisher, SnowmoBelly . . . maybe these are DC characters?
However, he mentioned a few superheroes that I've never heard of before -- maybe
It's 5:15PM. I got home from work 2 hours ago, and had a nap. It is a beautiful day outside, and the Windows source code has been leaked.
And I have 5 Moderator points.
Today -- today, life is good.
You make a salient point -- but you said 'Savvy customers' won't be swayed by booth girls or gee-whizzery. I agree completely, but 2 points:
1) Who says the customers are savvy?
and
2) Who the hell wants a 'savvy' customer? They are very hard to take advantage of.
Hmmmm. Actually, given that heat helps to speed up this reaction, I would think that the best initial color would probably be black (absorbs heat). That would be the right way. :P
/reverseRacism
Just like in everything else:
White before right!
I'm probably too late for anyone to read this.
;)
But I think that even outside of personality and ego factors, the thing that hurt Wolfram the most is the way that the material he is presenting lies directly at the intersection of "the sciences" and "mathematics". (Or "the sciences" and "programming").
You say that he 'solves nor resolves NO existing problem, he just shows how CA behavior maps to real systems and says "aha!" and moves on.'
That's bullshit. I've read the book as well -- and learned to use mathematica and implemented a good variety of the actual programs described therein. And he does NOT show how CA behavior "maps" to anything, and he would probably be offended by the suggestion. Wolfram was a physical scientist who then developed his own program for pure mathematical research, and his understanding of the divide between the two really shows itself in the text.
Wolfram knows only too well that he is venturing into No Man's Land. Unlike the vast majority of physical sciences, anyone can triple-check his ideas against absolutely perfect data -- yet his ideas, by their very definition, defy authoritative proof. Running 'experiments' on simple programs, gathering data and analyzing output -- this all seems incredibly passe to most mathematicians, who quite correctly point out that he hasn't really delivered a proof of anything. And on the other side of the fence are the physical scientists, who laughingly point out that he hasn't demonstrated anything LIKE really serious physical proof -- he hasn't "mapped" CA behavior to the real world in a meaningful way, they think.
Wolfram's work falls at a very tricky place -- it deals with the kind of uncertainty issues that plague the highest-level physical research, but it occurs in a mostly discrete world of his own making. Therefore, when he uses the results of his research to engage in the same kind of theorizing that physical scientists do -- "the evidence seems to indicate", "these experiments may demonstrate", etc -- he is ridiculed.
I think that says more about the state of science than Wolfram, frankly. The way I see it, Wolfram practiced good science in the making of A New Kind of Science (albeit not practicing good manners). I can't think of a single objection to Wolfram's work that I wouldn't also accuse every active field of science of engaging in.
And taken as a whole, I would say that his body of work represents an amazing aggregation of good, great and brilliant ideas. As a longtime Lisp programmer, I appreciate good ideas, and don't object to the occasional parenthetical reference.
That was me. :D I'm there for most train wrecks, too.
I'm going to New Hamshire today.
http://www.nextway.co.kr/images/products/temp.jpg
On the DCude site. It looks like their hand model must be having a heart attack off-camera; if the picture gets slashdotted, just imagine a hand with fingers contorted into a clawed husk, with the nice little dCube in the center of the hand.
Looks very freaky.
Technically, if it was truly inside out, then wouldn't that make the size of its case infinitely large? Or maybe infinitely small, and the contents would be infinitely large . . . hmmm . . . this reminds me of that futurama episode with the Universe Boxes.
See, they SAY that they know it's a one-man show. But then they go and slashdot his one-hamster web server! :(
. . . I am very interested in eventually moving to Mars. It would be a bonus if there were lakes, so I could go ice fishing, but you can get the full "ice fishing experience" without them.
My real question, as someone who has camped outdoors in very cold temperatures, is this: could the combination of a shallow (half-meter) trench, a heavy-duty lean-to, and a heavy-duty sealed winter sleeping back (along with oxygen, of course) get one through the night?
Also, as Minnesotans are well-known for their masochistic, 'can-do' approach to weathering winter weather, are there any Minnesotans planned for the manned Mars mission?
You mention that 'large groups of people' use Excel as a 'general-purpose everybody-has-it environment for numerical computation'.
You also mention that you 'went back to school'.
I would say: that doesn't extrapolate terribly well to the real world.
Sure -- in school, you use whatever's at hand, and particularly for teaching a WIDE variety of accounting-style problem-solving scenarios, and demonstrating particular ideas and even procedural/algorithmic logic, Excel might be the Weapon of Choice.
But the Real World is an altogether different scenario. Who, in the business world, would honestly (rationally, while sober) propose building any kind of serious, vital accounting code with Excel? I can see a limited number of intradepartmental uses; sometimes an employee is given a couple of excel files and told "massage numbers from them". That is what MS is counting on.
But the fact of the matter is, in a serious, intelligent, centralized solution, that horribly inefficient scenario won't happen. People will be dealing with shared access to centralized, managed data, stored in a REAL database solution. Instead of informal "here's the file, right here on this CDR/floppy that I was carrying in my jacket pocket with my motherfucking KEY RINGS/fridge magnet collection" networks, you have systems that are designed to get *actual* *work* done. Systems with real user permissions in place.
For general-purpose theoretical fudging, or making the best of a bad situation (read: any situation where you HAVE to use Excel), Excel will be fine, and even vital.
But if you can design the system right from the ground up -- as IBM is at least trying to do -- you won't have the mishmash of operational and organizational blunders that require you to use Excel on a regular basis.
I agree with the parent.
But either way, real or ploy, it's an awesome thing, for two reasons.
