I enjoyed this movie right up to the goat-rodeo of an ending. If the director was here right now, I'd be feasting on his brain.
The story Time Machine was great in part because of the fantastic ending; but his moving totally choked it. If you havent read the book, or even seen the older movie, do so. The story is one of the better sci-fi's ever told, and this piece of trash does not do it justice.
How easy is it in java to control the floating point settings of the FPU such as rounding and accuracy? 3D physics simulation is very sensitive to these settings.
How can I write a game which is compatible with 3D glasses standards?
Can I access 3D hardware functionality? Hardware lighting or multipass texturing?
How much control do I have over the garbage collector? I don't want weird pauses happening at the wrong times.
Can a java program change the screen resolution and color depth?
How much control do I have over sound mixing? Can I use 3D sound?
There is strong evidence that people as diverse as the Phoenicians, the Vikings, the Irish, the Welsh, the Chinese, the Japanese and English fisherman were actually in the New World, in some cases, millennia before 1492.
Search internet for lots of sources: One with a short description here
Actually, yes, it does come with hardware 3D support. Apples to Oranges, they are probably equivalent in graphics. However, the CPU on the Gateway would smoke the PS/2 at everything else.
The author is applying a 1909 US law to a british subject. The british at the time had their own copyright system, which also had been updated several times. One of the updates was the allowance of copyright rights to british subjects living abroad. Thus kipling would have qualified for the British copyright, which was honored by treaty.
Why I wont pay==Why Dot Coms failed.
on
Slashdot IRC Forum
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
People who refuse to pay are not mainly in the group of people who begrudge the cost; probably most readers would gladly part with the money and are largely fairly well-to-do. Its the administrative overhead and risk that stops us.
The 'overhead' refers to filling out forms, tracking the information, and the charges on my credit card. I hate paperwork. This alone is enough to make me leery of participating.
The risk factor is the true stopper though.
I won't give any personal information to anybody because I have been abused in too many ways; not just internet sites but the world at large. I have been sold on lists to telemarketers. I have been charged on my credit cards by fly-by-nights. I have been outright robbed using paypal. I have been spammed. I have had my personal computer cracked by warez hackers and chinese dissidents. I have been, and am being, stalked by a [literally] psychotic guy from New Jersey. I have had my bank account compromised; my credit card hijacked.
In short, my life has been made a living hell by the simple fact that I have given information out to people who all said they wouldn't let it out.
Thus I believe this is the 'ultimate' reason for the dot com failure; nobody ever solved the problem of easy, fast and trustworthy electronic transactions.
Until that problem is solved, slashdot won't get my money.
The next man on the moon will be chinese too. They have a plan for manned mission in the near future. Our science fiction always assumes that space colonization and the "future" will be dominated by western ideals, but as things are trending now, the future looks brighter for asia.
A large number of posts here are implying that parents are responsible for their childrens actions. Sounds reasonable. But Judith Harris's hypothesis makes even more sense [after you have read her ideas not just some post on slashdot].
Her idea is grounded in evolutionary theory, the conclusion of which "parents have little or no long-term effect on thier children's personality, intelligence, or mental health"
The basic idea is that children will spend the bulk of their lives with their peers, not their parents, thus are biased [by evolution] to learn their social behaviors from peers. Actually there are two modes of behavior, one with parents, the other with peers. The behavior around peers becomes their adult behavior, while the behavior with parents only occurs in thier presense.
I cannot give the full rational for the idea here, but especially if you disagree with me, I suggest you go read her book, it will convince you.
Once you buy her thesis, the connection then to video games is: are video games our children's peers? For some children, they may well be! Probably a good warning is that parental supervision during video game play may subjegate the learned behavior into the first mode, rather than the second.
Right you are, but that does not contradict my statement. Analog media is more robust than digital media. However, analog data is absolutely doomed to fade away, whereas digital data can in theory last nearly forever, though it must be copied to new media every so often. Of course, good error correction is needed too.
Also note that although laserdiscs can have some digital tracks, the video portion of movies is always analag.
My understanding is that laserdiscs are analog media, not digital. Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that the data didn't last?
Anyway, I still have a laserdisc player in my livingroom, so they aren't dead yet! hehe.
