I thought Star Raiders on the Atari 400/800 was brilliant. It was the first "home computer game" I saw that actually took advantage of the platform. With Space Invaders or Asteroids or Missile Command (its arcade contemporaries) you just sat there shooting at stuff. More complex, thinking-based mainframe ports like Zork or the original hacker Star Trek didn't use the graphics capabilities of modern (i.e. 1980s) computers. Star Raiders mixed the best parts of Star Trek (map-based strategy) with a graphically exciting first-person space shooter that use not only the joystick but various keys on the keyboard, as if you were piloting an actual ship, not just firing a gun.
Yes, he added several conditions, effectively saying "No, I don't want to do this the easy or logical way; I want to make this unnecessarily difficult, by disabling every form of I/O built into the machine except one (the NIC), but still having a way to interact with it (other than that one)." I recommend clairvoyance and telekinesis.:)
I think we may have been spoiled by science fiction. Much of 2009's technology seems not-new because we saw Captain Kirk using it 40 years ago.
We haven't invented any entirely new forms of transportation in the past several decades (darn it), but within my lifetime the changes in communication technology have been revolutionary. Sure, in 1969 I could imagine having a device in my hand that could show me exactly where I was on a map, let talk with anyone else on the planet or in orbit by saying "Kirk to Spock", and record and watch a movie, but I sure as heck didn't have one. I needed paper maps, a compass, and the ability to pick out landmarks and stars; I needed to go find a telephone somewhere; and I needed either a huge video camera and tape playback system with a CRT or a movie camera, film processing lab, and projector.
One indicator of how fast technology is still changing is the level of "future shock" we're still experiencing with it. Sure, people under 25 are comfortable with most of this new-fangled stuff, because they've grown up with it. But to someone who grew up with black and white television and rotary phones, it can be a struggle to understand how to work a computer. As a society we're still trying to figure out what the basic etiquette of mobile phone usage is. Not just when and where it's OK to talk, but how to conduct a phone call (e.g. When someone answers, do you automatically assume that it's the person you wanted to talk to, or do you consider that maybe it's a shared household phone? Do you assume that they know who's calling?)
The advantage of a gold standard (or silver or tungsten or any other arbitrary resource) is that it's inflation-resistant: you can't just make more of it by executive fiat, so it tends to hold its value (as long as everyone recognizes it as a standard).
The Japanese government thinks that an aging population is a bad thing. Lots of old people and not very many young people poses all sorts of challenges. Apparently they've decided that a growing but demographically-stable population is better than a size-stable but age-unbalanced one.
All money is "make-believe money". I'm not a retrograde gold-standard-er, but I think it's importatnt to understand that "wealth" in the modern global economy exists only as an abstraction, and can vanish just by people losing faith in it.
Just because you're a toddler with no knowledge of cinema history doesn't mean the rest of us are. I understood the reference immediately. And it's by making occasional reference to things that happened before you were born (such as this) that history is passed down to youngsters (such as yourself). (I'd make an allusion to Logan's Run, but I fear that would sail over your head as well.)
Either assign them yourself (00001, 00002, 00003...) or use the manufacturer's serial number.
(Now, if you're doing it for your home network, that's a different story. Use the names of known ring-bearers, or secret identities of the Justice League, or actors who've played the Doctor, or starship captains, or whatever you find amusing.)
Can someone explain to me the benefit to society of this kind of activity? I get how the stock market is beneficial, generally allocating resources according to the merit of the business ventures involved, investing capital where it will produce goods/services/jobs, and so on. So despite being a social lefty, I'm not anti-capitalism or anti-stock-market; it has risks and flaws but it works. But how does this kind of stock trading benefit anyone other than the traders themselves?
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I guess you missed the point of it. It wasn't an arcade game for trigger-twitchers. Maybe you should have tried reading the instructions.
I thought Star Raiders on the Atari 400/800 was brilliant. It was the first "home computer game" I saw that actually took advantage of the platform. With Space Invaders or Asteroids or Missile Command (its arcade contemporaries) you just sat there shooting at stuff. More complex, thinking-based mainframe ports like Zork or the original hacker Star Trek didn't use the graphics capabilities of modern (i.e. 1980s) computers. Star Raiders mixed the best parts of Star Trek (map-based strategy) with a graphically exciting first-person space shooter that use not only the joystick but various keys on the keyboard, as if you were piloting an actual ship, not just firing a gun.
