Actually, if they just gather the pieces of the meteorite and sell it, they'll have all the aid they need. An observed fall will sell for at least a dollar a gram, likely more.
Market it as "noticed fall, [date fell] [location]", it's a couple of bucks a gram to people who like to collect meteorites.
Market it as "chips of the man-slaying meteorite", and you could probably multiply that price by ten and sell it via Home Shopping Network. Ugh.
Re:I love the smell of maggots in the morning...
on
Worst Jobs In Science
·
· Score: 2, Funny
>They're grown by the thousands just for the purpose of dying in nasty ways.
In a superhero universe, a fraction of those fruit flies would spontaneously manifest super powers and escape!
"Escape, Flame-Fly, go! And someday be strong enough to rescue my 45th generation!"
(ref: "Elementals", "Planetary", and "DC Invasion" all used this gimmick to make new supes)
"food shortages", weather satellites haven't helped farmers one bit!
"communications"-- yeah, NASA never helped with satellites.
"computers"-- if only NASA had helped develop the idea of miniaturized low-power electronics
"entertainment"-- CCD cameras and digital film, anyone?
"health care"-- microsurvery and internal imaging received much from Apollo.
I'll admit the asbestos in 'housing' wasn't made by NASA, so that category might go your way, but I'd say we've reaped a lot. Problem is, NASA doesn't commercialize it-- they let the contractors patent and sell it, so you think they invented it. But pure invention really ends up being driven by gov't funding (NASA, NSF, etc). Give credit where it's due.
Does Vermouth (cinzano, for Hemingway fans; a fortified red wine) also have this? I can't seem to find out, and as a vermouth fan, I'd love to know my vice is healthy.
>What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game.
A self-booting game would have to include all possible video and sound (and network, if netplaying) drivers that the player's system _might_ have, and autodetect them flawlessly. While I've had great luck with Mandrake doing this, it's still not perfect.
At least with a PC under Linux or Windows, the user has already gone through configuration hell getting things to work, and non-self-booting games can assume all systems okay and just use the API (DirectX or OpenGL).
That's also the advantage of consoles, actually-- you can self-boot because the hardware is exactly known.
Observation and Analysis are completely different steps. And you have to do this sort of observation first.
Actually, it's a morphology piece, sort of like anthropology. First you organize categories and see how they fit. Then you hand off the work to fine theorists for analysis.
Not to mention, it was a piece about GenCon, so it's not terribly surprising the women gamers were "mostly all at the Gen-Con". It's an inherent limit, yes, but not an unreasonable one.
I thought it was a good observational/morphology piece, and kind of hope slashdot readers can contribute to the analysis part.
It's thought that spiral galaxies are the result of mergers or collisions. Thus if we hadn't interacted with another galaxy way back when, we'd not have a spiral. Since interactions cause star formation bursts, and those kick out a lot of metals, they're great for making more potentially life-bearing systems. Cannibalism, that's just if things get too slow and close.
But that's not really why studying galaxy interactions is worth doing. A big reason beyond "it's cool to know the origins of stuff" is that there's only 2 ways to test basic physics. Either crash subatomic stuff, or look at galaxy-scale or larger. Both are the only places where really small effects in physics (like relativity or mass differences or antisymmetry effects) show up.
Subatomic is easier in some ways, as you can actually run an experiment, play with variables. In astronomy, you can only observe, classify, and hope to identify things that are similar yet different.
The famed dark matter hack, for example (hmm... my galaxies won't hold together with just stars and gas using gravity. Let me add some dark matter to keep them stable, those pesky humans won't know the difference) is a good case for continuing this study. If dark matter exists, it should also exist in our solar system, and may have properties worth investigating. If it doesn't exist, our basic understanding of physics is entirely wrong and that opens up entirely new possibilities.
So, support your local astronomers, they're determining reality around you, and letting us know where we came from!
See, this is why Windows will never become a serious gaming platform. If games are always developed for the Mac first, then ported across, users will just buy the Mac versions rather than wait a half year or more for a Windows version. At best, people will have dual-boot Mac/Win because...... oh, wait, sorry, wrong OSes for this recurrent opinion.
Given the quote provided, it shouldn't be a patent. Patents were originally for inventions. Patents on software algorithms presume implementation. Patents on business methods presume implementation.
Does this mean you can now patent ideas, without implementation being feasible? (cf the poster who said he'd patent grey goo and fusion).