1) Bad for Microsoft!
2) Funny as hell that it's, um, the Jew-country that is haggling over price . . .
I can't agree enough with the poster above.
There is an enormous amount of negativity that I have seen thrtown around in this thread.
But to my mind, Wikipedia is one of the gemlike projects out there that has an enormous amount of unadulterated MERIT.
Many of the posts decrying the cry for funds fall into two camps:
1) What the hell, $20k for your website infrastructure? Plan better, you assholes!
or
2) Wikipedia is useless/not worth it.
Many of the posts SOUND like 1), but are driven by a strong desire to demonstrate 2) -- for instance, the large number of posts that are claiming that "Wikipedia has become too political".
I don't think that people realize what the real issue here is. The issue is nothing less than total freedom of information.
Articles on wiki are moderated by public opinion -- and while this has a moderate negative influence in HIGHLY CHARGED, HIGHLY CURRENT topics -- political ones, particularly -- the bottom line is that wikipedia provides an incredible way for the truth to be heard and recorded. Everyone can contribute to this record of defined "truth", and if a revelation is made, it can be judged on its merits by millions of people.
Essentially, in this age of enormous uncertainty, slanted polls, (corrupt?) (liberal? conservative?) "corporate media", in this age where the visible "barometers" of world opinion (polls/interviews/random tests/scientific research) -- the informational underpinnings of representative democracy! -- may be subject to large-scale manipulation, and freedom of information is being decided for years to come, Wikipedia provides, if not "absolute truth", a body of information that has been thoroughly bathed in the democratic process. It may not be as white and pure as if it were written by the existing information aristocracy/meritocracy, but it is most assuredly free to all, and as unbiased as that process can make it.
Support of Wikipedia is, in a sense, support of the principles of democracy/communism itself -- support of the idea that fairness is most reliably and safely accomplished by even "unqualified" consensus. It's everyone's information. This just makes the process transparent, and rips the lid off of "true" and "false", right and wrong, belief and disbelief, and transfers the power to the people.
Go Wikipedia! If there ever was a project with real, LONG-TERM value . . .
Wait!
You mean that Legends is incredibly similar to Tribes 1, but with better graphics? That it is bringing an innovative, unheralded and mostly ignored late-emerging game mechanic (that represents the most seamless and original integration of player movement with combat to date) into a format that people can enjoy visually?
Wow.
That is news to me.
There is a great game being developed with Garagegames' "Torque" engine. It has rock-solid 32-player multiplayer, high fps, emboss terrain bump-mapping, and, most importantly -- great, unique movement dynamics.
:) Great guys on that dev team, though -- download the game, it comes with a modified version of a stable auto-updater program. Download it once, and if nobody is playing, you'll always have it -- when the next release comes out, you can autoupdate! Also, the team is very good about arranging regular scrimmages for everyone that is interested.
Well, not unique entirely. Some might even argue that the game is nothing more than an independent resurrection of a type of gameplay that was accidentally (bug) introduced in the first game of a franchise, was LOVED TO PEICES by the fanbase and introduced thousands of players to the game, and then was nixed in the second installment because an arrogant jackass (*cough*he made Planetside*cough*) who got owned every time he played the game in multiplayer decided that player skill was overrated and unfair to the majority of players.
http://hosted.tribalwar.com/legends
My work here is done.
Summary:
Legends. A team-based multiplayer FPS with a very deep and well-developed movement-and-combat model.
/Stan Lee.
Let me see if I have this straight.
You don't like one of the most fun movies of the last year because:
1) The movie used a storytelling effect that differed from your interpretation of the comic book.
2) 4 seconds of seeing a guy's muscles made you uncomfortable, and you didn't like seeing Dunst in a wet shirt.
3) You disagree with the one thing that the movie did to really improve on the credibility of the story (web-shooters; what the hell, that was the stupidest part of the comic book, like a teenage kid is going to make those on his own), but your suspension of disbelief hinges on the credibility of the supposed actions or inactions of a bit character in an introductory subplot.
Not only does 1) make it clear that someone has funnelled the Saharah into your vagina, and not only does 2) make us question your sexuality -- but "Spider Man 2099!ONOZ!!" -- wtf.
I direct your attention to every episode of the Simpsons where Comic Book Guy is remotely involved.
Now, in classic Bart fashion, go and write on the blackboard 10 times "I WILL NOT EMULATE COMIC BOOK GUY".
That's not flamebait, dammit. That's funny shit.
Wish I had mod points.
Damn, dude.
I tried those, and it threw off my depth perception. It's probably because I'm an elitist tribes-playing fucker, but all 3d glasses I've tried so far work well for corridor-based games and very poorly for games like Tribes, where your position and perspective change so rapidly.
They're mormons.
56k upstream is their way of limiting the amount of unholy peer-to-peer pr0n sharing.
I am at least halfway kidding.
If you look at this thing and read up on it a bit -- it's big, but I'll bet you could break it down easily enough to fit it into a big EconoLine. :D Well, heh, maybe something a little bigger -- a UHAUL or something -- but still we aren't talking commanche here by a long shot.
The article says that the intensity would be less than 1/20th of noontime sunlight.
Shit, you honestly probably do worse when you bend down and peer into the microwave to check the status of your microwavable Fat Fucker (tm) Breakfast Burrito.
SCO Response: Sign this NDA plz. We will explain all if u do. No need to read the 'Soul Transfer' subheading . . . err, legal jargon, you understand . . .
Lasers are not reflected by mirrors, eh?
;)
Wait. How do we make lasers again? My memory is a little fuzzy.