Somewhere in my decade-old collection of Analog SciFi magazines, there's a story about this very problem. Seems that the main characters were having trouble with their respective projects:
a) One couldn't get his AI beyond the three-year-old level. It was blazingly fast, but refused to mature.
b) The other couldn't get his torus to manipulate its magnetic fields fast enough to maintain the fusion.
Sound familiar? Of course, the solution was simple: The AI guy handed off his project to the fusion guy, and overnight the problem was solved! When toddlers try to eat something they don't like, they push it around with their tongue and teeth and try to swallow without letting it touch the sides of their mouth...so he put the AI in charge of the fields and programmed it to hate the taste of plasma!!
God, I miss that mag. I should look into a subscription... ------------------------
I've read through the entire Computer Stupidities web site, and I think it's important that eLiza be updated to recognize some of the more empty-minded examples. I can imagine the red flags that go up when someone types that they're "having trouble downloading the Internet onto their floppy".
eLiza springs into action and immediately dispatches a support call to the HR director: "Error in employee [name]. Recommend replacing meatspace controller." ------------------------
So I can know the speed of my computer or which process is running...but not both? ------------------------
Maybe scientifically, but...
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 1
...organized religion has been doing this for years. Baptism, circumcision, take your pick...in their eyes, forever marking you as theirs. "Changing" your soul, cleansing your mind, whatever; done before the child even understands what's going on. And what's more, they expect you to tithe for the rest of your lives for the privelige.
We got our computer lab's admin password the old-fashioned way: we watched over our teacher's shoulder. Turned out to be a "cryptic", so he didn't suspect anything for a looooong time. This was on a bunch of PowerPCs with Mac OS8, and normally the account menu in the menu bar would say "Student"...and if it said "Administrator" when he walked by, we were busted. The solution? With our newfound administrator access, we created an account called "Student " and gave it privileges:) He didn't catch on until after I graduated; he even tried changing passwords once, to another "cryptic", but by then we had keystroke-loggers and our own accounts...
So many people neglect the meatspace security. ------------------------
Back in high school, when SNES was big-time, my favorite password was "PotassiumIodide". See, Killer Instinct was one of my favorite games, and abbreviates to KI (all the chemists out there are shaking their heads at me)... ------------------------
I'm sure there'll be plenty of comments here about people not realizing they've mistyped the URL...but what about people who don't even visit the site? For example, my Post Cereal Online article at gogeek.org didn't raise the furor that Surviving the Boy Band did (and does), but one person emailed me to complain about some Raisin Bran. Now, does http://www.gogeek.org look anything like the actual Post site? No. I finally determined that this person had typed something akin to "Post Cereal Online" in a search engine (we're #5 for that search on Google:) and simply taken my email addy from the abstract. We can pass all the laws and make all the precedent we want, but we can't possibly make the Net safe for people as ignorant as that.
Even scarier, said person appeared to be using a military (Air Force) account... ------------------------
I was lucky to be in the last CSCI class at NDSU that learned C++ as our introduction. They also went to Java two years ago, which is unfortunately NOT the language used to teach any of the high-level courses (and if my Operating Systems teacher was told to use Java, he'd probably blow up the building). Face it, we can't simulate UNIX pThreads and memory management accurately in Java.
Um, my point. Lessee...oh yeah. The irony here is that my job on campus is 90% Java and %10 LambdaMOO. Even though I don't think Java should be taught in classes, it's still my bread and butter. But with my C++ (and decade of BASIC) experience and the promise of a great wage, I learned myself all the Java I needed in about two weeks. I looked at the client code that existed, I skimmed a textbook we had in the office, and mostly I looked at the online docs, but I'm far from needing a year-long course to pick up the necessary skillz. I think we could all learn a lot more if we could intern/apprenctice in the working world.
The latest version of my pretty little Java client can be found at this place, but keep in mind that over the summer it's constantly being broken and remade in preparation for Geology 105 each fall. It'd be interesting to see it Slashdotted, tho. ------------------------
The new student administration here at NDSU wants to start something similar, with student opinions of teachers, courses, and texts...I hope nobody starts flaming it and causes something like this.
Does anyone else see a problem with storing all or most of the world's weapon-grade plutonium in ONE memorial? Especially an extrememly visible and recognizable memorial? I say we shoot it all at Venus and see if it shoots back:) ------------------------
Not *one* female blacksmith. *Three* of the four blacksmiths in D2 are female, and I'm not sure about the fifth one in the expansion. So either 75% of the blacksmiths in Sanctuary are female or the female ones tend to attract trouble;)
Freud must be spinning right now. ------------------------
Oh yes, and to get this job I had to learn Java in a week. So what did I do? I made a game! Simple little "us vs. them" spaceship thingie, with one team of circles versus another team of circles.
Then I added multiple frames.
Then I added individual popup menus.
Then a point-based ship building model.
Then keyboard shortcuts and tab stops for every ship.