I'd love to just get a think tank grant to patent every wild idea they could steal from SF.
'This could be a big money-making operation for someone who wants to develop it,' and 'The patent shows someone who has knowledge of the A.I. field how to make the invention
if it's a good book, why oversell it?
on
Altered Carbon
·
· Score: 1
All the comments so far make it sound like a good book. So why did the reviewer have to compare it (a novel, which is supposed to have a rich setting because in SF, the setting is a character) with two universes that were built up primarily from short stories over a long time period?
I mean, Known Space and Heinlein's future history were cool in part because they were constructed from disparate bits across a bunch of stories. Linking short stories to make a bigger picture rewards fans.
Whereas a novel, well, it can't be the same sort of puzzle-universe-maker. It can be rich (aka Dune, etc; novels that build and expand on a universe). But it's not the same as what the reviewer compared it to. Different beastie.
So, if it's a good book, why does the reviewer make a really, really stupid comparison?
From my own point of view, I've known 5 'significant' [i.e. company valued over 1 mil] CEOs 'well' [i.e. professionally acquainted]. And I'll support the 'clueless' assertion. But the one that was only half-clueless made himself and his partners millionnaires:)
To be a good CEO, you shouldn't micromanage, but being further from the trenches makes you precisely the wrong person to be evaluating technology.
Which is why they invented CTOs. If a CTO has a positive statement on a tech, that should be valued more than a CEOs (eps. given the good PR points the parent poster to this made.)
My favorite bit is how they claim OSS aren't inventive and won't be able to provide any new solutions to problems.
"3) [restrictive licenses may lead to] Very basic software that would provide only minimally useful solutions-- for the same reason that anything beyond customary and already known solutions wouldn't be created."
Err... given that experimental software is one of the big areas of open source development, I find this surprising. Heck, the ReiserFS is a nice piece of computational science that is GPLed and he still gets to sell it to companies (as per most recent Linux Journal).
Oh well, back to do my non-innovative work, I guess. After all, it's open, it must be derivative.
If you are happy with icon art, rather than realistic or cartoon, it's pretty easy. For example, a program like 'stickers' lets anyone simply place a scene, e.g. their farm set has a barn, chickens, etc. So you put that down as your background, choose which items are icons that, when clicked, do something. Set exit points, barriers. Come up with a story, and enable the proper icons (i.e. Q&A, widget hunting, clues, etc).
So I guess the short answer is "use other people's art tools".
I blended a UML tool with a tabbed editor to make a setup that (independent of where files are) lets you create arbitrary drawing/relationships between files, and then just click on the drawing to actually call up said file into the tabbed editor.
If others were interested, I'd happily post the diffs to do it (the UML drawer is 'ldsdraw', which isn't under a license yet so, while openly available, distribution of my 'fork' wouldn't be proper so I can only provide the 'diffs'. The author is open to licensing/sourceforging it but that's awaiting an excess of free time.) The editor is also modded but both set of 'diffs' are really short. I love Tcl/Tk.
Just remember that the company you are contacting, their most valuable resource is Time. And they get hit with lots of reqs for comp copies ("I run a major website", "We're a new magazine", etc).
What you need to do is make it a) idiot-proof, i.e. provide bonafide credentials that are self-complete, and b) make it cost them no time to respond. That often means phoning until you talk to them, and closing the matter then and there-- or better, getting whomever you reached to tell you which individual below them will handle 'the details' (you then follow up with said individual immediately with 'your boss told me to give you my addy so you can send X to Y, here's the details, I'll call you to confirm it arrived')
Basically, less shmooze and more effort. Make it worth their while because they have _no_ spare time to rustle up marketing/PR past their already-set-in-stone list of output sources.
They'll probably do Premium like IGN. Look up the walkthrough on, say, Toy Commander for Dreamcast and you get the 'main' levels (required to advance). Subscribers get access to the walk-throughs for the 'extra' levels.
So maybe the Zelda GameFaq will now say "here is where the items are. For a list of all mushroom locations and the secret faery locations, become a subscriber!" etc
MUDS used to attract techies but not casual users, I think, because they were 'difficult' to use. Well, okay, 'difficult' meant 'point telnet to a specific site _and_ port' and 'use a console'. Not big barriers for slashdotters, but kinda big for, say, my mom.