Re:Circular track explanation is flawed..
on
Homemade Gauss Gun
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Not quite. The magnets create a magnetic "force field". As you recall from physics 101, energy is defined is force times the delta of distance, not force alone. The energy of separating the magnets is not 'released' during this experiement, as the magnets do not move. Thus, the energy comes from your hand placing the balls which move. Gravity also does not impart energy to falling objects; the objects already have energy relative to the earth, and actually lose energy to the earth on impact.
Circular track explanation is flawed..
on
Homemade Gauss Gun
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
The explanation for why a circular track won't make a perpetual motion machine has some misleading statements in it. In several places he talks about "energy to be had from this magnet". However, none of the fixed magnets imparts energy to the ball. So where does the energy come from? Why, from your hand of course! The process of placing the balls into their starting position imparts the energy.
A corollary is that Warcraft III was doomed to be cracked, and that no matter what they do, it will be 'easy' to hack a cheat. Possibly a realization of this will lead to a different approach to game design a la Bioware: no effort is spent to stop cheaters, you just have to trust your friends.
I think you missed part of my point. [probably because I accidently posted before I was finished with the post. Ack!] The problem with the idea of mass destruction and worldwide system-failure is that the "we" you mention doesn't include the viewer. Its sort of like a slap in the face that says "you died" and everything you ever did or were amounted to a pile of dust. I think war movies are different because the viewer has a historial connection to the story.
To be compelling, a story must have an emotional impact on the viewer. Its hard to care about characters in the far future who have no association with anything real.
The best evidence of this is the stunning failure of the slew of post-apocalyptic movies that have been made.
The main reason to pick a story about postapocalyptic humanity is that the sets are cheap and the costumes are rags. The downside is that no matter what your angle, a story based on the demise of billions of people is depressing.
William shatner says hes doesn't understand Star Trek's success. [http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/News/02/22/shatne r.lkl/index.html] Well why should he? Is just an actor. But Gene Roddenberry knew.
Star trek has a very forward view of the future, one where there is hope and success. Based on humanity "working it out", not being "wiped out".
If you want to make a hit, do a show that is connected to the present, that shows the fruits of out labors and dreams, not the failure of them.
In a sense what you're saying is right on. However, one would expect anyone who recieves a degree in Computer Science would be able to deal with pointers. If the prof is "wasting his time" to teach it to you, at least he should put it on the "test". If after 4 years of programming you failed to learn them, if not by direct instruction then by self-learning and experience, should you be given that piece of paper that says you know what you're doing?
When making hiring decisions, I do not take anything on the resume seriously. I have found there is no relationship between quality of resume and quality of coder/employee. [However it usually must get through resume screeners who dont know anything about programming, so make it look sharp!]
Working on a large free-source project would probably be very good experience. However, working on your own can also push your boundaries. I suggest doing both. Best of all is to get a co-op or internship at a real software company.
In an interview I would ask you specific programming questions which should be simple and obvious for you. If you pass that, I will ask you more difficult obsure questions that will (hopefully) require you to think on your feet. Failure to pass this interview will not get you hired no matter how good your resume looks. If you pass with 'flying colors', you will be hired no matter how skimpy your experience.
It may seem incredible that anyone gets a degree without knowing pointers, as you learned it first year (as it should be). However, when interviewing candidates for hire, the big picture comes out that many schools jumped on the java bandwagon, and actually thought that teaching pointers was some sort of corruption. Thus, a CS degree with no experience with pointers. In industry, as you may expect, pointers are a must and anyone who didn't learn them simply cannot be hired (for top coding jobs).
Just to nitpick, I'd like to point out that describing LISP as "radically different" ignores history. LISP was one of the very first programming languages, and in fact flows with the theoretical mathematical syntaxes better than the languages that followed. Thus in fact, C is the "radicaly different" one, that revolutionized progamming by ignoring theory and math and focusing on practicality.
Slashdot Mirror
I enjoyed this movie right up to the goat-rodeo of an ending. If the director was here right now, I'd be feasting on his brain.
The story Time Machine was great in part because of the fantastic ending; but his moving totally choked it. If you havent read the book, or even seen the older movie, do so. The story is one of the better sci-fi's ever told, and this piece of trash does not do it justice.
How easy is it in java to control the floating point settings of the FPU such as rounding and accuracy? 3D physics simulation is very sensitive to these settings.
How can I write a game which is compatible with 3D glasses standards?
