I tried it when it first came out, but their applet didn't run on my computer. When I finally got an upgraded computer, I tried again. When a live competition started, I would type in some code, click compile, then the system would just hang there for ever and ever. I'm guessing their servers were thrashing from too much traffic.
Then I realized I had no clue in any event what they consider "good code". MISRA standards? Standards for heavily embedded stuff? Good naming conventions? Does someone get bent out of shape if the variable is on the left hand side of a logical expression? Is a well-coded thing with many integrity and bounds checks lose points because it might be 1% slower than it otherwise would be?
A web site doesn't need a "terms of service" to use them. Use is expected via the very nature of the Internet. Now if the site had a "this is secret/restricted", they might have a case, but even then I'd doubt it if there were no passwords ever asked.
Well, not necessarily. If there is nobody in the house, and no blaring TV or radio, and no such thing near the house, your story might sound a little bit made up. "It was a ghost" sounds good on a reality TV show when a bald actress has tears streaming down her face; proving it is a reasonable doubt might be a little tough in an actual court.
While it is in the interest of the government to slap security on their systems for protection, it is also legitimate for governments to ram a 60 foot c*** up your a** for breaching their highly secret military systems.
It is legitimate to use not just defensive systems, but threats of harsh sentences to help themselves remain secure.
Too much heavy-handed, socialist "command and control" thinking.
If you build it, they will come.
ABC or NBC just broadcast a show where pure ethanol vehicles, actually built and sold by Ford and GM in Brazil, also available in the US (note, 100% ethanol, not this 85 crap.)
Let the US farmers shift to Ethanol -- estimates are that our sized economy could quickly drive the price down to 70 cents a gallon. As demand increases, farmers will shift their stuff, at their expense. And not until the price becomes worth it for them (or their banks.)
I don't want the whole DVD. How much for the first five minutes of the middle Lord of the Rings movie, where Gandalf is falling down the bottomless pit, and is so coordinated he grabs his supersword and makes some swats at the balrog or firbolg or whatever the Hell it is?
Or the original Star Wars, where Han shoots first, and Greedo doesn't shoot at all, and there are no morphing, bulging CGI bags of mostly water walking around? Or the original RotJ, without Anni's face in there? Or one of the supposed fan cuts of the first movies floating around, with no Jar Jar, midichlorians, or children winning planetary-level Indianapolis 500s with their hand-made vehicles?
Re:Holy Honey I Shrunk The Kids, Batman!
on
Gadgets, Then & Now
·
· Score: 1
I'd like to salivate on the nodes of that long-necked, dark-haired beauty in the center. Look at that hip-to-waist ratio!
Free comic book? Can I use that retroactively to get my money back on the POS where Johnny Storm's nova burst doesn't even knock the Hulk out, much less kill him and incinerate everything for a radius of a quarter of a mile?
Why would God subject Himself to death just to beat death on behalf of humans, when he created it all in the first place? What was the point? It's a hoop to jump through only He cares about.
***** Ding! Congratulations! You have reached Level 2.
***** You have been given permission by the Academy to set your phaser on "2 hits to kill a rat", up from "5 hits to kill a rat".
You click on Bartender Demoto
Bartender Demoto says, "I've been having problems with tribbles in the store rooms at the back of the station. Can you help?"
(you click "yes")
**** loading....
** A tribble hits YOU for 3 points of damage!
** You shoot at a tribble. You miss!
** A tribble hits YOU for 4 points of damage!
** You shoot a tribble for 4 points of damage!
** A tribble misses!
** You shoot a tribble for 1 points of damage. Critical hit! You do another 1 points of damage!
** A tribble dies.
** You loot the tribble for a damaged tribble fur and a scuzzy damp trible skeleton.
** You open the door
** A dire tribble attacks!
** A dire trible hits you for 49 points of damage!
** You die. You can choose to wait for a ship's doctor or be beamed back to sickbay.
** You awaken in sickbay.
** You cannot breathe.
** You take 20 points of damage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You die!/petition I was on the ship, then it went into warp and I got left behind in outerspace and died.
(three hours pass)
** A Federation Officer tells you, "You're not supposed to go out into space without a space suit if you're not a Kleenexorian."
** You reply, "I wasn't in space. The ship just went into warp and some bug didn't take me along with it."
** A Federation Officer tells you, "I'm sorry, we have no way to confirm that. You could be someone goofing around or lying about how he got into space."
** You reply, "I'm not. This is a known issue."
** A Federation Officer tells you, "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it. Thank you, have a nice day. Smithers, release the hounds."
> It was one of the things people complained about when Star Wars > Galaxies first launched. That Storm Troopers did not go down > with 1 hit. You did but not the troopers.
And then there's the lovely fun wherein 8 people surround a dog, and 7 shoot advanced laser blasters at it, the 8th dousing it with a flamethrower continuously for 30 seconds, and the thing keeps fighting, much less running away in absolute agony, much less instantly dying.
I can see this MMORPG now, with nerdy dudes competing to see who can get the most pretty spots and floating hearts coming out the head of their kitties.