10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD!"
20 GOTO 10
i'm adding this text to get past the anti-caps filter
We're next!
Yes, he added several conditions, effectively saying "No, I don't want to do this the easy or logical way; I want to make this unnecessarily difficult, by disabling every form of I/O built into the machine except one (the NIC), but still having a way to interact with it (other than that one)." I recommend clairvoyance and telekinesis. :)
I think we may have been spoiled by science fiction. Much of 2009's technology seems not-new because we saw Captain Kirk using it 40 years ago.
We haven't invented any entirely new forms of transportation in the past several decades (darn it), but within my lifetime the changes in communication technology have been revolutionary. Sure, in 1969 I could imagine having a device in my hand that could show me exactly where I was on a map, let talk with anyone else on the planet or in orbit by saying "Kirk to Spock", and record and watch a movie, but I sure as heck didn't have one. I needed paper maps, a compass, and the ability to pick out landmarks and stars; I needed to go find a telephone somewhere; and I needed either a huge video camera and tape playback system with a CRT or a movie camera, film processing lab, and projector.
One indicator of how fast technology is still changing is the level of "future shock" we're still experiencing with it. Sure, people under 25 are comfortable with most of this new-fangled stuff, because they've grown up with it. But to someone who grew up with black and white television and rotary phones, it can be a struggle to understand how to work a computer. As a society we're still trying to figure out what the basic etiquette of mobile phone usage is. Not just when and where it's OK to talk, but how to conduct a phone call (e.g. When someone answers, do you automatically assume that it's the person you wanted to talk to, or do you consider that maybe it's a shared household phone? Do you assume that they know who's calling?)
The advantage of a gold standard (or silver or tungsten or any other arbitrary resource) is that it's inflation-resistant: you can't just make more of it by executive fiat, so it tends to hold its value (as long as everyone recognizes it as a standard).
The Japanese government thinks that an aging population is a bad thing. Lots of old people and not very many young people poses all sorts of challenges. Apparently they've decided that a growing but demographically-stable population is better than a size-stable but age-unbalanced one.
All money is "make-believe money".
I'm not a retrograde gold-standard-er, but I think it's importatnt to understand that "wealth" in the modern global economy exists only as an abstraction, and can vanish just by people losing faith in it.
Anyone who watched the moon landings on TV knows that the whole moon is grey: completely colorless.
The only hoax is NASA's claim that the moon is utterly barren! This revelation proves the existence of ancient moon trees!
Just because you're a toddler with no knowledge of cinema history doesn't mean the rest of us are. I understood the reference immediately. And it's by making occasional reference to things that happened before you were born (such as this) that history is passed down to youngsters (such as yourself). (I'd make an allusion to Logan's Run, but I fear that would sail over your head as well.)
At least they saved money by using an installed-by-default font in the logo.
What disqualifies Star Wars from being "science fiction" isn't the "fiction" part, but the "science" part.
Serial. Numbers.
Either assign them yourself (00001, 00002, 00003...) or use the manufacturer's serial number.
(Now, if you're doing it for your home network, that's a different story. Use the names of known ring-bearers, or secret identities of the Justice League, or actors who've played the Doctor, or starship captains, or whatever you find amusing.)
If you two don't fit the traditional gender stereotypes, try reading books for gay/lesbian couples.
Why not just give these "worst families in England" to the 456 and be done with them?
Now if they can just get rid of the impurity in the lasing element that causes the beam to scatter when it strikes something yellow...
This brings us one step closer to producing a Power Ring!*
*GL Corps version, of course. Making a Power Ring like the original Green Lantern's is just a matter of using the right kind of ancient magic.
Can someone explain to me the benefit to society of this kind of activity? I get how the stock market is beneficial, generally allocating resources according to the merit of the business ventures involved, investing capital where it will produce goods/services/jobs, and so on. So despite being a social lefty, I'm not anti-capitalism or anti-stock-market; it has risks and flaws but it works. But how does this kind of stock trading benefit anyone other than the traders themselves?
It's one of the oldest political tactics in the book: bread and circuses. (This is one of the circuses.)
After this they'll work on violent legislation dealing with other matters.
So it's extortion by an accomplice after the fact.
"He plans to offset the cost by charging members of the public for access to his database to check whether their data security has been breached."
How, exactly, does this differ from extortion?
I'll take one. I've been meaning to get a life.