By the time I felt I was ready to move on to Geology Explorer, I didn't really want to. My precious little Spacewars has sat unused on my work machine for weeks now... ------------------------
I lucked out. I've been playing games since I was 4 (Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision, biytach!) and programming in every BASIC I've found since I was 10, but just recently I managed to get what I consider my big break. NDSU hired me on to work with their Geology Explorer.
Basically a Java shell for the LambdaMOO backside, it's got a good mix of graphics, interface, AI, and MOO specifics. After a couple months, MouseListeners are my willing slaves, and most of the niggling problems I had coming in have been ironed out. Mostly I've been making the graphics both run fast and look nice AND be functional. Yay, me. Sure, I didn't actually make the thing, but in my opinion it's much harder to tweak someone else's code anyway.
Um, by the way, I wouldn't recommend using the Explorer in the next couple days. I'm in the process of revamping EVERY SINGLE CLICKABLE OBJECT on the planet, which means that about half the world is broken right now:) Silly me. ------------------------
There's one problem with this. Even if cameras are installed, they need to be used *effectively.* In my senior year of high school, in the bustling metropolis of Alexandria MN, we had brand-spanking new cameras installed at all major intersections with nice wide angle lenses. Apparently the Columbine aftermath made the administrators of the *one* high school in a tourist trap of 8000 citizens think that maybe something bad might happen. Of course, nothing has.
But I digress. Later on that year, some relatively major locker vandalism/thievery occurred. In full view of a camera. Case closed, right? Actually, my French teacher (who thankfully had a healthy disrespect for the system) told us a few days later that nothing could be done because, get this, the cameras' tape was on a ridiculously small loop and had already taped over itself by the time officials checked it.
I hate Alexandria. I hate the Midwest, actually. Please tell me it's better somewhere else... ------------------------
Ill-fated Game Gear? How about the ill-fated Sega Nomad? And the Virtual Boy might count as horizontal...how many people bought those pieces of monkey dung? I say Nintendo has an uphill PR battle to overcome the Horizontal Curse. ------------------------
Use Tetris. It's easy to learn, tough to master, and if you can't find a version of it that'll suit your needs, you have no idea where to find games. I know that if I didn't have Tetris on my TI-85, I wouldn't have made it through Chemistry...
Bob
Go Geek. Rule the world. ------------------------
Heh, I just retrieved this golden oldie a couple weeks ago, and thank GOD!! Not only is it now freeware, but the new version doesn't crash on my PII400 box! ------------------------
As a hardcore gamer with little to no interest in politics, I have to point something out. As I read further into the article, I realized that this technology has one application that wasn't mentioned: making FMV games that don't suck!!
Well, duh! This is obviously fast running, as evidenced by the blur, as so many people have pointed out. However, they fail to mention the source of their information: that fine documentary series Dragon Ball Z. This kid has a pretty clear-cut case of Zanzoken going on:)
And I haven't read the comics in a while, but Cannonball flies around like...well...a Cannonball.
And finally tonight, I have a wish of my own for the sequel: Multiple Man!! C'mon, it wouldn't be *that* hard to do... ------------------------
Okay, so I had this demo, right? And it was supposed to be good, right? Wrong....I turned both my monitor and the in-game brightness all the way up, and I still couldn't see jackity crap around me. Factoring in that none of the enemies came above my knee or below my hairline, it made for a very frustrating play experience. Games should be hard, but they shouldn't punish you for not walking with your nose to the ground.
Maybe I'll kick off the reviews with this. Maybe not. ------------------------
Slashdot Mirror
a) One couldn't get his AI beyond the three-year-old level. It was blazingly fast, but refused to mature.
b) The other couldn't get his torus to manipulate its magnetic fields fast enough to maintain the fusion.
Sound familiar? Of course, the solution was simple: The AI guy handed off his project to the fusion guy, and overnight the problem was solved! When toddlers try to eat something they don't like, they push it around with their tongue and teeth and try to swallow without letting it touch the sides of their mouth...so he put the AI in charge of the fields and programmed it to hate the taste of plasma!!
God, I miss that mag. I should look into a subscription...
------------------------
eLiza springs into action and immediately dispatches a support call to the HR director: "Error in employee [name]. Recommend replacing meatspace controller."
------------------------
So I can know the speed of my computer or which process is running...but not both?
------------------------
Silly fundies...
------------------------
So many people neglect the meatspace security.
------------------------
Back in high school, when SNES was big-time, my favorite password was "PotassiumIodide". See, Killer Instinct was one of my favorite games, and abbreviates to KI (all the chemists out there are shaking their heads at me)...
------------------------
Not that I'm conceited or anything.
------------------------
Even scarier, said person appeared to be using a military (Air Force) account...