See, if you go over here and talk to this guy, you can reset the quest and re-take it up to 38 times, and you can thus keep a whopping 14 heart generators going simultaneously.
Ironically, playing a master dancer (shouldn't that be mistress?) in SWG, with my own cantina and an R2 unit running around barfing a laser show was the only thing keeping me in that game.
> Larger cost-sharing pools (i.e. governments, or insurance carriers) > are much more effective at price negotiation than individuals > negotiating prices for health care on their own.
Nobody has a problem with a government "negotiating" rates for its employees (or any citizen who voluntarily wants to take part in the government pool.) It's when the government demands rates that all doctors must accept, and demands that everyone in the population participate, that, well, something has to give. And that is frequently quality of care in one way or another, usually paid for over the subsequent decades as medical technology lags further and further behind where it would otherwise be.
Congratulations! You have 1970's medical technology -- in the year 2000. But it's free care!
Has the government helped? Or have they introduced a defacto murderous pox on the population?
Meh, intentions were good. A death in front of the camera now is worth billions of early deaths due to lagging tech over the next few hundred years.
> Democracies never face starvation - think about > that. Why? Democracies are governments.
No, the right to free trade, and a lack of government intervention allows free people to satisfy the needs of other free people. And food is a highly desired thing. So if no government official is authorized to stand in the way, plethura is what you get.
> the cellphone market has not yet taken off the way > companies like Jamdat may have hoped for
I can't imagine why paying $3.99 to download a game that looks like something from the Atari 2600 days and plays on a tiny little screen with clumsy buttons, that self-destructs after one month, where I'd have to pay another $3.99 to get it again.
Nope, I can't see anything in any of those issues that might be harming the spread of the concept.
Of course, you all do realize that it would be legitimate to tax (only the) people who sell virtual stuff on eBay......thus driving the last of 99 nails into the coffin of work moving to China.
Slashdot Mirror
I tried it when it first came out, but their applet didn't run on my computer. When I finally got an upgraded computer, I tried again. When a live competition started, I would type in some code, click compile, then the system would just hang there for ever and ever. I'm guessing their servers were thrashing from too much traffic.
Then I realized I had no clue in any event what they consider "good code". MISRA standards? Standards for heavily embedded stuff? Good naming conventions? Does someone get bent out of shape if the variable is on the left hand side of a logical expression? Is a well-coded thing with many integrity and bounds checks lose points because it might be 1% slower than it otherwise would be?
Hell, even the live sex shows in Amsterdam are more interesting than that.
A web site doesn't need a "terms of service" to use them. Use is expected via the very nature of the Internet. Now if the site had a "this is secret/restricted", they might have a case, but even then I'd doubt it if there were no passwords ever asked.
Well, not necessarily. If there is nobody in the house, and no blaring TV or radio, and no such thing near the house, your story might sound a little bit made up. "It was a ghost" sounds good on a reality TV show when a bald actress has tears streaming down her face; proving it is a reasonable doubt might be a little tough in an actual court.
It is ethically equivalent to theft. You are taking that which is not yours or is yours, but you do not have permission to re-distribute.
While it is in the interest of the government to slap security on their systems for protection, it is also legitimate for governments to ram a 60 foot c*** up your a** for breaching their highly secret military systems.
It is legitimate to use not just defensive systems, but threats of harsh sentences to help themselves remain secure.
Too much heavy-handed, socialist "command and control" thinking.
If you build it, they will come.
ABC or NBC just broadcast a show where pure ethanol vehicles, actually built and sold by Ford and GM in Brazil, also available in the US (note, 100% ethanol, not this 85 crap.)
Let the US farmers shift to Ethanol -- estimates are that our sized economy could quickly drive the price down to 70 cents a gallon. As demand increases, farmers will shift their stuff, at their expense. And not until the price becomes worth it for them (or their banks.)
> In Oregon, it is illegal to pump your own gas.
Another big-business-protecting law masquerading as protecting "the People", no doubt. Similar to various states' laws against microbreweries in bars.
I don't want the whole DVD. How much for the first five minutes of the middle Lord of the Rings movie, where Gandalf is falling down the bottomless pit, and is so coordinated he grabs his supersword and makes some swats at the balrog or firbolg or whatever the Hell it is?
Or the original Star Wars, where Han shoots first, and Greedo doesn't shoot at all, and there are no morphing, bulging CGI bags of mostly water walking around? Or the original RotJ, without Anni's face in there? Or one of the supposed fan cuts of the first movies floating around, with no Jar Jar, midichlorians, or children winning planetary-level Indianapolis 500s with their hand-made vehicles?
I'd like to salivate on the nodes of that long-necked, dark-haired beauty in the center. Look at that hip-to-waist ratio!
Free comic book? Can I use that retroactively to get my money back on the POS where Johnny Storm's nova burst doesn't even knock the Hulk out, much less kill him and incinerate everything for a radius of a quarter of a mile?
