Interestingly, that (the number of possible moves in chess and whether it was finite or infinite) was used as a plot point in the sci-fi novel _Starstrike_
In particular, games which make use of their nifty controllers?
I really enjoyed:
- Wii Sports Resort, (viewing it as a tech demo)
- The Conduit / Goldeneye 007 (viewing them as a First Person Shooter done right)
- Red Steel 2 (finally fulfilling the promise of verisimilitude in pretending to use a sword)
- Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword (continuing to make good on that fulfillment and really enjoying it as my first Legend of Zelda game, though I was disappointed that the balance board wasn't used for the tightrope walking sequences)
I managed to play through:
- Dragonquest Swords (but was very disappointed w/ how poorly the sword tracked)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (but wished that the gameplay was more involved)
- The Last Story (but raged every time I had to aim the crossbow using the joystick)
and was very disappointed by the glitch in Pandora's Tower
Give me a full-fledged RPG w/ downloadable content, on-line play and immersive motion controls and I'll be sleeping on the couch when I'm too exhausted to play the game ('cause I'll have bought the game and the console w/o consulting the finance committee).
To balance it w/ people who prefer traditional controllers, provide for an alternate playing option which makes use of the tablet as the controller, say to control a magic-wielding character --- I could see using the tablet as a spell book working out really well (of course, co-operative play w/ both controllers would be great as well).
Best keyboard layout ever was the original NeXT Cube keyboard w/ control to the left of A and caps lock being activated by Command shift and indicated by a light.
but I've still not seen any change --- just more patches and up-dates. My suspicion is that Adobe planned this a long while ago, identifying the last few product features which would be essential for profitability of users and the most difficult for a competitor to implement, then deferring implementing them until after they introduced Creative Cloud.
How are we going to harness tech and knowledge to create a better world for our children and grand-children?
Is it really an improvement to have machines such as the ShapeOko: http://www.shapeoko.com/ rather than teaching children how to use a set of carving gouges, chisels, saws, &c.?
Is it inevitable that we will see the banning of commercial fishing as commercial hunting was out-lawed during our grand-parents' day?
What technologies or organizations are there which offer options for making the world a better place?
- http://opensourceecology.org/ --- and their ``global village construction kit are one bright light --- arguably the ShapeOko has a place in that though.
- http://www.heifer.org/ --- teach a man to fish and all that
They lasted longer than that, but there's always the old story of people walking through such computers, watching for the signs of a tube about to fail, waiting until the system was in a state where said tube was switched off and hot-swapping a replacement.
The MacBook Air's form-factor was first exemplified in the NEC Ultralite back in 1988: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_UltraLite --- even was diskless w/ only solid-state storage (I bought a 2MB model....).
Arguably the first ``clamshell'' laptop was the GRiD Compass six years earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass (my GRiDcase III was one of the best-engineered / made / crafted objects I've ever owned)
If you want to look at changing how people used computers, one company which was missed was Go Corporation w/ their PenPoint OS (which pre-dated the Newton MessagePad) --- see Jerry Kaplan's book _StartUp_ for the insider's take on that (the NCR-3125 I owned was donated by the guy I sold it to to the Smithsonian).
- http://www.heifer.org/ --- give a child powdered milk and they'll drink for a day (if they have clean water), give their parents a breeding pair of cattle and they'll have milk for forever
- http://opensourceecology.org/ --- provide people with the tools necessary to make the things they need to make their lives better
Had a link for a water filtration system, but not finding it....
Any person who is legally able to purchase and own a firearm may manufacture their own, so long as it is not intended for re-sale --- the BATF has been very stringent on that last point of late, so it's pretty much impossible to transfer a personally-manufactured firearm.
Please note that the BATF is only interested in the last 20% or so of a firearm, so one may make and sell partially-finished (up to 80%) receivers w/o any need for an FFL.
- how many others participated in this DDOS? divide by that number
- how long were other machines involved in this? divide by that time
- how fast was his internet connection in comparison to the others? divide by that
He admitted to guilt, but it's not fair to hold him completely financially responsible simply because he was the only person they were able to catch and was honest enough to confess.
The last time I looked at the statistics for this, a bicycle rider involved in a collision w/ a car at highway speeds was a fatality 96% of the time --- I can't think of a single sort of car accident w/ that sort of fatality statistic.
There was a lengthy discussion about this here on Slashdot a while back, but oddly, it's not linked at the bottom of the page at the moment.
