In other news, scientists plan to officially give Element 115 (Ununpentium) a proper name.
If the Pentagon has enough of a sense of humour to congratulate the leader of the Autobots for joining the army, I'm sure the scientific community can see it's way to naming the 115th element Elerium!;)
(Everyone knows that's its "real" name, after all...)
Do not attempt to fuck the catgirl. That is impossible. Instead, you must try to realize the truth: there are no catgirls. Then you will find that it is not the catgirl you fuck. It is only yourself.
Well of COURSE they're selling more LCDs than CRTs. LCDs are the "new thing" in monitors now, they're spiffy and flat and they're getting cheaper too. They're lightweight and easier to carry, and take up much less deskspace, and you never have to worry about getting those awful curves at the side of the screen in those weird resolutions......so naturally, everyone's replacing their dead, broken and outdated CRTs with these new-fangled things that are just getting better and better. Never mind that the screen's not so bright and moving pictures on the screen don't look quite right, or that games don't look quite as well on them, or that they still cost more - they're new and getting better, that's what matters.
Seriously though, flatscreens are nice. Wouldn't you buy one if you had to replace your old CRT that got colour-warped when someone left it next to magnets too long, or died when you dropped it?;)
I think I remember hearing that the home console had killed the video arcade.
No, it's worse than that. They're putting X-Boxes in the arcade - instead of the machines being dead, they're just going to "die" on the player at unexpected intervals.
"Alright, seventy-hit combo! A new high-scor---"
"The application TEKKEN~1.EXE has performed an illegal function and will be shut down. Press LOW PUNCH, LOW KICK and COIN RETURN to continue."
Microsoft? Trustworthy? What this means is that our computer systems need to trust Microsoft - a company who, while I'm always willing to give them a chance to try and redeem themselves, are primarily interested in making profit before giving people what they actually need.
I'll none of it. 5 to 15 years is being optimistic!
Running a webserver on an X-Box or a GBA, we geeks do it because we can. It was the same with the Linux Dreamcast and the laptop Amiga 600 before it. I mean, at least now the X-Box is good for something - heaven knows it's already the SIZE of a server case...;)
...when the modern nerd can hack from low-flying aircraft passing over your house! Ars Technica have done it already - twice, no elss: War Flying, 1 and War Flying, 2
FOXP2? Sounds scarily like FoxDie, the genetic virus from Metal Gear Solid that kills off kickass genetically modified main characters! Perhaps the aliens who put us here* are planning to kill off the creative geniuses, leaving us with only mindless Windows-using rednecks to defend the planet from invasion!
* See UFO: Enemy Unknown, PC/Amiga 1992.
Settle down, man, it's better than you think.
on
U.S. Endorses ENUM
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Y'know, this isn't going to be as bad as you think it is.
Sure, it's been argued that this means anyone can find out your phone number from your IP, your IP from your phone number or something similar, and telemarket the living daylights out of you. Not true. Unsolicited telemarketing spam, as you've no doubt been reading on Slashdot, is likely to soon become illegal in all states and most of Europe - at least, that's what I see happening. The closer the internet comes to the phone system, the more quickly we'll see spam being made equally illegal.
As well as encouraging people and corporations to get the broadband into peoples' homes - and I see just about every home "having the internet" within the decade - this system could provide a way of linking a physical location or house number with an internet address, making it easier for legitimate marketers to get along with consumers. I'm already seeing banner ad servers that see from my hostname the I'm in the UK and serve me advertising for UK ISPs - expanding on this concept, we might some day find all banner ads like Slashdot's - serving us only advertising that interests us (Megatokyo shirts, web servers, ThinkGeek) and less online casinos, spyware and fake Windows dialog boxes!
My PSX has only one of the ball bearings left, and even then it often falls out when the CD is removed. Half of the games don't work right unless (strangely) the PSX is on its side or upside-down - when they do load, it's unsettling to see Kunimitsu teleport randomly around the arena and end up with the polygons for her hair through the ground, while Law's finds his arms are on backwards. I'm sure I'm not the only owner of a borked PSX!
Hows about a conversion to let a PSX use a standard dirt-cheap CD drive?
A special effects campus? Sounds fun! You walk in and every room is blue - the campus is added in using special effects. Watch out for the destroyer droids.;)
At the risk of being downvoted, I don't like speakers at all. Headphones are the way to go. Not those awful one-dollar piezoelectric crystal widgets that go into your ears and break after a week because the wire was too thin. I'm talking about those massive black headphones that totally cover your ears, muffle external sound and sound better than most cheesy OEM speakers. Good for hearing the direction of your opponents' footsteps in Counterstrike, too. I remember first trying a set of these headphones out on the glass-house demolition test map of Red Faction... mmm...
Seriously. A lot of people will prefer Japanese stuff to similar American, simply because it's different. Why? Because it's more interesting. When we perceive something as different to what we're used to, we can either find it intimidating (if it scares us or we don't understand it) or interesting (if it seems harmless enough and there's a chance we'll grow to like it). When it comes to anime and manga, it's rare that a person will find themself frightened by a mere foreign comic book.
