Re:Heinlein's Laws out the window
on
Robot Wars
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· Score: 1
Well, I don't know about you, but I would much rather be doing almost anything rather than cleaning the bathroom. I certainly wouldn't be harmed by having a robot do it. As a matter of fact, not having to deal with the harsh chemicals and odours (nevermind the ones from the cleaning products:) would be a benefit.
Well, in The Dark Knight Returns Superman is caught in a nuclear explosion caused by a bomb designed to induce a devestatingly large EMP. He winds up looking like a shrivelled up corpse. After falling to the ground, he manages to reconstitute himself using the stored energy in the local plant life. When Batman releases the X-ray hunting missles, they hit Superman because he hadn't fully recovered yet. (There's a line like "He'd have to be at his top speed to avoid them. I watch them kick him around a bit. I've had worse." - Gotta love Batman.)
Batman's goal wasn't to kill Superman, but merely to give him a taste of what it was like to lose, to have someone's hands at his throat. Superman could have defeated Batman easily, but he was taking it easy.
Well, Batman's m.o. is to torture, and terrorize. Superman is more of a do-gooder boyscout type, so he might decide not to put up with Batman's methods anymore.
Just curious what does "Linux Supported" actually mean? I see this from DSL providers but still haven't figured it out. As far as I'm concerned a computer is a computer on your network and so how does a DSL line support linux (or not support it)?
"Linux Supported" means two things. First of all, it means that they can provide you with a linux based connection manager. (A connection manager is a piece of software that manages the connection.)
Secondly, and more importantly, it means that their tech support staff can provide support to people using linux. It means that you won't get a clueless highschool geek that keeps telling you to "Right click on Network Neighbourhood". Instead, you'll get a clueless highschool geek who will tell you to type "ifconfig" at the shell prompt.<Grin>
Unfortunately, the billing rates and infrastructure logically assume that people will not use all of their bandwidth 24 hours a day, but will only use a percentage at any one time.
Therein lies the problem. Because most of the time the overall bandwidth of a neighbourhood is low, a company will put in a smaller pipe. When everyone gets home from work/school and starts downloading "LOTR:The Two Towers" the equipment gets overloaded, and crashes. It is not logical to assume that equipment designed for the average load will perform adequately for peak usage.
If the cable companies want to play at being ISPs then they should either sell a fixed bandwidth for a fixed price, or sell a timeshared access for a time used price. They should not sell a timeshared access for a fixed price, and then start lopping off services in order to fix their broken business model.
I used to be a cable client. I was charged $45/month for internet, plus a $10/month surcharge because I was not a cable TV subscriber. They did not provide static IPs. Their speed was tremendously variable. (I hit speeds of 240 bytes/sec at times). Then the had the nerve to announce a price hike! I dropped them for a dsl provider that supports linux, lets me run whatever I wish, and supplies a static IP address, all for less than what I was paying before. Life is sweet now.
This could be good though. Imagine a cartoon rendered in real time. Because you are being sent character positions, movement speeds, and lighting conditions, instead of finished product, you could position your viewpoint anywhere you wished.
When talking about the Turing Test today what is generally understood is the following: The interrogator is connected to one person and one machine via a terminal, therefore can't see her counterparts. Her task is to find out which of the two candidates is the machine, and which is the human only by asking them questions. If the machine can "fool" the interrogator, it is intelligent. (http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~asaygin/tt/ttest.html)
We have no idea if this 'droid can even interface
to a terminal, let alone convince anyone that it is intelligent.
A "microswitch" is when you replace one PC for another. (ie, when you need a new limit switch for your 'bot, and the CIDS switches are gone from your PC, you perform a "microswitch" with someone in another cubicle.
The intrusion detection systems I've seen will not detect this type of intrusion. They only detect when the case is opened. This is a job for rat traps and razor blades <Evil grin>.
Careful with that. Most motherboards, many hard drives, lan cards, etc have LEDs on them that are only visible from inside the case. You wouldn't want your box to go boom because you started to download "The Two Towers", would you?
World Wildlife Fund blew it big time. They should have licenced the WWF logo to the "wrestling" foundation for 0.1% of their gross revenue, and maybe a free comercial spot or two. That way, they wouldn't have to worry about funding ever again, and they would raise awareness among wrestling fans that there are tree hugging pandas in trouble.
Maybe they do, but for most of them, I suspect it is more of a hobby than an actual working language.
This device, if they do ever get it working, will eliminate the need for a common international language. Besides, esperanto is heavily eurocentric. Loglan on the other hand...