Companies like Skotos (skotos.net) and... hmm... okay, maybe just them, do web-based MUDs. They (plug plug) bought a friend of mine's larp (the Galactic Emperor is Dead) as a recurring/resettable one, and they do some long-term open ones.
The downside, I think, is a lot of MUD fans prefer to be able to create stuff (aka MOOs), not just play, so there may not be a big crossover from old MUD fan to new WebMUD user.
Meanwhile, MUDders I know just moved to IRC and freeform it when no one else is in a given channel. IRC is so flexible, this is kinda a cool evolution, much like the evolution of tabletop RPGing into rules light styles.
Get a stopwatch or kitchen timer (I got mine from Target) that counts up (not just a countdown timer).
When you sit at your desk, hit 'on'. If you get up to get a soda, answer the home phone, rescue your toddler from the roof, have a wank, whatever, hit 'stop'. Hit 'start' when you get back to work.
You'd be amazed how little work time you get in 8 hours, if you have distractions.
Taken literally, this also means that telecommuters are cheaper, since you're tracking actual work time. Whereas in the office, soda/coffee breaks are generally presumed work time since you're just counting from 9am to 6pm.
So, give yourself 5-10 minutes each 'hour' as a break, factor that into your timesheet reporting. (So if your stopwatch showed you worked 6 hrs, 6 + 6*10min = 7 hrs 'billable work time').
How 'out of the box' can we get? If you had a vehicle that fired projectiles ahead to get 'soundings' then basically did 120MPH along any straightaways found, is that legit?
It's certainly not tidy.
Or a vehicle that just deploys a bunch of small r/c vehicles ahead, figuring 90% will get stuck or destroyed but the 1 or 2 that make it through have essentially provided it with a map.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if they just gather the pieces of the meteorite and sell it, they'll have all the aid they need. An observed fall will sell for at least a dollar a gram, likely more.
Market it as "noticed fall, [date fell] [location]", it's a couple of bucks a gram to people who like to collect meteorites.
Market it as "chips of the man-slaying meteorite", and you could probably multiply that price by ten and sell it via Home Shopping Network. Ugh.
>They're grown by the thousands just for the purpose of dying in nasty ways.
In a superhero universe, a fraction of those fruit flies would spontaneously manifest super powers and escape!
"Escape, Flame-Fly, go! And someday be strong enough to rescue my 45th generation!"
(ref: "Elementals", "Planetary", and "DC Invasion" all used this gimmick to make new supes)
You are kidding, right?
"food shortages", weather satellites haven't helped farmers one bit!
"communications"-- yeah, NASA never helped with satellites.
"computers"-- if only NASA had helped develop the idea of miniaturized low-power electronics
"entertainment"-- CCD cameras and digital film, anyone?
"health care"-- microsurvery and internal imaging received much from Apollo.
I'll admit the asbestos in 'housing' wasn't made by NASA, so that category might go your way, but I'd say we've reaped a lot. Problem is, NASA doesn't commercialize it-- they let the contractors patent and sell it, so you think they invented it. But pure invention really ends up being driven by gov't funding (NASA, NSF, etc). Give credit where it's due.
Does Vermouth (cinzano, for Hemingway fans; a fortified red wine) also have this? I can't seem to find out, and as a vermouth fan, I'd love to know my vice is healthy.
>What I am still wondering about is why no game company has created the selfbooting game.
A self-booting game would have to include all possible video and sound (and network, if netplaying) drivers that the player's system _might_ have, and autodetect them flawlessly. While I've had great luck with Mandrake doing this, it's still not perfect.
At least with a PC under Linux or Windows, the user has already gone through configuration hell getting things to work, and non-self-booting games can assume all systems okay and just use the API (DirectX or OpenGL).
That's also the advantage of consoles, actually-- you can self-boot because the hardware is exactly known.
Hi,
Observation and Analysis are completely different steps. And you have to do this sort of observation first.
Actually, it's a morphology piece, sort of like anthropology. First you organize categories and see how they fit. Then you hand off the work to fine theorists for analysis.
Not to mention, it was a piece about GenCon, so it's not terribly surprising the women gamers were "mostly all at the Gen-Con". It's an inherent limit, yes, but not an unreasonable one.
I thought it was a good observational/morphology piece, and kind of hope slashdot readers can contribute to the analysis part.
It's thought that spiral galaxies are the result of mergers or collisions. Thus if we hadn't interacted with another galaxy way back when, we'd not have a spiral. Since interactions cause star formation bursts, and those kick out a lot of metals, they're great for making more potentially life-bearing systems. Cannibalism, that's just if things get too slow and close.