Our local PBS affiliate (the only channel I watch) switched early and broadcast at full power initially --- I was able to get the signal in my basement w/ rabbit ears --- until the other stations switched over and they also reduced power --- can't pick up the signal in my basement so had to run a line up to the living room and build a digital TV antenna:
Same here --- I'm still using a Fujitsu Stylistics ST-4121 of the same vintage and can't find a decent replacement at a reasonable price (though apparently some ThinkPad models have an outdoor viewable display now?).
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is the command line is incredibly unintuitive in that one must learn / memorise a special language to make use of it.
The ``Outland'' interface would be ideal --- but I don't see much progress on it.
Where are the general-purpose natural language command languages and parsers?
However, one doesn't need to use solar cells in a vacuum --- add geothermal into the mix, and all one needs is the energy to run a heat pump.
Actually, there was a post a while back which indicated solar cells could power New York City (on a sunny day):
http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...
ny_area_sqmi = 302.6
ny_population = 8175133.0
ny_demand_watt_hours_per_year = 64500 * 10**9
panel_watt_hours_per_year = 230 * 8 * 365
panels_needed = ny_demand_watt_hours_per_year / panel_watt_hours_per_year
panel_cost = 360.0
panel_area_sqft = 17.6
total_cost = panels_needed * panel_cost
total_area_sqmi = (panels_needed * panel_area_sqft) / (5280**2)
print 'panels needed', panels_needed
print 'total cost $ %.2f' % total_cost
print 'cost per person $ %.2f' % (total_cost / ny_population)
print 'square miles %.2f' % total_area_sqmi
print 'percent area of nyc %.2f%%' % ((total_area_sqmi / ny_area_sqmi) * 100)
------
panels needed 96039309
total cost $ 34574151240.00
cost per person $ 4229.19
square miles 60.63
percent area of nyc 20.04%
Here's what might have been in an intelligence briefing for King George:
http://kieranhealy.org/blog/ar...
Interestingly, that (the number of possible moves in chess and whether it was finite or infinite) was used as a plot point in the sci-fi novel _Starstrike_
Is it possible to make lots of money from copyright infringement w/o breaking lots of other laws?
If that's not the case, why do we need more?
In particular, games which make use of their nifty controllers?
I really enjoyed:
- Wii Sports Resort, (viewing it as a tech demo)
- The Conduit / Goldeneye 007 (viewing them as a First Person Shooter done right)
- Red Steel 2 (finally fulfilling the promise of verisimilitude in pretending to use a sword)
- Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword (continuing to make good on that fulfillment and really enjoying it as my first Legend of Zelda game, though I was disappointed that the balance board wasn't used for the tightrope walking sequences)
I managed to play through:
- Dragonquest Swords (but was very disappointed w/ how poorly the sword tracked)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (but wished that the gameplay was more involved)
- The Last Story (but raged every time I had to aim the crossbow using the joystick)
and was very disappointed by the glitch in Pandora's Tower
Give me a full-fledged RPG w/ downloadable content, on-line play and immersive motion controls and I'll be sleeping on the couch when I'm too exhausted to play the game ('cause I'll have bought the game and the console w/o consulting the finance committee).
To balance it w/ people who prefer traditional controllers, provide for an alternate playing option which makes use of the tablet as the controller, say to control a magic-wielding character --- I could see using the tablet as a spell book working out really well (of course, co-operative play w/ both controllers would be great as well).
William
Agree.
Best keyboard layout ever was the original NeXT Cube keyboard w/ control to the left of A and caps lock being activated by Command shift and indicated by a light.
SketchUp isn't that free these days though --- read the license for the ``free'' Community edition.
Well, over 1 million people have signed up as of 24 September or so: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/september/creative-cloud-1-millionth-user
which sounds impressive, until one recalls that for its 20th anniversary, Adobe announced PhotoShop had over 10 million users.
There's also no word on how many of these people have merely signed up for a 30 day free demo / trial.
Adobe's initial estimation was that only one-third or so (~4 million) of their customer base (~12 million) would initially sign up: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/adobes-creative-cloud-gamble-pays-off-handsomely-even-if-q2-earnings-crash-021396.php
So they're still far short of their initial estimate.
An Adobe CEO admitted to the disappointment and a need to tweak things: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/adobe_q2_customers_disappointed_with_no_boxed_wares/
but I've still not seen any change --- just more patches and up-dates. My suspicion is that Adobe planned this a long while ago, identifying the last few product features which would be essential for profitability of users and the most difficult for a competitor to implement, then deferring implementing them until after they introduced Creative Cloud.
