Both of these words translate to English as "free", but their meanings are totally different, and neither can be naturally expressed in English with a single word. The morpheme "svobod-" means free as in liberty or freedom. The root "bezplat-" is two morphemes, "bez-" meaning without, and "plat-" meaning cost or price.
Let me translate to slashdotese for you, since you didn't do such a good job. svobod: free as in libre. bezplat: free as in beer.
The question is, is it cheaper to organize a return trip, or is it cheaper to have them settle there permanently which means sending more equipment and making them pretty much self sufficient or supplying them with what they need including oxygen. These are your only 2 options (unless you're willing to abandon astronauts to die on Mars).
Yeah I've thought about painting or sticking stars on the ceiling. 3 disadvantages though - takes a lot of time, not very portable, not possible to change the display with time of night (and hard to do with season).
Kudos to you for getting girls into a starlit bedroom in highschool *chuckle* I wasn't exactly a babe magnet at that age so I'm jealous;-)
I use all 3 bits of software and love them. I also have an old copy of Starry Night Backyard that works nicely (though isn't free software). The issue si I don't have a large screen TV and if I did, I wouldn't put it in the baby's bedroom. A cheap projector would be ideal.
If banks can securely (with ~ 99.999% security) transfer thousands of dollars online, then the technology exists to securely permit voting online.
If a dollar is lost, it can be replaced by another dollar so banks figure in a loss rate and charge for it somehow
So what you're saying is that if 99.999% of votes are secured, it's still not good enough? You think the current system is perfect and tamper proof? You can't be that naive can you?
I'd argue electronic voting done well would increase participation, by decreasing the inconvenience you have to go through when you vote. Where I am (Australia), voting is compulsory (actually turning up is, it's quite easy to put in a blank ballot). Where you are it's voluntary and participation is important enough that I'd think you'd be all for this.
If you're thinking of running a projector all night, it's gonna run you over $100 a year in electricity, not to mention the carbon footprint. As AC said, get a star projector.
1. Star projector = garbage stick figure projector. 2. $100/year I'd be willing to spend. 3. Carbon footprint? I'll start worrying about that when people stop buying 1m+ plasma TVs.
He'll be outside with binocs and a 10" dob when he's old enough. In the meantime I'd like him to grow up with some familiarity of the stars and going to bed to them would be ideal. It's not practical to take an infant outdoors every night.
The star projectors are what I was referring to when I said garbage sick figure projector. I don't want my son thinking of the constellations as stick figures where the lines can't be turned off.
I've been thinking of buying a projector for my 3 month old son's bedroom when he's just a little older (I've read their distance vision improves at 8 months). That plus decent planetarium software would let me project the stars on the ceiling for him at night. I've got a spare PC that'd do fine but unfortunately it's over AUD1000 for a semi decent projector (and a few hundred dollars a pop for the lamps - that's the real killer). I can't justify that. Plus it would give me a flat not spherical projection.
I can't think of anything mid way in between those garbage home projectors that project lines on your ceiling for the constellations, and a full blown projector setup.
He was accused of challenging an idea and sentenced to death for it. Yet challenging an idea confers no harm on others.
It does if your reality consists of the belief that blasphemy and enciting others to blasphemy will literally send them to hell. That's one reason religion is dangerous. It's not based on a rational reality. It's based on extreme beliefs that aren't supported by the best forms of truth we know (scientific fact), and it can therefore be manipulated and twisted to vilify others.
In Star Trek Appearance doesn't matter. Only disobeying rules at key moments matters.
In that case, here's your new red shirt. We were going to give you the blue shirt, but that wouldn't tell the audience that you're about to die. The way team will be beaming down to the dangerous planet immediately.
That's like suggesting that you can't have fun playing wow if you don't make level 70 with maxed out items. If that's the case, then again, it's the WOW designers who suck, not a fundamental problem.
No it's not. Star Wars is a genre about a simple farm boy that realizes he has amazing power and that his help is needed to save the universe from an evil empire. WOW is not....and yet even in WOW if you don't at least try to progress through the levels, the game is pointless and becomes more like second life (also pointless).
You're missing the point. Being a hero is about being special, chosen, better than the common folk, more powerful, wiser etc. The more heroes you have in an MMO the less special each one is. It doesn't matter how many people and bots talk about what feats you performed if everyone is performing them.
Think about flying in Second Life. If you were the only one that could fly that'd be one heck of a special power to have. Since everyone can fly the novelty wears off in half a day.
...and seriously, do we really need another MMO out there? I hope they at least do something original with this.