There's also the fact that anime and manga are gaining popularity, and with good reason - they're generally rather good. Anime is an art form - the drawing of the characters, colouring, shading, movement, balance, character design, sound and storyline are all well thought out and well implemented. Compare this to a western cartoons which are very often unsatisfying in their portrayals of characters - they're just too flat and hard to empathize with.
The best manga and anime are most often the ones ported to the english language, which reinforces the idea that anime is good. Not to mention its wide range and the huge audience it can reach. Once someone finds an anime they like (many people start on a dub of something like Dragonball Z), they are much more likely to gain an interest in other series of a similar style.
I don't think I have to mention the fact that while American comics and cartoons target kids who are used to watching costumed superheroes and anthropomorphic animals in their daily six hours of watching TV, Japanese animation has Dragonball-style dirty humour, Evangelion's depth and confusingness, and Ghost in the Shell's commentary on what it means to be human.
Perhaps Slashdot are using stylesheets to make Slashdot work differently on Opera! It makes us look like Opera users' comments are being more highly moderated on average, when in fact Rob has found a clever method of making all of my posts look like fives!
Update by JD: Nope, I forced myself to check it in IE (shudder) and Lynx (just to be sure), and it turns out that us Opera users really ARE that much cleverer than the masses of Microsoft using drones.;)
"Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, and others."
Well shit, and I thought the woolly jumper I wore when I built my box killed it. Now I don't have to feel so bad about sending our broken mobos back and claiming it arrived that way! (I'm joking, I'm joking! Nobody tell Dell or the Cowboy gets it.;)
How come mine has no back button?
on
Corporate KDE
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Mm. I'm liking the sound of this "kiosk mode" that can disallow users of a public terminal to change settings. You wouldn't believe how often I hear someone in the university library complain that their browser has no "back" button because someone's gone and switched it off. Twelve million pounds (almost $20million) on a new library full of free-use machines, and they're all running Win98 *cringe*
KDE still can't get the Desktop menu right, though. *grins*
Slashdot Mirror
In other news, scientists plan to officially give Element 115 (Ununpentium) a proper name.
;)
If the Pentagon has enough of a sense of humour to congratulate the leader of the Autobots for joining the army, I'm sure the scientific community can see it's way to naming the 115th element Elerium!
(Everyone knows that's its "real" name, after all...)
Do not attempt to fuck the catgirl. That is impossible. Instead, you must try to realize the truth: there are no catgirls. Then you will find that it is not the catgirl you fuck. It is only yourself.
Giving your wife a diamond engagement ring that's actually functional?
Someone ought to tell this guy!
Well of COURSE they're selling more LCDs than CRTs. LCDs are the "new thing" in monitors now, they're spiffy and flat and they're getting cheaper too. They're lightweight and easier to carry, and take up much less deskspace, and you never have to worry about getting those awful curves at the side of the screen in those weird resolutions... ...so naturally, everyone's replacing their dead, broken and outdated CRTs with these new-fangled things that are just getting better and better. Never mind that the screen's not so bright and moving pictures on the screen don't look quite right, or that games don't look quite as well on them, or that they still cost more - they're new and getting better, that's what matters.
;)
Seriously though, flatscreens are nice. Wouldn't you buy one if you had to replace your old CRT that got colour-warped when someone left it next to magnets too long, or died when you dropped it?
File sharing clients don't get Slashdotted... they just give an error saying "More download sources required".
Is that all? A dozen comments will give you the most excellent GoogleFight, no doubt. Googleshng deserves an honourable mention. Enjoy.
Warning: Do NOT drink your laptop.
I guess this is what they mean when they say alcohol is a Gateway drug...
I think I remember hearing that the home console had killed the video arcade.
No, it's worse than that. They're putting X-Boxes in the arcade - instead of the machines being dead, they're just going to "die" on the player at unexpected intervals.
"Alright, seventy-hit combo! A new high-scor---"
"The application TEKKEN~1.EXE has performed an illegal function and will be shut down. Press LOW PUNCH, LOW KICK and COIN RETURN to continue."
"Goddamnit."
We're still not paying for Windows, though.
;)
DarklordJonnyDigital, officially surfing on Debian
Microsoft? Trustworthy? What this means is that our computer systems need to trust Microsoft - a company who, while I'm always willing to give them a chance to try and redeem themselves, are primarily interested in making profit before giving people what they actually need.
I'll none of it. 5 to 15 years is being optimistic!
You ask why? I think the question is, why not?
;)
Running a webserver on an X-Box or a GBA, we geeks do it because we can. It was the same with the Linux Dreamcast and the laptop Amiga 600 before it. I mean, at least now the X-Box is good for something - heaven knows it's already the SIZE of a server case...
...when the modern nerd can hack from low-flying aircraft passing over your house! Ars Technica have done it already - twice, no elss: War Flying, 1 and War Flying, 2
This is just too cool.