Turn it around and ask --- what are the programming languages / environments which have been:
- stable
- usable
- useful
over a long haul?
What advantages does Python afford over such?
Of course, one could buy such a thing now:
http://www.modbook.com/
For my part, I picked up a Tablet PC and am working on getting OS X 10.6.8 installed on it.
Meant to include a link on the commercial fishing --- it's sobering that there's greater tonnage of ships in the water than there are fish:
http://what-if.xkcd.com/33/7
How are we going to harness tech and knowledge to create a better world for our children and grand-children?
Is it really an improvement to have machines such as the ShapeOko: http://www.shapeoko.com/ rather than teaching children how to use a set of carving gouges, chisels, saws, &c.?
Is it inevitable that we will see the banning of commercial fishing as commercial hunting was out-lawed during our grand-parents' day?
What technologies or organizations are there which offer options for making the world a better place?
- http://opensourceecology.org/ --- and their ``global village construction kit are one bright light --- arguably the ShapeOko has a place in that though.
- http://www.heifer.org/ --- teach a man to fish and all that
They lasted longer than that, but there's always the old story of people walking through such computers, watching for the signs of a tube about to fail, waiting until the system was in a state where said tube was switched off and hot-swapping a replacement.
The MacBook Air's form-factor was first exemplified in the NEC Ultralite back in 1988: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_UltraLite --- even was diskless w/ only solid-state storage (I bought a 2MB model....).
Arguably the first ``clamshell'' laptop was the GRiD Compass six years earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass (my GRiDcase III was one of the best-engineered / made / crafted objects I've ever owned)
If you want to look at changing how people used computers, one company which was missed was Go Corporation w/ their PenPoint OS (which pre-dated the Newton MessagePad) --- see Jerry Kaplan's book _StartUp_ for the insider's take on that (the NCR-3125 I owned was donated by the guy I sold it to to the Smithsonian).
Projects / charities to address that:
- http://www.heifer.org/ --- give a child powdered milk and they'll drink for a day (if they have clean water), give their parents a breeding pair of cattle and they'll have milk for forever
- http://opensourceecology.org/ --- provide people with the tools necessary to make the things they need to make their lives better
Had a link for a water filtration system, but not finding it....
Here:
http://www.freetronics.com/blogs/news/6305652-build-your-own-arduino-based-home-thermostat#.UrCCUijNB94
Not in the U.S. in most localities.
Any person who is legally able to purchase and own a firearm may manufacture their own, so long as it is not intended for re-sale --- the BATF has been very stringent on that last point of late, so it's pretty much impossible to transfer a personally-manufactured firearm.
Please note that the BATF is only interested in the last 20% or so of a firearm, so one may make and sell partially-finished (up to 80%) receivers w/o any need for an FFL.
or in gaol or hanging separately:
http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/
Financial penalties should be proportional:
- how many others participated in this DDOS? divide by that number
- how long were other machines involved in this? divide by that time
- how fast was his internet connection in comparison to the others? divide by that
He admitted to guilt, but it's not fair to hold him completely financially responsible simply because he was the only person they were able to catch and was honest enough to confess.
The last time I looked at the statistics for this, a bicycle rider involved in a collision w/ a car at highway speeds was a fatality 96% of the time --- I can't think of a single sort of car accident w/ that sort of fatality statistic.
There was a lengthy discussion about this here on Slashdot a while back, but oddly, it's not linked at the bottom of the page at the moment.
If I had mod points, you'd have one.
Our local PBS affiliate (the only channel I watch) switched early and broadcast at full power initially --- I was able to get the signal in my basement w/ rabbit ears --- until the other stations switched over and they also reduced power --- can't pick up the signal in my basement so had to run a line up to the living room and build a digital TV antenna:
http://www.current.org/wp-content/themes/current/archive-site/ptv/ptv0821make.pdf
When the weather is bad I have to pick it up from behind the couch and place it in the window.
If you're in Australia, beat the rush and grab any parts you need before the rush (or go into business making and selling them).
Same here --- I'm still using a Fujitsu Stylistics ST-4121 of the same vintage and can't find a decent replacement at a reasonable price (though apparently some ThinkPad models have an outdoor viewable display now?).
and shares profits equally.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/how-one-company-levels-the-pay-slope-of-executives-and-workers/article15472738/
I never regret spending money w/ them, and the consideration for their workers shows in their customer service which is top-notch.