Star Wars is all about the fantasy of being a hero. The problem is that playing minor characters in world where the heroes get all the action sucks. You don't get to be familiar. Hell in an MMO you don't even get to be special otherwise everyone is special just like you. What does that leave you with - unnamed wookies, droids, ewoks and storm troopers??? Yoda's dim witted 3rd cousin shlopwitt of the planet schnarf?
Agent Bob: They've committed murder and robbery to extortion, money laundering, gun trafficking and drug dealing. What are we going to do? Agent Dan: I have just the thing that will hurt them. Let's seize their name! Agent Bob: That's brilliant! They're thugs. We all know thugs are thick. Coming up with a new name will be hard on them. They'll spend so much time coming up with a name their crime spree will be over! Agent Dan: That's why they pay me the big bucks. Lets go get some donuts. Agent Bob: Don't you think donuts are a little cliche? Agent Dan: We're not regular cops Bob. Besides we can always change their name to dough-rings. Agent Bob: That'll confuse people...Renaming things. Brilliant. I'm in awe of your wisdom. You truly are a law enforcement agent of the times.
Label me troll but how the fuck can intelligent people seriously think that this heap of crap of an interface in which nothing is easy to find is an improvement on simple, straight forward menus? It really irritates me.
the ribbon is -dare I say it?- a clever and even innovative UI approach
Yep, I must admit I've never seen a better way to hide options behind obscure icons that are difficult to find because they're so poorly placed on the various bars. In fact I'd go as far as saying I don't think I could make a more confusing, childish, unintuitive and frustrating menuing system if i tried. Kudos to MS.
If someone who was actually there because it was his life cannot get correct information into Wikipedia,
The summary is misleading. The facts aren't in question. Jason Lanier admits he directed a film and that it was shown at a film festival. The interpretation of those facts is what is in question. Mr Lanier does not believe that makes him a film director. The wikipedia editors do. In this case I think I'd side with Lanier but often the people that are the subject of the article are the least objective and therefore shouldn't be permitted to correct it.
From the link:
"My Wikipedia entry identifies me (at least this week) as a film director. It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago. The concept was awful: I tried to imagine what Maya Deren would have done with morphing. It was shown once at a film festival and was never distributed and I would be most comfortable if no one ever sees it again.
In the real world it is easy to not direct films. I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie."
There is no way you can live your daily life without belief. When you get into a car or a plane, you BELIEVE that they will take you where you want to go. You don't know that for sure
People know perfectly well that when they get into a car or plane it might crash. Hell they may have a heart attack on the way or be hit by a lightning bold. However they also have some combination of their own experience, the experience of others (anecdotal evidence), and some set of statistics they base their belief on. They estimate their chances of getting there are pretty good. This is entirely different to faith based on no prior experience and no knowledge.
There really is no proof of anything, only evidence that we can choose to believe or not believe.
That's rather defeatist. From a pragmatic point of view there is evidence of varying quality for various things. We have the ability to reason and judge that evidence. Metaphysical arguments like what if we're all just the dream of some creature don't help us in the here and now.
Science, the scientific method (properly applied...unfortunately it often isn't) is the BEST tool we have to judge that evidence. While you do have to make some value judgment about the credibility of the source (because you can't do all experiments yourself) it is possible to make that judgement well, as opposed to waving hands about and saying we can't prove a thing.
For the most part games are HARDER to pirate on a console almost always requiring hardware mods, so if piracy were such a primary motivator, people would never buy consoles. They don't put draconian anti-piracy measures into most console games (yet) so by doing so on the PC they're pushing people further away. Consoles are fine for shoot them ups - platformers, FPS and the like, and they're even good for some interesting additions with peripherals like eyetoy, guitar sims, golf sims, fishing sims etc. but for certain games they're awful.
Any serious flight simulation for instance is best done on a PC, with a keyboard and multiple screens. I'm not talking about flight games, I'm talking about realistic simulation. Flight simulation isn't a potential mass market so any peripheral made for it tends to be pricy...and people do go to extremes. Flight sims also tend to need more power than consoles provide.
So what we're missing by going to the consoles is the flexibility. The other thing we're missing is the ability for a hobbiest to dive in and write their own software, although the games are complex enough now that there are only a handful of open games without a proprietary heritage. That's what the push is about - shutting out any remaining competition and innovation by hobby projects. The less competition and the harder it is for people to pirate, the more they can charge for 3rd rate games.
Slashdot Mirror
Pffft. In Soviet (and Non-Soviet) Russia, Microsoft waits in a very long line to bribe the officials.
I bet Microsoft has even tried to patent the process.
As far as I understand, in the US copyright violation is prosecuted in a civil action and the holder has to press charges.
Those FBI copyright warnings everyone skips are about criminal charges resulting in jail time, not just civil damages.