------------------------
Um, my point. Lessee...oh yeah. The irony here is that my job on campus is 90% Java and %10 LambdaMOO. Even though I don't think Java should be taught in classes, it's still my bread and butter. But with my C++ (and decade of BASIC) experience and the promise of a great wage, I learned myself all the Java I needed in about two weeks. I looked at the client code that existed, I skimmed a textbook we had in the office, and mostly I looked at the online docs, but I'm far from needing a year-long course to pick up the necessary skillz. I think we could all learn a lot more if we could intern/apprenctice in the working world.
The latest version of my pretty little Java client can be found at this place, but keep in mind that over the summer it's constantly being broken and remade in preparation for Geology 105 each fall. It'd be interesting to see it Slashdotted, tho.
------------------------
BTW, the site is scheduled to go up at Bisonpride.com, under the watchful eye of gogeek.org
Heh, we yanked the URL right out from under them...
------------------------
Does anyone else see a problem with storing all or most of the world's weapon-grade plutonium in ONE memorial? Especially an extrememly visible and recognizable memorial? I say we shoot it all at Venus and see if it shoots back :)
------------------------
Freud must be spinning right now.
------------------------
NOTE TO STUPID PEOPLE: PSEUDONEWS IS FAKE. "PSEUDONEWS" LITERALLY MEANS "FAKE NEWS".
THIS IS NOT REAL.
------------------------
Oh yes, and to get this job I had to learn Java in a week. So what did I do? I made a game! Simple little "us vs. them" spaceship thingie, with one team of circles versus another team of circles.
Then I added multiple frames.
Then I added individual popup menus.
Then a point-based ship building model.
Then keyboard shortcuts and tab stops for every ship.
By the time I felt I was ready to move on to Geology Explorer, I didn't really want to. My precious little Spacewars has sat unused on my work machine for weeks now...
------------------------
I lucked out. I've been playing games since I was 4 (Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision, biytach!) and programming in every BASIC I've found since I was 10, but just recently I managed to get what I consider my big break. NDSU hired me on to work with their Geology Explorer.
:) Silly me.
Basically a Java shell for the LambdaMOO backside, it's got a good mix of graphics, interface, AI, and MOO specifics. After a couple months, MouseListeners are my willing slaves, and most of the niggling problems I had coming in have been ironed out. Mostly I've been making the graphics both run fast and look nice AND be functional. Yay, me. Sure, I didn't actually make the thing, but in my opinion it's much harder to tweak someone else's code anyway.
Um, by the way, I wouldn't recommend using the Explorer in the next couple days. I'm in the process of revamping EVERY SINGLE CLICKABLE OBJECT on the planet, which means that about half the world is broken right now
------------------------
And for anyone who was at UIUC last October, you should know that Microsoft's first and best-selling game is fdisk ;)
------------------------
There's one problem with this. Even if cameras are installed, they need to be used *effectively.* In my senior year of high school, in the bustling metropolis of Alexandria MN, we had brand-spanking new cameras installed at all major intersections with nice wide angle lenses. Apparently the Columbine aftermath made the administrators of the *one* high school in a tourist trap of 8000 citizens think that maybe something bad might happen. Of course, nothing has.
But I digress. Later on that year, some relatively major locker vandalism/thievery occurred. In full view of a camera. Case closed, right? Actually, my French teacher (who thankfully had a healthy disrespect for the system) told us a few days later that nothing could be done because, get this, the cameras' tape was on a ridiculously small loop and had already taped over itself by the time officials checked it.
I hate Alexandria. I hate the Midwest, actually. Please tell me it's better somewhere else...
------------------------
Ill-fated Game Gear? How about the ill-fated Sega Nomad? And the Virtual Boy might count as horizontal...how many people bought those pieces of monkey dung? I say Nintendo has an uphill PR battle to overcome the Horizontal Curse.
------------------------
Bob
Go Geek. Rule the world.
------------------------
Heh, I just retrieved this golden oldie a couple weeks ago, and thank GOD!! Not only is it now freeware, but the new version doesn't crash on my PII400 box!
------------------------
If you want to see llamas, go see "Dude, Where's My Car?" instead :)
People who've seen it know what I'm talking about.
------------------------
And it's about time, too.
Bob.
Pseudonews: Better than the real thing.
------------------------
And I haven't read the comics in a while, but Cannonball flies around like...well...a Cannonball.
And finally tonight, I have a wish of my own for the sequel: Multiple Man!! C'mon, it wouldn't be *that* hard to do...
------------------------
This seemed like the appropriate place to post this: Swapster Banned from College Campus
Once again, the Man's coming down on us free-thinkers....
------------------------
Okay, so I had this demo, right? And it was supposed to be good, right? Wrong....I turned both my monitor and the in-game brightness all the way up, and I still couldn't see jackity crap around me. Factoring in that none of the enemies came above my knee or below my hairline, it made for a very frustrating play experience. Games should be hard, but they shouldn't punish you for not walking with your nose to the ground.
Maybe I'll kick off the reviews with this. Maybe not.
------------------------