But that's not really why studying galaxy interactions is worth doing. A big reason beyond "it's cool to know the origins of stuff" is that there's only 2 ways to test basic physics. Either crash subatomic stuff, or look at galaxy-scale or larger. Both are the only places where really small effects in physics (like relativity or mass differences or antisymmetry effects) show up.
Subatomic is easier in some ways, as you can actually run an experiment, play with variables. In astronomy, you can only observe, classify, and hope to identify things that are similar yet different.
The famed dark matter hack, for example (hmm... my galaxies won't hold together with just stars and gas using gravity. Let me add some dark matter to keep them stable, those pesky humans won't know the difference) is a good case for continuing this study. If dark matter exists, it should also exist in our solar system, and may have properties worth investigating. If it doesn't exist, our basic understanding of physics is entirely wrong and that opens up entirely new possibilities.
So, support your local astronomers, they're determining reality around you, and letting us know where we came from!
How about: /. 1 million geeks can't be wrnog.
See, this is why Windows will never become a serious gaming platform. If games are always developed for the Mac first, then ported across, users will just buy the Mac versions rather than wait a half year or more for a Windows version. At best, people will have dual-boot Mac/Win because... ... oh, wait, sorry, wrong OSes for this recurrent opinion.
Given the quote provided, it shouldn't be a patent. Patents were originally for inventions. Patents on software algorithms presume implementation. Patents on business methods presume implementation.
Does this mean you can now patent ideas, without implementation being feasible? (cf the poster who said he'd patent grey goo and fusion).
I'd love to just get a think tank grant to patent every wild idea they could steal from SF.
'This could be a big money-making operation for someone who wants to develop it,' and 'The patent shows someone who has knowledge of the A.I. field how to make the invention
All the comments so far make it sound like a good book. So why did the reviewer have to compare it (a novel, which is supposed to have a rich setting because in SF, the setting is a character) with two universes that were built up primarily from short stories over a long time period?
I mean, Known Space and Heinlein's future history were cool in part because they were constructed from disparate bits across a bunch of stories. Linking short stories to make a bigger picture rewards fans.
Whereas a novel, well, it can't be the same sort of puzzle-universe-maker. It can be rich (aka Dune, etc; novels that build and expand on a universe). But it's not the same as what the reviewer compared it to. Different beastie.
So, if it's a good book, why does the reviewer make a really, really stupid comparison?
From my own point of view, I've known 5 'significant' [i.e. company valued over 1 mil] CEOs 'well' [i.e. professionally acquainted]. And I'll support the 'clueless' assertion. But the one that was only half-clueless made himself and his partners millionnaires :)
To be a good CEO, you shouldn't micromanage, but being further from the trenches makes you precisely the wrong person to be evaluating technology.
Which is why they invented CTOs. If a CTO has a positive statement on a tech, that should be valued more than a CEOs (eps. given the good PR points the parent poster to this made.)
My favorite bit is how they claim OSS aren't inventive and won't be able to provide any new solutions to problems.
"3) [restrictive licenses may lead to] Very basic software that would provide only minimally useful solutions-- for the same reason that anything beyond customary and already known solutions wouldn't be created."
Err... given that experimental software is one of the big areas of open source development, I find this surprising. Heck, the ReiserFS is a nice piece of computational science that is GPLed and he still gets to sell it to companies (as per most recent Linux Journal).
Oh well, back to do my non-innovative work, I guess. After all, it's open, it must be derivative.
If you are happy with icon art, rather than realistic or cartoon, it's pretty easy. For example, a program like 'stickers' lets anyone simply place a scene, e.g. their farm set has a barn, chickens, etc. So you put that down as your background, choose which items are icons that, when clicked, do something. Set exit points, barriers. Come up with a story, and enable the proper icons (i.e. Q&A, widget hunting, clues, etc).
So I guess the short answer is "use other people's art tools".
It figures. I couldn't find an engine, so I just finished coding my own this week (and I'm wrapping up the editor this weekend). *sigh*
:)
I hate catching a craze a month late, when I could simply skim off the labors of others instead
(Mind you, it only takes 1 week to make one, using Tcl/Tk, and said engine then works on Linux/Win/Mac. Just a little language advocacy.)
