This is a good point. For that matter, I'm already using gmail in the way that the author of the article envisioned - as a sort of online desktop. I keep all my documents stored on gmail, in a few different formats for compatability's sake - and as a result, my work is Just There, whenever I sit down at an internet kiosk or web cafe or public library computer.
The only reason I can think of to include wifi would be to have interoperability with the DS. Which is certainly cool, granted - but doesn't it seem just a little pointless to bother with wireless on a game console that will rarely, if ever, actually be *moving*? The point of wireless is to facilitate mobile devices - this isn't one.
How in the world can they do this? The Internet is international, and certainly inter-state - how can a state government regulate what content I view from another state? I could see making it illegal to operate or host a porn site *in Utah* - but as soon as a state government interfered with my ability to procure goods from another state, be they apples or pictures of women doing seriously twisted things with apples, doesn't that excede the authority of state governments?
Just out of the nerdiest sort of curiousity - does anyone have a timeline of the events in the miniseries? My understanding is that all the events in the mini take place in a day or two, tops, and possibly much less. Does this seem right?
I can see your point - certainly, a near-100% failure rate does (and should) raise eyebrows. However, I would be loathe to assume that the professor is always at fault. For example, one of my profs had to fail about two thirds of a freshman class because they plagiarized their term papers. He *had* explained to them that plagiarism would not be tolerated, and that it was defined in detail in the student handbook. Faced with that sort of stupidity, what is a professor to do?
Obviously, the case discussed in this article is very different - the course requirements do seem unreasonable. But it's entirely possible for most of a class to fail a course through no fault of the prof.
These mini-P2P programs may not be useful for serious media sharing, but I can think of a real-world application - distribution of banned text (articles, newspapers, etc.) in the PRC and other repressive states. The software's tiny - small enough that anyone with Python or Perl installed could just keep the program on a folded sheet of paper, type it in when they want to use it, and delete the program when they were done. If you got in trouble, just burn the paper.
The same question applies as in my previous post, though. What selection pressures exist on Mars that would encourage evolutionary adaptation to a completely, totally non-martian environment?
Why in the world would Martian microorganisms evolve with the ability to infect Terrestrial organisms? What's the "selection pressure" for that? What advantage is conferred by the ability to infect organisms that 99.9 *ad infinitum* Martian organisms will never, ever encounter? How would such a selection pressure manifest itself?
Without serious, plausible answers to these questions, this concern really strikes me as more appropriate to a b-movie than serious space exploration. Now, I *like* b-movies. But still.
I don't disagree with the "rebuttal" article - I think 1,000-year lifespans are fantastically unlikely. However, there's one argument the author gives which is extremely poor, and this should be pointed out.
"What do all these proponents of immortality have in common? They are all dead."
One could just as meaningfully have said in the 1890s, "What do all these proponents of heavier-than-air powered flight have in common? They've never flown in such a vehicle!" Saying that the current state of medical technology makes Methusalen lifespans unlikely is reasonable - categorically denying that technology adequate to the task will ever emerge is not. The author doesn't quite do that, but he comes close - and in so doing, he minimizes the role of a little something I like to call "technological progress".
On the other hand, in the time it will take to develop and build a single spaceship capable of carrying people to Mars, we could build and send quite a few unmanned probes, which would then be free to roll many tens of feet and analyze rocks.:) When you compare the speed and efficiency of manned vs. robot exploration, you need to take into account development and build time.
Can't you do the same thing with freenet? I mean, you never know what you're hosting with that. And that's certainly a lot more elegant and safe than this proposal.
Dear Penthouse,
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
I never thought I'd be writing to you, but...
[you knew this was going to happen. accept the horror.]
One of the required gen-ed classes at my school is Writing, which is taught in a computer lab. To give the professor credit, she really did try to integrate the technology into her class - for example, all her lecture notes were made available on the message board, there was a message board which was used for graded in-class discussion, and a couple times she had us use an IRC room for an in-class discussion. None of this really added anything of substance, though - and conducting a large-scale class discussion on IRC seemed to be more awkward than just having people use full-duplex analogue audio transmitted/recieved using built-in biological components.
On the plus side, I was able to browse slashdot during lectures. That was cool.
The reason is really very simple - no Pinky and the Brain on saturday mornings. That was the best cartoon ever concieved of by the mind of man, no argument. They had megalomaniacal mice, for Pete's sake! It doesn't get better than that.
The US secretary of health at the time, if memory serves, commented that the 1918-1919 had the potential to end civilization. Further, it ended up killing more people than the Great War. If it could have been contained with drastic measures, no one would have complained.