It didn't get moderated up, I think we were the only ones who got the reference. -- JD
FOXP2? Sounds scarily like FoxDie, the genetic virus from Metal Gear Solid that kills off kickass genetically modified main characters! Perhaps the aliens who put us here* are planning to kill off the creative geniuses, leaving us with only mindless Windows-using rednecks to defend the planet from invasion!
* See UFO: Enemy Unknown, PC/Amiga 1992.
Y'know, this isn't going to be as bad as you think it is.
Sure, it's been argued that this means anyone can find out your phone number from your IP, your IP from your phone number or something similar, and telemarket the living daylights out of you. Not true. Unsolicited telemarketing spam, as you've no doubt been reading on Slashdot, is likely to soon become illegal in all states and most of Europe - at least, that's what I see happening. The closer the internet comes to the phone system, the more quickly we'll see spam being made equally illegal.
As well as encouraging people and corporations to get the broadband into peoples' homes - and I see just about every home "having the internet" within the decade - this system could provide a way of linking a physical location or house number with an internet address, making it easier for legitimate marketers to get along with consumers. I'm already seeing banner ad servers that see from my hostname the I'm in the UK and serve me advertising for UK ISPs - expanding on this concept, we might some day find all banner ads like Slashdot's - serving us only advertising that interests us (Megatokyo shirts, web servers, ThinkGeek) and less online casinos, spyware and fake Windows dialog boxes!
My PSX has only one of the ball bearings left, and even then it often falls out when the CD is removed. Half of the games don't work right unless (strangely) the PSX is on its side or upside-down - when they do load, it's unsettling to see Kunimitsu teleport randomly around the arena and end up with the polygons for her hair through the ground, while Law's finds his arms are on backwards. I'm sure I'm not the only owner of a borked PSX!
Hows about a conversion to let a PSX use a standard dirt-cheap CD drive?
A special effects campus? Sounds fun! You walk in and every room is blue - the campus is added in using special effects. Watch out for the destroyer droids. ;)
At the risk of being downvoted, I don't like speakers at all. Headphones are the way to go. Not those awful one-dollar piezoelectric crystal widgets that go into your ears and break after a week because the wire was too thin. I'm talking about those massive black headphones that totally cover your ears, muffle external sound and sound better than most cheesy OEM speakers. Good for hearing the direction of your opponents' footsteps in Counterstrike, too. I remember first trying a set of these headphones out on the glass-house demolition test map of Red Faction... mmm...
Because it's not an American comic.
Seriously. A lot of people will prefer Japanese stuff to similar American, simply because it's different. Why? Because it's more interesting. When we perceive something as different to what we're used to, we can either find it intimidating (if it scares us or we don't understand it) or interesting (if it seems harmless enough and there's a chance we'll grow to like it). When it comes to anime and manga, it's rare that a person will find themself frightened by a mere foreign comic book.
There's also the fact that anime and manga are gaining popularity, and with good reason - they're generally rather good. Anime is an art form - the drawing of the characters, colouring, shading, movement, balance, character design, sound and storyline are all well thought out and well implemented. Compare this to a western cartoons which are very often unsatisfying in their portrayals of characters - they're just too flat and hard to empathize with.
The best manga and anime are most often the ones ported to the english language, which reinforces the idea that anime is good. Not to mention its wide range and the huge audience it can reach. Once someone finds an anime they like (many people start on a dub of something like Dragonball Z), they are much more likely to gain an interest in other series of a similar style.
I don't think I have to mention the fact that while American comics and cartoons target kids who are used to watching costumed superheroes and anthropomorphic animals in their daily six hours of watching TV, Japanese animation has Dragonball-style dirty humour, Evangelion's depth and confusingness, and Ghost in the Shell's commentary on what it means to be human.
I should have known better than to advocate a browser other than Mozilla. ;)
Like Microsoft really gives 2 shits about a browser with probably 3,000 paying users, if that.
;)
Come on, man - how often do users actually pay for their software?
Perhaps Slashdot are using stylesheets to make Slashdot work differently on Opera! It makes us look like Opera users' comments are being more highly moderated on average, when in fact Rob has found a clever method of making all of my posts look like fives!
;)
Update by JD: Nope, I forced myself to check it in IE (shudder) and Lynx (just to be sure), and it turns out that us Opera users really ARE that much cleverer than the masses of Microsoft using drones.
"Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, and others."
;)
Well shit, and I thought the woolly jumper I wore when I built my box killed it. Now I don't have to feel so bad about sending our broken mobos back and claiming it arrived that way! (I'm joking, I'm joking! Nobody tell Dell or the Cowboy gets it.
...what Kevin Mitnick's Slashdot account is?
Mm. I'm liking the sound of this "kiosk mode" that can disallow users of a public terminal to change settings. You wouldn't believe how often I hear someone in the university library complain that their browser has no "back" button because someone's gone and switched it off. Twelve million pounds (almost $20million) on a new library full of free-use machines, and they're all running Win98 *cringe*
KDE still can't get the Desktop menu right, though. *grins*