>"cliquetez ici pour la version française" is almost good, at least it is understandable....I think you mean "almost correct". And "french" should read French. But I understand you:-)
"Ashtray" Soon we will have revolutionary waste receptacles for the combustion byproducts of another of my inventions, Coolness Extrapolation Tubes (or "cigarettes")
(Yes, I realize the actual item is something completely different)
The next was "Crash Landing"
This came from the film "Destruction (sic) Man" where the car crashes through the glass sign and lands in the fountain, but the passengers are saved due to the car filling with foam. The poster then envisions saving the Space Shuttle from crash landings with this stuff.
I never even thought about cigarette smoke. I guess that's part of the reason why you could blow on it all day and it still wouldn't work...nicotine is a little stickier than that.
Me and a friend nearly finished Faxanadu from start to finish but the game crapped out in the final level. So we went to MY house and started again!
P.S. I was being completely facetious about the Canadian comment!
As does Sigma-Aldrich (www.sigmaaldrich.com), but keep in mind that a lot of these chemicals are restricted and/or require special handling. If you are buying for private use you will probably have to be able to justify your purchase at the very least. These chemicals are produced for research purposes and so are rigorously purified and tested. I imagine that most of the stuff you can legally (or with relatively little hassle) buy from these companies you could just get in a hardware store. Besides, do you REALLY need 99.9+% purity sodium bicarbonate and glacial acetic acid for your son's volcano demonstration?:-)
Yes, space certainly qualifies as a long distance. What would you propose as an alternative to tests? Should they send people into space on top of a rocket and HOPE that it gets there because they didn't bother to try out their guidance systems?
Something tells me you would be the first to post comments like "Leave it to the Chinese to not bother testing the steering on a multimillion dollar rocket".
So N. America and Europe can build whatever rockets/missiles they want and clutter our orbit with more and more satellites, but heaven forbid the Chinese try to get someone into space! My Lord, they might discover something we didn't! We certainly can't have the world's biggest nation making contributions to research!
Well, the NES always would get hot, and by the time I bought the game the system was full of dust and other undesirables.
Wait a minute. You never had your NES give out after hours of play? Maybe Canadian systems weren't built as well.:-) Or maybe it is because I was hopelessly addicted and ran it into the ground?
I was probably 11 or 12, though I can't really be sure, so I didn't really think about increasing the multiplier or using my pencil to bypass a pin on the CPU.
Besides, if you told me to use a liquid cooling system I would have stuck it in the toilet:-)
Depends on what the true definition of supercomputer is. I would never be able to do what they have done and it is truly impressive, but I can't help but feel that if I took my 50 best friend's computers and ran them together I could then post on/. about my home-made supercomputer. I think people would be pretty quick to denounce my claim that I had built a supercomputer because all I did was run together a bunch of CPUs.
If "conventional" supercomputers are capable of high-speed parallel and serial computation, then the answer is no, this cannot be classified as a supercomputer. But it is impressive all the same.
There are so many holes in the existing shell that I suppose their aim is to minimise the amount of rainwater entering the site. That way run-off will be at a minimum and thus infiltration into the groundwater will be reduced.
Since the groundwater is under the plant it stands to reason that it is not the primary source of run-off, ie. it is not washing over the chunks of radioactive material.
I think that trying to prevent groundwater beneath the plant from getting contaminated by a direct means would cause more unsettling of radioactive matter, never mind the cost of doing so.
Maybe they should just blanket the area in liquid nitrogen! Groundwater wouldn't go anywhere if it was frozen. We just have to keep that supply up for the next 300 years and all will be well:-)
My NES would ALWAYS overheat whenever I got to the end of Blaster Master. That is my second-favorite NES game ever, but it took quite an effort to complete it. I tried running the system in the fridge but mom (thankfully) stopped me from being more stupid than usual.
What was the name of this fine display of Engrish? If you can include games that have bugs and crappy joysticks on these lists, then a game that was translated by Eddy the Dyslexic Chimp has to weigh in somewhere.
Seriously though, how old are these children? Are they taking science classes yet?