Can I access 3D hardware functionality? Hardware lighting or multipass texturing?
How much control do I have over the garbage collector? I don't want weird pauses happening at the wrong times.
Can a java program change the screen resolution and color depth?
How much control do I have over sound mixing? Can I use 3D sound?
There is strong evidence that people as diverse as the Phoenicians, the Vikings, the Irish, the Welsh, the Chinese, the Japanese and English fisherman were actually in the New World, in some cases, millennia before 1492.
Search internet for lots of sources: One with a short description here
Actually, yes, it does come with hardware 3D support. Apples to Oranges, they are probably equivalent in graphics. However, the CPU on the Gateway would smoke the PS/2 at everything else.
A new 1.2Ghz PC from Gateway is only $489 without monitor.
Total retail cost of a minimal system is:
PS/2 -- $299.99
8MB card -- $29.99
Linux Kit-- $199.99
== $529.97
Monitor not included, however you must have a monitor on hand to install, after install you can use TV.
Not so cheap, but cool as an *upgrade* to an existing system.
The author is applying a 1909 US law to a british subject. The british at the time had their own copyright system, which also had been updated several times. One of the updates was the allowance of copyright rights to british subjects living abroad. Thus kipling would have qualified for the British copyright, which was honored by treaty.
People who refuse to pay are not mainly in the group of people who begrudge the cost; probably most readers would gladly part with the money and are largely fairly well-to-do. Its the administrative overhead and risk that stops us.
The 'overhead' refers to filling out forms, tracking the information, and the charges on my credit card. I hate paperwork. This alone is enough to make me leery of participating.
The risk factor is the true stopper though.
I won't give any personal information to anybody because I have been abused in too many ways; not just internet sites but the world at large. I have been sold on lists to telemarketers. I have been charged on my credit cards by fly-by-nights. I have been outright robbed using paypal. I have been spammed. I have had my personal computer cracked by warez hackers and chinese dissidents. I have been, and am being, stalked by a [literally] psychotic guy from New Jersey. I have had my bank account compromised; my credit card hijacked.
In short, my life has been made a living hell by the simple fact that I have given information out to people who all said they wouldn't let it out.
Thus I believe this is the 'ultimate' reason for the dot com failure; nobody ever solved the problem of easy, fast and trustworthy electronic transactions.
Until that problem is solved, slashdot won't get my money.
The next man on the moon will be chinese too. They have a plan for manned mission in the near future.
Our science fiction always assumes that space colonization and the "future" will be dominated by western ideals, but as things are trending now, the future looks brighter for asia.
A large number of posts here are implying that parents are responsible for their childrens actions. Sounds reasonable. But Judith Harris's hypothesis makes even more sense [after you have read her ideas not just some post on slashdot].
Her idea is grounded in evolutionary theory, the conclusion of which "parents have little or no long-term effect on thier children's personality, intelligence, or mental health"
The basic idea is that children will spend the bulk of their lives with their peers, not their parents, thus are biased [by evolution] to learn their social behaviors from peers. Actually there are two modes of behavior, one with parents, the other with peers. The behavior around peers becomes their adult behavior, while the behavior with parents only occurs in thier presense.
I cannot give the full rational for the idea here, but especially if you disagree with me, I suggest you go read her book, it will convince you.
Once you buy her thesis, the connection then to video games is: are video games our children's peers? For some children, they may well be! Probably a good warning is that parental supervision during video game play may subjegate the learned behavior into the first mode, rather than the second.
Right you are, but that does not contradict my statement. Analog media is more robust than digital media. However, analog data is absolutely doomed to fade away, whereas digital data can in theory last nearly forever, though it must be copied to new media every so often. Of course, good error correction is needed too.
Also note that although laserdiscs can have some digital tracks, the video portion of movies is always analag.
My understanding is that laserdiscs are analog media, not digital. Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that the data didn't last?
Anyway, I still have a laserdisc player in my livingroom, so they aren't dead yet! hehe.
Not quite. The magnets create a magnetic "force field". As you recall from physics 101, energy is defined is force times the delta of distance, not force alone. The energy of separating the magnets is not 'released' during this experiement, as the magnets do not move. Thus, the energy comes from your hand placing the balls which move.
Gravity also does not impart energy to falling objects; the objects already have energy relative to the earth, and actually lose energy to the earth on impact.