I'm running it already - not technically legally, thanks to some kind people who mirrored the ISO a little earlier than they were supposed to.:-) From what I've seen so far, there really isn't any reason for a desktop user to upgrade, unless they absolutely, positively, have to be running GNOME 2.2. It's good, it's solid, it works - but not any better that 8.0.
"3) a solid network browser a la network neighborhood."
Sorry I'm too lazy to link (use Google), but what's wrong with LinNeighborhood? I find it extremely easy to use, particularly for what I want to do (finding ALL the file shares on my campus network quickly). It isn't an "all-in-one" solution, but it's perfectly capable of calling up Midnight Commander (which I love even in Xterm windows), or you can just use konquerer/nautilus once the share is mounted. Simple - not quite as easy as the windows Network Neighborhood, but arguably more powerful, particularly if your primary interest in the LAN is filesharing.
"*ALL* future shuttle flights should be equipped with a Canadarm, ISS docking ring, EVA packs, and enough fuel to get to the ISS."
Good idea, but the problem is that, first of all, getting things into orbit is insanely expensive. And, the payload of the shuttle is limited. So what you propose is that on every flight the shuttle would carry a boatload of gear it may very well have no intention of using - that's pretty wasteful, and you don't get much return on your investment - the vast majority of the time, shuttle don't break up on reentry.
I can't speak to the "Linux as a server OS" point, as I'm not a server admin, but it suits me very nicely as a desktop OS. It has OpenOffice (which has, despite the supposedly less-than-perfect MS Office compatibility never given me a problem reading/writing MS Word format), enough programming tools that if I should ever feel the perverse urge to take up coding again, I can do that, and while there aren't as many games as for windows, there are enough good ones that I don't want for Gaming Goodness. Frozen Bubble, Unreal Tournament, UT2003, and Neverwinter Nights "any day now", in addition to the timewaster games that come with many distros (I use RH8). how much more gaming and work ability do you need for an average desktop?
If you built it with an ambient-pressure based life support system (that is, air pressure in the cabin increases to match pressure outside the hull), that might work- the glass wouldn't have to withstand a pressure differential. You'd be limited to a bit over a hundred feet dive, though, and just as with SCUBA, you'd have to be careful coming up. See the Psubs site for more info.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a good point. For that matter, I'm already using gmail in the way that the author of the article envisioned - as a sort of online desktop. I keep all my documents stored on gmail, in a few different formats for compatability's sake - and as a result, my work is Just There, whenever I sit down at an internet kiosk or web cafe or public library computer.
The only reason I can think of to include wifi would be to have interoperability with the DS. Which is certainly cool, granted - but doesn't it seem just a little pointless to bother with wireless on a game console that will rarely, if ever, actually be *moving*? The point of wireless is to facilitate mobile devices - this isn't one.
How in the world can they do this? The Internet is international, and certainly inter-state - how can a state government regulate what content I view from another state? I could see making it illegal to operate or host a porn site *in Utah* - but as soon as a state government interfered with my ability to procure goods from another state, be they apples or pictures of women doing seriously twisted things with apples, doesn't that excede the authority of state governments?
Remember, folks:
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
and with strange eons even death may die.
Cthulhu commands you to worship these harbingers of the Old Ones!
Just out of the nerdiest sort of curiousity - does anyone have a timeline of the events in the miniseries? My understanding is that all the events in the mini take place in a day or two, tops, and possibly much less. Does this seem right?
The article points out that a narrower image was desirable, in order to prevent conspicuous "reading" eye movements.
I can see your point - certainly, a near-100% failure rate does (and should) raise eyebrows. However, I would be loathe to assume that the professor is always at fault. For example, one of my profs had to fail about two thirds of a freshman class because they plagiarized their term papers. He *had* explained to them that plagiarism would not be tolerated, and that it was defined in detail in the student handbook. Faced with that sort of stupidity, what is a professor to do?
Obviously, the case discussed in this article is very different - the course requirements do seem unreasonable. But it's entirely possible for most of a class to fail a course through no fault of the prof.
These mini-P2P programs may not be useful for serious media sharing, but I can think of a real-world application - distribution of banned text (articles, newspapers, etc.) in the PRC and other repressive states. The software's tiny - small enough that anyone with Python or Perl installed could just keep the program on a folded sheet of paper, type it in when they want to use it, and delete the program when they were done. If you got in trouble, just burn the paper.
The same question applies as in my previous post, though. What selection pressures exist on Mars that would encourage evolutionary adaptation to a completely, totally non-martian environment?
Why in the world would Martian microorganisms evolve with the ability to infect Terrestrial organisms? What's the "selection pressure" for that? What advantage is conferred by the ability to infect organisms that 99.9 *ad infinitum* Martian organisms will never, ever encounter? How would such a selection pressure manifest itself?