If some anti-NASA group went out and showed a bunch of kindergarten kids a movie about the moon landing being a hoax, then the majority of them are going to tell you that it is a hoax when questioned. Just like if you show them a movie about Santa Claus, they are going to believe in Santa Claus, because they are CHILDREN.
The difference is they grow out of it, because they do the math themselves and realise that Santa does not exist. If these are truly young children and they have not been told about the flight or shown pictures of when we went to the moon then OF COURSE they aren't going to believe it! Just like they won't believe that we are all made up of electrons and protons and quarks etc etc etc...
If these are high school students, then I am worried about what other "beliefs" they have, and seeing as how I am not too far out of HS myself I would consider 150 people who think the moon landing is a hoax as a very large anomaly.
Quick! Go ask the first 100 people you see whether or not we have visited the moon. I think that you will see that the majority of people whole-heartedly believe, or at least suspect, that we have.
The number of people who are running around screaming that NASA fooled everyone is, I imagine, pretty small. Even if it is as high as 20%, that means 4/5 of the next generation are open in some degree to the idea of space travel, and they have succeeded, all without wasting money on the minority of yahoos.
Keep in mind that there is a percentage of people who think that there is no such thing as atoms, that science was created by God as an ultimate test of their religious faith and that the earth is flat, or that it is supported on the back of a turtle in an infinite ocean, or something like that.
I am a little confused by the wording being used in these discussions.
My impression is that they are passing resolutions to oppose the Patriot Act, which is a whole different ballgame than legislation that prohibits the Patriot Act.
These cities are agreeing to oppose it based on what they feel is their right, but I don't think that municipalities have the power to overturn federal action that quickly. But I am not a lawyer...
Even if only American sites are to be included, I think you will find that a substantial number of the webpages you visit happen to be American.
At the very least you will have to go look for new websites to browse, but for some people who use American websites for research purposes or some other practical means may be concerned by this.
I wonder if soon we will have to register and "clear Customs" before "crossing the border" into American cyberspace. We Canadians might one day find that accessing the virtual US gets harder than physically crossing the border!
...for movies is commonly reported as 1/10. So for every big blockbuster smash that rakes in millions for the movie industry, there are 9 films that cost the industry several hundred million dollars.
Where do you think that money is going? Mostly actors with ridiculous appearance fees, but several million goes into rental of equipment, technicians, catering companies, etc...
Whether you like it or not the movie industry pumps a lot of money into the pockets of the not-so-wealthy, and I don't mind that at all. I don't think that we should throw all our money into over-priced limited edition DVD's and T-shirts, etc, but there are tangible benefits to supporting movies. If you like it, go watch it!
Note that I suspect this doesn't really apply to the music industry, as their money goes into pressing the CD's (company-owned factories), professional advertising and million dollar copy protection that can only be defeated with the latest in Sharpie technology.
I would be much more concerned about people who drive f£*@ing monster trucks to work every day, or people who insist on showering 3 times a day and washing their towels after one use then people who leave their computers idling for an hour.
I didn't leave my PC alone for 2 months. If I am not going to touch it for 1 day I shut it off, but I don't obsessively turn it off everytime I get up to yazz. That is more energetically wasteful then clicking it into standby when I leave, I wager.
And besides, some people use their idle CPU time for distributed computing projects and the such. Should these (mostly) noble aims be derailed because someone (MS?) insists on probing your computer and publishing it's contents everytime you turn it on? Servers that re-boot every 20 minutes tend not to be too popular, methinks (isn't that why we moved away from Win98?)
I didn't choose HAM radio because I thought it was banned. I was trying to choose something that your average flyer doesn't carry onboard an airplane. Perhaps I should have said "But fusion-powered lasersonic ninja-fast radios aren't on the list!":-)
I have my suspicions that on most flights, if you started using a HAM radio the airline staff would start getting pretty mad at you nonetheless, and many would probably tell you that they are not allowed, be it from ignorance or from having to explain to all the passengers how SOME radio/electronic equipment is good, but using others on a plane makes you a terrorist:-)
Just because it is a university library does not mean that they have access to the relevant journals. Universities pay fees to provide this "free" service, and they often cannot subscribe to all of them. Which means that you cannot readily access all the discoveries, no matter how small.