I blended a UML tool with a tabbed editor to make a setup that (independent of where files are) lets you create arbitrary drawing/relationships between files, and then just click on the drawing to actually call up said file into the tabbed editor.
If others were interested, I'd happily post the diffs to do it (the UML drawer is 'ldsdraw', which isn't under a license yet so, while openly available, distribution of my 'fork' wouldn't be proper so I can only provide the 'diffs'. The author is open to licensing/sourceforging it but that's awaiting an excess of free time.) The editor is also modded but both set of 'diffs' are really short. I love Tcl/Tk.
Just remember that the company you are contacting, their most valuable resource is Time. And they get hit with lots of reqs for comp copies ("I run a major website", "We're a new magazine", etc).
What you need to do is make it a) idiot-proof, i.e. provide bonafide credentials that are self-complete, and b) make it cost them no time to respond. That often means phoning until you talk to them, and closing the matter then and there-- or better, getting whomever you reached to tell you which individual below them will handle 'the details' (you then follow up with said individual immediately with 'your boss told me to give you my addy so you can send X to Y, here's the details, I'll call you to confirm it arrived')
Basically, less shmooze and more effort. Make it worth their while because they have _no_ spare time to rustle up marketing/PR past their already-set-in-stone list of output sources.
Like the old joke says, what happens if you split Alaska into 2 even pieces? Texas becomes the 3rd largest state in the union.
We could always ask for RFID tags in the ammo. Everyone has to buy more ammo sooner or later, even if they use older guns.
"Let's see, the victim was hit twice with Jim's gun, once with Davy's, and Fred missed. Fred walks, put the other 2 in jail."
Of course, then gangsters will carry RFID scanners. "Quick, Little Ted is down to just 6 bullets, let's rush him!"
They'll probably do Premium like IGN. Look up the walkthrough on, say, Toy Commander for Dreamcast and you get the 'main' levels (required to advance). Subscribers get access to the walk-throughs for the 'extra' levels.
So maybe the Zelda GameFaq will now say "here is where the items are. For a list of all mushroom locations and the secret faery locations, become a subscriber!" etc
"And for software, because every PC is a software copying machine, since inception we have had a problem."
Yes, I'm sure their software sales would be way higher if no one had a PC.
MUDS used to attract techies but not casual users, I think, because they were 'difficult' to use. Well, okay, 'difficult' meant 'point telnet to a specific site _and_ port' and 'use a console'. Not big barriers for slashdotters, but kinda big for, say, my mom.
Companies like Skotos (skotos.net) and... hmm... okay, maybe just them, do web-based MUDs. They (plug plug) bought a friend of mine's larp (the Galactic Emperor is Dead) as a recurring/resettable one, and they do some long-term open ones.
The downside, I think, is a lot of MUD fans prefer to be able to create stuff (aka MOOs), not just play, so there may not be a big crossover from old MUD fan to new WebMUD user.
Meanwhile, MUDders I know just moved to IRC and freeform it when no one else is in a given channel. IRC is so flexible, this is kinda a cool evolution, much like the evolution of tabletop RPGing into rules light styles.
So, is this going to be the first MMORPG where you're _supposed_ to cheat?
"Wow, how'd you hit me?"
"I found a way to step outside the game... and install an aim-bot."
"Woah. Teach me."
Get a stopwatch or kitchen timer (I got mine from Target) that counts up (not just a countdown timer).
When you sit at your desk, hit 'on'. If you get up to get a soda, answer the home phone, rescue your toddler from the roof, have a wank, whatever, hit 'stop'. Hit 'start' when you get back to work.
You'd be amazed how little work time you get in 8 hours, if you have distractions.
Taken literally, this also means that telecommuters are cheaper, since you're tracking actual work time. Whereas in the office, soda/coffee breaks are generally presumed work time since you're just counting from 9am to 6pm.
So, give yourself 5-10 minutes each 'hour' as a break, factor that into your timesheet reporting. (So if your stopwatch showed you worked 6 hrs, 6 + 6*10min = 7 hrs 'billable work time').
Good luck!
How 'out of the box' can we get? If you had a vehicle that fired projectiles ahead to get 'soundings' then basically did 120MPH along any straightaways found, is that legit?
It's certainly not tidy.
Or a vehicle that just deploys a bunch of small r/c vehicles ahead, figuring 90% will get stuck or destroyed but the 1 or 2 that make it through have essentially provided it with a map.
Just how weird can one get?