Without serious, plausible answers to these questions, this concern really strikes me as more appropriate to a b-movie than serious space exploration. Now, I *like* b-movies. But still.
I don't disagree with the "rebuttal" article - I think 1,000-year lifespans are fantastically unlikely. However, there's one argument the author gives which is extremely poor, and this should be pointed out.
"What do all these proponents of immortality have in common? They are all dead."
One could just as meaningfully have said in the 1890s, "What do all these proponents of heavier-than-air powered flight have in common? They've never flown in such a vehicle!" Saying that the current state of medical technology makes Methusalen lifespans unlikely is reasonable - categorically denying that technology adequate to the task will ever emerge is not. The author doesn't quite do that, but he comes close - and in so doing, he minimizes the role of a little something I like to call "technological progress".
On the other hand, in the time it will take to develop and build a single spaceship capable of carrying people to Mars, we could build and send quite a few unmanned probes, which would then be free to roll many tens of feet and analyze rocks. :) When you compare the speed and efficiency of manned vs. robot exploration, you need to take into account development and build time.
Can't you do the same thing with freenet? I mean, you never know what you're hosting with that. And that's certainly a lot more elegant and safe than this proposal.
I never thought I'd be writing to you, but...
[you knew this was going to happen. accept the horror.]
One of the required gen-ed classes at my school is Writing, which is taught in a computer lab. To give the professor credit, she really did try to integrate the technology into her class - for example, all her lecture notes were made available on the message board, there was a message board which was used for graded in-class discussion, and a couple times she had us use an IRC room for an in-class discussion. None of this really added anything of substance, though - and conducting a large-scale class discussion on IRC seemed to be more awkward than just having people use full-duplex analogue audio transmitted/recieved using built-in biological components.
On the plus side, I was able to browse slashdot during lectures. That was cool.
The reason is really very simple - no Pinky and the Brain on saturday mornings. That was the best cartoon ever concieved of by the mind of man, no argument. They had megalomaniacal mice, for Pete's sake! It doesn't get better than that.
The US secretary of health at the time, if memory serves, commented that the 1918-1919 had the potential to end civilization. Further, it ended up killing more people than the Great War. If it could have been contained with drastic measures, no one would have complained.
I'm running it already - not technically legally, thanks to some kind people who mirrored the ISO a little earlier than they were supposed to. :-) From what I've seen so far, there really isn't any reason for a desktop user to upgrade, unless they absolutely, positively, have to be running GNOME 2.2. It's good, it's solid, it works - but not any better that 8.0.
Consider: Duke3d source code released.
Consider: Openoffice.Org SDK released within a week thereafter.
Question: How soon until Duke3d is ported to Openoffice.Org as a module?
Damnit, why wasn't I informed?
"3) a solid network browser a la network neighborhood."
Sorry I'm too lazy to link (use Google), but what's wrong with LinNeighborhood? I find it extremely easy to use, particularly for what I want to do (finding ALL the file shares on my campus network quickly). It isn't an "all-in-one" solution, but it's perfectly capable of calling up Midnight Commander (which I love even in Xterm windows), or you can just use konquerer/nautilus once the share is mounted. Simple - not quite as easy as the windows Network Neighborhood, but arguably more powerful, particularly if your primary interest in the LAN is filesharing.
"*ALL* future shuttle flights should be equipped with a Canadarm, ISS docking ring, EVA packs, and enough fuel to get to the ISS."
Good idea, but the problem is that, first of all, getting things into orbit is insanely expensive. And, the payload of the shuttle is limited. So what you propose is that on every flight the shuttle would carry a boatload of gear it may very well have no intention of using - that's pretty wasteful, and you don't get much return on your investment - the vast majority of the time, shuttle don't break up on reentry.
I can't speak to the "Linux as a server OS" point, as I'm not a server admin, but it suits me very nicely as a desktop OS. It has OpenOffice (which has, despite the supposedly less-than-perfect MS Office compatibility never given me a problem reading/writing MS Word format), enough programming tools that if I should ever feel the perverse urge to take up coding again, I can do that, and while there aren't as many games as for windows, there are enough good ones that I don't want for Gaming Goodness. Frozen Bubble, Unreal Tournament, UT2003, and Neverwinter Nights "any day now", in addition to the timewaster games that come with many distros (I use RH8). how much more gaming and work ability do you need for an average desktop?
I get the impression that with submarines, the closer you can get to one big hunk of metal for your hull, the better.
If you built it with an ambient-pressure based life support system (that is, air pressure in the cabin increases to match pressure outside the hull), that might work- the glass wouldn't have to withstand a pressure differential. You'd be limited to a bit over a hundred feet dive, though, and just as with SCUBA, you'd have to be careful coming up. See the Psubs site for more info.