Up until recently most journals were not even available on the internet, especially before the late 90's.
Since graduating from University and moving away for a year, I cannot access research that my group worked on, nor can I access journals with MY NAME on it without finding a library with the suitable subscription, assuming such a thing exists.
Most people I know leave their computers on all the time, whether they have broadband or not. I leave mine on standby when I am away, and up until 2 months ago I didn't have a modem.
I don't know if it is precisely true, but the old adage "The worst thing you can do to your car (or computer?) is turn it on", referring to the stresses on the hardware due to powering on and off over and over. Whether standby is any better I have no idea...
The issue is not whether we can unplug our modems from the wall, it is whether or not we should HAVE to and whether this company should be able to force us into making this decision.
It may have more to do with the fact that they don't want electronics running PERIOD. So rather than have to explain to every passenger that some devices are safe and some aren't, they just say "Sod it" and prohibit everything.
It just might prevent arguments like "But HAM radios aren't on the list, so I just figured I could talk to my trucker buddies as I flew overhead!"
We are effective at battling disease/illness? Tell that to the English bat researcher who died from rabies last month. Or how about those people who die from TB or the Plague? Or if you want one that is a little more "Western", how about MRSA infections?
To focus more on disease i can flip through an entire medical dictionary here if you like. A few that come to mind are lupus, diabetes, cirrhosis, hepatitis B/C, cancer, etc... We don't have a clue what were are doing. We research patchwork drugs that alleviate symptoms, but we do not cure the diseases themselves because we don't understand how they work on us.
Sorry, my original post was a little more aggressive than I realised, but you didn't say anything about working as a sys admin of sorts.
But back to the discussion:
"If you claim to have a user friendly OS then make sure it is idiot friendly too. Note, thats not what i want out of linux, i see myself as a power user. I have the knowledge and capabilities to look after myself, most people dont.
Its just like with cars, entusiasts like do-it-yourself and common people want to put the key in and just drive. They arent excpected to know how the magic happen."
No, but they are supposed to know how to drive it in the first place. I would call a Mazda Protege a much-more "user friendly" car than, say, a MacLaren(sp?) F1, but it is certainly not idiot-free. I really don't think you can safeguard against every idiotic thing people can do without crippling the system altogether. Windows is user-friendly, because I can sit my mom down in front of the keyboard and say "Do this, now do that, and here is how you open Solitaire." But Mom doesn't go out and buy a computer because she doesn't know how to "drive" it.
It comes back to her being responsible, of sorts, for her actions. She doesn't know how to safely use the Internet, so she doesn't do many things without checking first. Just like if you do not know how to safely drive a car, you don't hop in and wing it.
I agree that most users are ignorant, but having said that I see a lot more users now who know what they are doing then a few years ago. As computers become more popular and kids are exposed to them at a younger age they get smarter. The answer is for people to get experience using the technology properly, not with crippled shells of the original products. To get back to the car example, that's like issuing a license to a kid who sits in the passenger's seat and watches, or to someone who is good at Gran Turismo 2.
I realise that this is not a good answer for people such as yourself, who have to fix the computers while people learn to use them. I have spent a large amount of my time fixing the computers that our class purchased for our school work, and I have cursed on various aspects of IE, Windows, etc...
WIndows tried to get user friendly, and anyone who has tried to fix WinME knows all about how well that went. I would rather have a less idiot-proof system than one where half of the content you try to access from the internet is censored unless you have Admin access.
Sorry, I am babbling. Just a bit of mental diarrhoea on my part.
Slashdot Mirror
>"cliquetez ici pour la version française" is almost good, at least it is understandable. ...I think you mean "almost correct". And "french" should read French. But I understand you :-)
Two I saw just by glancing at the page...
"Ashtray"
Soon we will have revolutionary waste receptacles for the combustion byproducts of another of my inventions, Coolness Extrapolation Tubes (or "cigarettes")
(Yes, I realize the actual item is something completely different)
The next was "Crash Landing"
This came from the film "Destruction (sic) Man" where the car crashes through the glass sign and lands in the fountain, but the passengers are saved due to the car filling with foam. The poster then envisions saving the Space Shuttle from crash landings with this stuff.