The explanation for why a circular track won't make a perpetual motion machine has some misleading statements in it. In several places he talks about "energy to be had from this magnet". However, none of the fixed magnets imparts energy to the ball.
So where does the energy come from? Why, from your hand of course! The process of placing the balls into their starting position imparts the energy.
Not today. Not ever. I don't even like to *register* for free web sites. I don't trust PayPal either.
I am shocked that Slashdot would try something so foolish. It won't work. The audience is socialist for gods sake.
The day you start selling Karma is the day I never visit Slashdot again.
A corollary is that Warcraft III was doomed to be cracked, and that no matter what they do, it will be 'easy' to hack a cheat. Possibly a realization of this will lead to a different approach to game design a la Bioware: no effort is spent to stop cheaters, you just have to trust your friends.
I think you missed part of my point. [probably because I accidently posted before I was finished with the post. Ack!]
The problem with the idea of mass destruction and worldwide system-failure is that the "we" you mention doesn't include the viewer. Its sort of like a slap in the face that says "you died" and everything you ever did or were amounted to a pile of dust.
I think war movies are different because the viewer has a historial connection to the story.
To be compelling, a story must have an emotional impact on the viewer. Its hard to care about characters in the far future who have no association with anything real.
The best evidence of this is the stunning failure of the slew of post-apocalyptic movies that have been made.
The main reason to pick a story about postapocalyptic humanity is that the sets are cheap and the costumes are rags. The downside is that no matter what your angle, a story based on the demise of billions of people is depressing.
e r.lkl/index.html]
William shatner says hes doesn't understand Star Trek's success. [http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/News/02/22/shatn
Well why should he? Is just an actor. But Gene Roddenberry knew.
Star trek has a very forward view of the future, one where there is hope and success. Based on humanity "working it out", not being "wiped out".
If you want to make a hit, do a show that is connected to the present, that shows the fruits of out labors and dreams, not the failure of them.
That is not his [normal] voice. He is interviewed by NPR, and you hear him about half way into it.
m pa ct/wnyc/raotl/otl022502g.ra
http://www.realimpact.net/rihurl.ram?file=reali
I met a guy at CMU working on vision technology for Mercedes. Ostensibly, the technology would identify pedestrians and make a warning sound.
It sort of worked too, at least from video tapes from a car driving down the street. It could identify human shape and draw a little box around it.
The guy seemed a little distressed when I pointed out to him that his technology looked a LOT more useful as a robotic machine-gun targetting system.
Funny how people can fool themselves.
In a sense what you're saying is right on. However, one would expect anyone who recieves a degree in Computer Science would be able to deal with pointers. If the prof is "wasting his time" to teach it to you, at least he should put it on the "test". If after 4 years of programming you failed to learn them, if not by direct instruction then by self-learning and experience, should you be given that piece of paper that says you know what you're doing?
Sadly, your first statement is apparently not so.
My planet is a major software producer known as "Microsoft". Yours?
When making hiring decisions, I do not take anything on the resume seriously. I have found there is no relationship between quality of resume and quality of coder/employee. [However it usually must get through resume screeners who dont know anything about programming, so make it look sharp!]
Working on a large free-source project would probably be very good experience. However, working on your own can also push your boundaries. I suggest doing both. Best of all is to get a co-op or internship at a real software company.
In an interview I would ask you specific programming questions which should be simple and obvious for you. If you pass that, I will ask you more difficult obsure questions that will (hopefully) require you to think on your feet. Failure to pass this interview will not get you hired no matter how good your resume looks. If you pass with 'flying colors', you will be hired no matter how skimpy your experience.
It may seem incredible that anyone gets a degree without knowing pointers, as you learned it first year (as it should be). However, when interviewing candidates for hire, the big picture comes out that many schools jumped on the java bandwagon, and actually thought that teaching pointers was some sort of corruption. Thus, a CS degree with no experience with pointers. In industry, as you may expect, pointers are a must and anyone who didn't learn them simply cannot be hired (for top coding jobs).
Just to nitpick, I'd like to point out that describing LISP as "radically different" ignores history. LISP was one of the very first programming languages, and in fact flows with the theoretical mathematical syntaxes better than the languages that followed. Thus in fact, C is the "radicaly different" one, that revolutionized progamming by ignoring theory and math and focusing on practicality.