Both of these words translate to English as "free", but their meanings are totally different, and neither can be naturally expressed in English with a single word. The morpheme "svobod-" means free as in liberty or freedom. The root "bezplat-" is two morphemes, "bez-" meaning without, and "plat-" meaning cost or price.
Let me translate to slashdotese for you, since you didn't do such a good job.
svobod: free as in libre.
bezplat: free as in beer.
The question is, is it cheaper to organize a return trip, or is it cheaper to have them settle there permanently which means sending more equipment and making them pretty much self sufficient or supplying them with what they need including oxygen. These are your only 2 options (unless you're willing to abandon astronauts to die on Mars).
Yeah I've thought about painting or sticking stars on the ceiling. 3 disadvantages though - takes a lot of time, not very portable, not possible to change the display with time of night (and hard to do with season).
Kudos to you for getting girls into a starlit bedroom in highschool *chuckle* I wasn't exactly a babe magnet at that age so I'm jealous ;-)
I use all 3 bits of software and love them. I also have an old copy of Starry Night Backyard that works nicely (though isn't free software). The issue si I don't have a large screen TV and if I did, I wouldn't put it in the baby's bedroom. A cheap projector would be ideal.
If banks can securely (with ~ 99.999% security) transfer thousands of dollars online, then the technology exists to securely permit voting online.
If a dollar is lost, it can be replaced by another dollar so banks figure in a loss rate and charge for it somehow
So what you're saying is that if 99.999% of votes are secured, it's still not good enough? You think the current system is perfect and tamper proof? You can't be that naive can you?
I'd argue electronic voting done well would increase participation, by decreasing the inconvenience you have to go through when you vote. Where I am (Australia), voting is compulsory (actually turning up is, it's quite easy to put in a blank ballot). Where you are it's voluntary and participation is important enough that I'd think you'd be all for this.
If you're thinking of running a projector all night, it's gonna run you over $100 a year in electricity, not to mention the carbon footprint. As AC said, get a star projector.
1. Star projector = garbage stick figure projector.
2. $100/year I'd be willing to spend.
3. Carbon footprint? I'll start worrying about that when people stop buying 1m+ plasma TVs.
Or you could take him outside?
He'll be outside with binocs and a 10" dob when he's old enough. In the meantime I'd like him to grow up with some familiarity of the stars and going to bed to them would be ideal. It's not practical to take an infant outdoors every night.
The star projectors are what I was referring to when I said garbage sick figure projector. I don't want my son thinking of the constellations as stick figures where the lines can't be turned off.
I've been thinking of buying a projector for my 3 month old son's bedroom when he's just a little older (I've read their distance vision improves at 8 months). That plus decent planetarium software would let me project the stars on the ceiling for him at night. I've got a spare PC that'd do fine but unfortunately it's over AUD1000 for a semi decent projector (and a few hundred dollars a pop for the lamps - that's the real killer). I can't justify that. Plus it would give me a flat not spherical projection.
I can't think of anything mid way in between those garbage home projectors that project lines on your ceiling for the constellations, and a full blown projector setup.
Oh for crying out loud it was a typo.
He was accused of challenging an idea and sentenced to death for it. Yet challenging an idea confers no harm on others.
It does if your reality consists of the belief that blasphemy and enciting others to blasphemy will literally send them to hell. That's one reason religion is dangerous. It's not based on a rational reality. It's based on extreme beliefs that aren't supported by the best forms of truth we know (scientific fact), and it can therefore be manipulated and twisted to vilify others.
In Star Trek Appearance doesn't matter. Only disobeying rules at key moments matters.
In that case, here's your new red shirt. We were going to give you the blue shirt, but that wouldn't tell the audience that you're about to die. The way team will be beaming down to the dangerous planet immediately.
That's like suggesting that you can't have fun playing wow if you don't make level 70 with maxed out items. If that's the case, then again, it's the WOW designers who suck, not a fundamental problem.
No it's not. Star Wars is a genre about a simple farm boy that realizes he has amazing power and that his help is needed to save the universe from an evil empire. WOW is not....and yet even in WOW if you don't at least try to progress through the levels, the game is pointless and becomes more like second life (also pointless).
Actions and powers given out only to a tiny fraction of the players.
Then most people end up play Joe Schmuck from Boobsville. Not fun.
You're missing the point. Being a hero is about being special, chosen, better than the common folk, more powerful, wiser etc. The more heroes you have in an MMO the less special each one is. It doesn't matter how many people and bots talk about what feats you performed if everyone is performing them.
Think about flying in Second Life. If you were the only one that could fly that'd be one heck of a special power to have. Since everyone can fly the novelty wears off in half a day.