Someone get this guy a Physics book, stat!
I never even thought about cigarette smoke. I guess that's part of the reason why you could blow on it all day and it still wouldn't work...nicotine is a little stickier than that.
Me and a friend nearly finished Faxanadu from start to finish but the game crapped out in the final level. So we went to MY house and started again!
P.S. I was being completely facetious about the Canadian comment!
As does Sigma-Aldrich (www.sigmaaldrich.com), but keep in mind that a lot of these chemicals are restricted and/or require special handling. If you are buying for private use you will probably have to be able to justify your purchase at the very least. These chemicals are produced for research purposes and so are rigorously purified and tested. I imagine that most of the stuff you can legally (or with relatively little hassle) buy from these companies you could just get in a hardware store. Besides, do you REALLY need 99.9+% purity sodium bicarbonate and glacial acetic acid for your son's volcano demonstration? :-)
I wonder how many times the soldiers will have do download device drivers in the middle of combat before the military decides to scrap the project.
The drivers for Unknown Device "Human Arm" are not certified. Would you like to proceed?
[Medicate] [Do not medicate]
Page fault, "Occipital_Lobe.dll". This program will now exit.
"I sense that you are tired, frightened, chilly, and quickly growing blind, Master. Would you like a mug of hot chocolate?"
Yes, space certainly qualifies as a long distance. What would you propose as an alternative to tests? Should they send people into space on top of a rocket and HOPE that it gets there because they didn't bother to try out their guidance systems?
Something tells me you would be the first to post comments like "Leave it to the Chinese to not bother testing the steering on a multimillion dollar rocket".
So N. America and Europe can build whatever rockets/missiles they want and clutter our orbit with more and more satellites, but heaven forbid the Chinese try to get someone into space! My Lord, they might discover something we didn't! We certainly can't have the world's biggest nation making contributions to research!
Well, the NES always would get hot, and by the time I bought the game the system was full of dust and other undesirables.
:-) Or maybe it is because I was hopelessly addicted and ran it into the ground?
:-)
Wait a minute. You never had your NES give out after hours of play? Maybe Canadian systems weren't built as well.
I was probably 11 or 12, though I can't really be sure, so I didn't really think about increasing the multiplier or using my pencil to bypass a pin on the CPU.
Besides, if you told me to use a liquid cooling system I would have stuck it in the toilet
Depends on what the true definition of supercomputer is. I would never be able to do what they have done and it is truly impressive, but I can't help but feel that if I took my 50 best friend's computers and ran them together I could then post on /. about my home-made supercomputer. I think people would be pretty quick to denounce my claim that I had built a supercomputer because all I did was run together a bunch of CPUs.
If "conventional" supercomputers are capable of high-speed parallel and serial computation, then the answer is no, this cannot be classified as a supercomputer. But it is impressive all the same.
There are so many holes in the existing shell that I suppose their aim is to minimise the amount of rainwater entering the site. That way run-off will be at a minimum and thus infiltration into the groundwater will be reduced.
:-)
Since the groundwater is under the plant it stands to reason that it is not the primary source of run-off, ie. it is not washing over the chunks of radioactive material.
I think that trying to prevent groundwater beneath the plant from getting contaminated by a direct means would cause more unsettling of radioactive matter, never mind the cost of doing so.
Maybe they should just blanket the area in liquid nitrogen! Groundwater wouldn't go anywhere if it was frozen. We just have to keep that supply up for the next 300 years and all will be well
My NES would ALWAYS overheat whenever I got to the end of Blaster Master. That is my second-favorite NES game ever, but it took quite an effort to complete it. I tried running the system in the fridge but mom (thankfully) stopped me from being more stupid than usual.
Damnit. I spend 15 minutes reading this list and it isn't until AFTER I post that I find that the name is Zero Wing.