Representation of time as a physical, dimensional axis is convenient, mathematically, but does not mean it actually exists as such.
Why would God subject Himself to death just to beat death on behalf of humans, when he created it all in the first place? What was the point? It's a hoop to jump through only He cares about.
Sounds pretty stupid if you ask me.
> parallel/oposite/mirror universe
Where people hang out on dotslash.moc, a web site for intellectually average people with magnificent sex lives. News for normals. You look mahvelous.
> Mom?
Yes! Your mom certainly energetically rocked my world!
***** Ding! Congratulations! You have reached Level 2.
/petition I was on the ship, then it went into warp and I got left behind in outerspace and died.
***** You have been given permission by the Academy to set your phaser on "2 hits to kill a rat", up from "5 hits to kill a rat".
You click on Bartender Demoto
Bartender Demoto says, "I've been having problems with tribbles in the store rooms at the back of the station. Can you help?"
(you click "yes")
**** loading....
** A tribble hits YOU for 3 points of damage!
** You shoot at a tribble. You miss!
** A tribble hits YOU for 4 points of damage!
** You shoot a tribble for 4 points of damage!
** A tribble misses!
** You shoot a tribble for 1 points of damage. Critical hit! You do another 1 points of damage!
** A tribble dies.
** You loot the tribble for a damaged tribble fur and a scuzzy damp trible skeleton.
** You open the door
** A dire tribble attacks!
** A dire trible hits you for 49 points of damage!
** You die. You can choose to wait for a ship's doctor or be beamed back to sickbay.
** You awaken in sickbay.
** You cannot breathe.
** You take 20 points of damage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You take 20 points of damaage!
** You die!
(three hours pass)
** A Federation Officer tells you, "You're not supposed to go out into space without a space suit if you're not a Kleenexorian."
** You reply, "I wasn't in space. The ship just went into warp and some bug didn't take me along with it."
** A Federation Officer tells you, "I'm sorry, we have no way to confirm that. You could be someone goofing around or lying about how he got into space."
** You reply, "I'm not. This is a known issue."
** A Federation Officer tells you, "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about it. Thank you, have a nice day. Smithers, release the hounds."
Yup, I can't wait.
> It was one of the things people complained about when Star Wars
> Galaxies first launched. That Storm Troopers did not go down
> with 1 hit. You did but not the troopers.
And then there's the lovely fun wherein 8 people surround a dog, and 7 shoot advanced laser blasters at it, the 8th dousing it with a flamethrower continuously for 30 seconds, and the thing keeps fighting, much less running away in absolute agony, much less instantly dying.
Woo hoo! What a wonderful, Star Warsy feel!
I can see this MMORPG now, with nerdy dudes competing to see who can get the most pretty spots and floating hearts coming out the head of their kitties.
See, if you go over here and talk to this guy, you can reset the quest and re-take it up to 38 times, and you can thus keep a whopping 14 heart generators going simultaneously.
Ironically, playing a master dancer (shouldn't that be mistress?) in SWG, with my own cantina and an R2 unit running around barfing a laser show was the only thing keeping me in that game.
Whatever. Alls I knows is I can'ts use "perhaps you'd prefer a Hello, Kitty! MMORPG" as a joke anymore.
> Larger cost-sharing pools (i.e. governments, or insurance carriers)
> are much more effective at price negotiation than individuals
> negotiating prices for health care on their own.
Nobody has a problem with a government "negotiating" rates for its employees (or any citizen who voluntarily wants to take part in the government pool.) It's when the government demands rates that all doctors must accept, and demands that everyone in the population participate, that, well, something has to give. And that is frequently quality of care in one way or another, usually paid for over the subsequent decades as medical technology lags further and further behind where it would otherwise be.
Congratulations! You have 1970's medical technology -- in the year 2000. But it's free care!
Has the government helped? Or have they introduced a defacto murderous pox on the population?
Meh, intentions were good. A death in front of the camera now is worth billions of early deaths due to lagging tech over the next few hundred years.
> Democracies never face starvation - think about
> that. Why? Democracies are governments.
No, the right to free trade, and a lack of government intervention allows free people to satisfy the needs of other free people. And food is a highly desired thing. So if no government official is authorized to stand in the way, plethura is what you get.
I hope to god I'm never so hard up I have to start engineering at a dump like that.
> the cellphone market has not yet taken off the way
> companies like Jamdat may have hoped for
I can't imagine why paying $3.99 to download a game that looks like something from the Atari 2600 days and plays on a tiny little screen with clumsy buttons, that self-destructs after one month, where I'd have to pay another $3.99 to get it again.
Nope, I can't see anything in any of those issues that might be harming the spread of the concept.
> Personally I'm still waiting for my cloak of evasion. 20% miss chance is awesome.
No it isn't. It's better than nothing, but it's next to useless in an actual battle as something to maintain confidence in.
Of course, you all do realize that it would be legitimate to tax (only the) people who sell virtual stuff on eBay... ...thus driving the last of 99 nails into the coffin of work moving to China.