Git could [..] buy you a girlfriend
Dunno 'bout you guys, but that right there settles it for me. Git it is!
Congratulations. Your new girlfriend's name is 'Richard Stalman' and you can call her 'RMS' for short.
Enjoy your new girlfriend.
Yours faithfully,
GIT
Star Wars is all about the fantasy of being a hero. The problem is that playing minor characters in world where the heroes get all the action sucks. You don't get to be familiar. Hell in an MMO you don't even get to be special otherwise everyone is special just like you. What does that leave you with - unnamed wookies, droids, ewoks and storm troopers??? Yoda's dim witted 3rd cousin shlopwitt of the planet schnarf?
Agent Bob: They've committed murder and robbery to extortion, money laundering, gun trafficking and drug dealing. What are we going to do?
Agent Dan: I have just the thing that will hurt them. Let's seize their name!
Agent Bob: That's brilliant! They're thugs. We all know thugs are thick. Coming up with a new name will be hard on them. They'll spend so much time coming up with a name their crime spree will be over!
Agent Dan: That's why they pay me the big bucks. Lets go get some donuts.
Agent Bob: Don't you think donuts are a little cliche?
Agent Dan: We're not regular cops Bob. Besides we can always change their name to dough-rings.
Agent Bob: That'll confuse people...Renaming things. Brilliant. I'm in awe of your wisdom. You truly are a law enforcement agent of the times.
Label me troll but how the fuck can intelligent people seriously think that this heap of crap of an interface in which nothing is easy to find is an improvement on simple, straight forward menus? It really irritates me.
the ribbon is -dare I say it?- a clever and even innovative UI approach
Yep, I must admit I've never seen a better way to hide options behind obscure icons that are difficult to find because they're so poorly placed on the various bars. In fact I'd go as far as saying I don't think I could make a more confusing, childish, unintuitive and frustrating menuing system if i tried. Kudos to MS.
If someone who was actually there because it was his life cannot get correct information into Wikipedia,
The summary is misleading. The facts aren't in question. Jason Lanier admits he directed a film and that it was shown at a film festival. The interpretation of those facts is what is in question. Mr Lanier does not believe that makes him a film director. The wikipedia editors do. In this case I think I'd side with Lanier but often the people that are the subject of the article are the least objective and therefore shouldn't be permitted to correct it.
From the link:
"My Wikipedia entry identifies me (at least this week) as a film director. It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago. The concept was awful: I tried to imagine what Maya Deren would have done with morphing. It was shown once at a film festival and was never distributed and I would be most comfortable if no one ever sees it again.
In the real world it is easy to not direct films. I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie."
There is no way you can live your daily life without belief. When you get into a car or a plane, you BELIEVE that they will take you where you want to go. You don't know that for sure
People know perfectly well that when they get into a car or plane it might crash. Hell they may have a heart attack on the way or be hit by a lightning bold. However they also have some combination of their own experience, the experience of others (anecdotal evidence), and some set of statistics they base their belief on. They estimate their chances of getting there are pretty good. This is entirely different to faith based on no prior experience and no knowledge.
There really is no proof of anything, only evidence that we can choose to believe or not believe.
That's rather defeatist. From a pragmatic point of view there is evidence of varying quality for various things. We have the ability to reason and judge that evidence. Metaphysical arguments like what if we're all just the dream of some creature don't help us in the here and now.
Science, the scientific method (properly applied...unfortunately it often isn't) is the BEST tool we have to judge that evidence. While you do have to make some value judgment about the credibility of the source (because you can't do all experiments yourself) it is possible to make that judgement well, as opposed to waving hands about and saying we can't prove a thing.
For the most part games are HARDER to pirate on a console almost always requiring hardware mods, so if piracy were such a primary motivator, people would never buy consoles. They don't put draconian anti-piracy measures into most console games (yet) so by doing so on the PC they're pushing people further away. Consoles are fine for shoot them ups - platformers, FPS and the like, and they're even good for some interesting additions with peripherals like eyetoy, guitar sims, golf sims, fishing sims etc. but for certain games they're awful.
Any serious flight simulation for instance is best done on a PC, with a keyboard and multiple screens. I'm not talking about flight games, I'm talking about realistic simulation. Flight simulation isn't a potential mass market so any peripheral made for it tends to be pricy...and people do go to extremes. Flight sims also tend to need more power than consoles provide.
So what we're missing by going to the consoles is the flexibility. The other thing we're missing is the ability for a hobbiest to dive in and write their own software, although the games are complex enough now that there are only a handful of open games without a proprietary heritage. That's what the push is about - shutting out any remaining competition and innovation by hobby projects. The less competition and the harder it is for people to pirate, the more they can charge for 3rd rate games.