What was the name of this fine display of Engrish? If you can include games that have bugs and crappy joysticks on these lists, then a game that was translated by Eddy the Dyslexic Chimp has to weigh in somewhere.
It took me forever to finish that stupid game. I still remember the cheat code to the last level:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH3B
(I forget the exact number of H's)
The last boss was not easy to figure out. The fact that Roger handled like a drunk on iceskates did not improve your odds.
Where the hell do you live, Rwanda? :-)
Seriously though, how old are these children? Are they taking science classes yet?
If some anti-NASA group went out and showed a bunch of kindergarten kids a movie about the moon landing being a hoax, then the majority of them are going to tell you that it is a hoax when questioned. Just like if you show them a movie about Santa Claus, they are going to believe in Santa Claus, because they are CHILDREN.
The difference is they grow out of it, because they do the math themselves and realise that Santa does not exist. If these are truly young children and they have not been told about the flight or shown pictures of when we went to the moon then OF COURSE they aren't going to believe it! Just like they won't believe that we are all made up of electrons and protons and quarks etc etc etc...
If these are high school students, then I am worried about what other "beliefs" they have, and seeing as how I am not too far out of HS myself I would consider 150 people who think the moon landing is a hoax as a very large anomaly.
Quick! Go ask the first 100 people you see whether or not we have visited the moon. I think that you will see that the majority of people whole-heartedly believe, or at least suspect, that we have.
The number of people who are running around screaming that NASA fooled everyone is, I imagine, pretty small. Even if it is as high as 20%, that means 4/5 of the next generation are open in some degree to the idea of space travel, and they have succeeded, all without wasting money on the minority of yahoos.
Keep in mind that there is a percentage of people who think that there is no such thing as atoms, that science was created by God as an ultimate test of their religious faith and that the earth is flat, or that it is supported on the back of a turtle in an infinite ocean, or something like that.
I am a little confused by the wording being used in these discussions.
My impression is that they are passing resolutions to oppose the Patriot Act, which is a whole different ballgame than legislation that prohibits the Patriot Act.
These cities are agreeing to oppose it based on what they feel is their right, but I don't think that municipalities have the power to overturn federal action that quickly. But I am not a lawyer...
Even if only American sites are to be included, I think you will find that a substantial number of the webpages you visit happen to be American.
At the very least you will have to go look for new websites to browse, but for some people who use American websites for research purposes or some other practical means may be concerned by this.
I wonder if soon we will have to register and "clear Customs" before "crossing the border" into American cyberspace. We Canadians might one day find that accessing the virtual US gets harder than physically crossing the border!
...for movies is commonly reported as 1/10. So for every big blockbuster smash that rakes in millions for the movie industry, there are 9 films that cost the industry several hundred million dollars.
Where do you think that money is going? Mostly actors with ridiculous appearance fees, but several million goes into rental of equipment, technicians, catering companies, etc...
Whether you like it or not the movie industry pumps a lot of money into the pockets of the not-so-wealthy, and I don't mind that at all. I don't think that we should throw all our money into over-priced limited edition DVD's and T-shirts, etc, but there are tangible benefits to supporting movies. If you like it, go watch it!
Note that I suspect this doesn't really apply to the music industry, as their money goes into pressing the CD's (company-owned factories), professional advertising and million dollar copy protection that can only be defeated with the latest in Sharpie technology.
I would be much more concerned about people who drive f£*@ing monster trucks to work every day, or people who insist on showering 3 times a day and washing their towels after one use then people who leave their computers idling for an hour.
I didn't leave my PC alone for 2 months. If I am not going to touch it for 1 day I shut it off, but I don't obsessively turn it off everytime I get up to yazz. That is more energetically wasteful then clicking it into standby when I leave, I wager.
And besides, some people use their idle CPU time for distributed computing projects and the such. Should these (mostly) noble aims be derailed because someone (MS?) insists on probing your computer and publishing it's contents everytime you turn it on? Servers that re-boot every 20 minutes tend not to be too popular, methinks (isn't that why we moved away from Win98?)
I didn't choose HAM radio because I thought it was banned. I was trying to choose something that your average flyer doesn't carry onboard an airplane. Perhaps I should have said "But fusion-powered lasersonic ninja-fast radios aren't on the list!" :-)
:-)
I have my suspicions that on most flights, if you started using a HAM radio the airline staff would start getting pretty mad at you nonetheless, and many would probably tell you that they are not allowed, be it from ignorance or from having to explain to all the passengers how SOME radio/electronic equipment is good, but using others on a plane makes you a terrorist
Just because it is a university library does not mean that they have access to the relevant journals. Universities pay fees to provide this "free" service, and they often cannot subscribe to all of them. Which means that you cannot readily access all the discoveries, no matter how small.
Up until recently most journals were not even available on the internet, especially before the late 90's.
Since graduating from University and moving away for a year, I cannot access research that my group worked on, nor can I access journals with MY NAME on it without finding a library with the suitable subscription, assuming such a thing exists.
Most people I know leave their computers on all the time, whether they have broadband or not. I leave mine on standby when I am away, and up until 2 months ago I didn't have a modem.
I don't know if it is precisely true, but the old adage "The worst thing you can do to your car (or computer?) is turn it on", referring to the stresses on the hardware due to powering on and off over and over. Whether standby is any better I have no idea...
The issue is not whether we can unplug our modems from the wall, it is whether or not we should HAVE to and whether this company should be able to force us into making this decision.
It may have more to do with the fact that they don't want electronics running PERIOD. So rather than have to explain to every passenger that some devices are safe and some aren't, they just say "Sod it" and prohibit everything.
It just might prevent arguments like "But HAM radios aren't on the list, so I just figured I could talk to my trucker buddies as I flew overhead!"
We are effective at battling disease/illness? Tell that to the English bat researcher who died from rabies last month. Or how about those people who die from TB or the Plague? Or if you want one that is a little more "Western", how about MRSA infections?
To focus more on disease i can flip through an entire medical dictionary here if you like. A few that come to mind are lupus, diabetes, cirrhosis, hepatitis B/C, cancer, etc... We don't have a clue what were are doing. We research patchwork drugs that alleviate symptoms, but we do not cure the diseases themselves because we don't understand how they work on us.
Sorry, my original post was a little more aggressive than I realised, but you didn't say anything about working as a sys admin of sorts.
But back to the discussion:
"If you claim to have a user friendly OS then make sure it is idiot friendly too. Note, thats not what i want out of linux, i see myself as a power user. I have the knowledge and capabilities to look after myself, most people dont.
Its just like with cars, entusiasts like do-it-yourself and common people want to put the key in and just drive. They arent excpected to know how the magic happen."
No, but they are supposed to know how to drive it in the first place. I would call a Mazda Protege a much-more "user friendly" car than, say, a MacLaren(sp?) F1, but it is certainly not idiot-free. I really don't think you can safeguard against every idiotic thing people can do without crippling the system altogether. Windows is user-friendly, because I can sit my mom down in front of the keyboard and say "Do this, now do that, and here is how you open Solitaire." But Mom doesn't go out and buy a computer because she doesn't know how to "drive" it.
It comes back to her being responsible, of sorts, for her actions. She doesn't know how to safely use the Internet, so she doesn't do many things without checking first. Just like if you do not know how to safely drive a car, you don't hop in and wing it.
I agree that most users are ignorant, but having said that I see a lot more users now who know what they are doing then a few years ago. As computers become more popular and kids are exposed to them at a younger age they get smarter. The answer is for people to get experience using the technology properly, not with crippled shells of the original products. To get back to the car example, that's like issuing a license to a kid who sits in the passenger's seat and watches, or to someone who is good at Gran Turismo 2.
I realise that this is not a good answer for people such as yourself, who have to fix the computers while people learn to use them. I have spent a large amount of my time fixing the computers that our class purchased for our school work, and I have cursed on various aspects of IE, Windows, etc...
WIndows tried to get user friendly, and anyone who has tried to fix WinME knows all about how well that went. I would rather have a less idiot-proof system than one where half of the content you try to access from the internet is censored unless you have Admin access.
Sorry, I am babbling. Just a bit of mental diarrhoea on my part.