Well, most people find that it makes a good address book, calendar, calculator, todo list manager and notepad. Not to mention that it costs a quarter of the cost of the cheapest notebook, can fit into a pocket, and can play games. Mine runs for a couple of months on a couple of triple-A batteries. I wonder how long a notebook would run on the same power source? Did I mention that data can easily be transferred between it and a computer. Oh, and data can be transferred from one pda to another without adding special software or hardware.
Yes, let's leave the sluggish, cumbersome clockworks back in the 20th century, and get on with the solid state "drives". Oh, and while we're at it, let's grow vertically as well as horizontally. No need to stick to 2D is there?
Everyone with a username on Slashdot has a karma score. Basically it is the sum of all of the moderation scores applied to your posts. If you get a +5 insightful, or a +1 funny, for example, your karma goes up. If you get a -1 offtopic, or whatever, your karma goes down. The Karma score has a maximum value of 50. Your karma point level determines what initial score your posts have.
Eventually, though, your friend will either forget that he hated the ads, or will lose the association between the product and the ad. He will be in the store, and will pick up the Doritos because somewhere in the back of his mind Doritos used to rank as significant in some manner.
Have you ever heard a song, and think "man that brings back memories" and only then realize that you used to hate the song?
Fine for sports, but where are you going to put product placement ads in a show like Star Trek - Enterprise? On the bridge monitors? "Gee, that alien spacecraft looks just like the 2003 model Volkswagen Beetle"
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Well, I don't know about you, but I would much rather be doing almost anything rather than cleaning the bathroom. I certainly wouldn't be harmed by having a robot do it. As a matter of fact, not having to deal with the harsh chemicals and odours (nevermind the ones from the cleaning products :) would be a benefit.
No. Armour against bullets. Somehow you must have missed what I was replying to.
That's where the brains come in. Batman wears armour.
Batman's goal wasn't to kill Superman, but merely to give him a taste of what it was like to lose, to have someone's hands at his throat. Superman could have defeated Batman easily, but he was taking it easy.
Well, Batman's m.o. is to torture, and terrorize. Superman is more of a do-gooder boyscout type, so he might decide not to put up with Batman's methods anymore.
istop.com, a small outfit out of Ottawa that also services Toronto.
"Linux Supported" means two things. First of all, it means that they can provide you with a linux based connection manager. (A connection manager is a piece of software that manages the connection.)
Secondly, and more importantly, it means that their tech support staff can provide support to people using linux. It means that you won't get a clueless highschool geek that keeps telling you to "Right click on Network Neighbourhood". Instead, you'll get a clueless highschool geek who will tell you to type "ifconfig" at the shell prompt.<Grin>
Therein lies the problem. Because most of the time the overall bandwidth of a neighbourhood is low, a company will put in a smaller pipe. When everyone gets home from work/school and starts downloading "LOTR:The Two Towers" the equipment gets overloaded, and crashes. It is not logical to assume that equipment designed for the average load will perform adequately for peak usage.
If the cable companies want to play at being ISPs then they should either sell a fixed bandwidth for a fixed price, or sell a timeshared access for a time used price. They should not sell a timeshared access for a fixed price, and then start lopping off services in order to fix their broken business model.
I used to be a cable client. I was charged $45/month for internet, plus a $10/month surcharge because I was not a cable TV subscriber. They did not provide static IPs. Their speed was tremendously variable. (I hit speeds of 240 bytes/sec at times). Then the had the nerve to announce a price hike! I dropped them for a dsl provider that supports linux, lets me run whatever I wish, and supplies a static IP address, all for less than what I was paying before. Life is sweet now.
This could be good though. Imagine a cartoon rendered in real time. Because you are being sent character positions, movement speeds, and lighting conditions, instead of finished product, you could position your viewpoint anywhere you wished.
"Very few cartoons are broadcast live; it's a terrible strain on the animator's wrist."
When talking about the Turing Test today what is generally understood is the following: The interrogator is connected to one person and one machine via a terminal, therefore can't see her counterparts. Her task is to find out which of the two candidates is the machine, and which is the human only by asking them questions. If the machine can "fool" the interrogator, it is intelligent. (http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~asaygin/tt/ttest.html) We have no idea if this 'droid can even interface to a terminal, let alone convince anyone that it is intelligent.
A "microswitch" is when you replace one PC for another. (ie, when you need a new limit switch for your 'bot, and the CIDS switches are gone from your PC, you perform a "microswitch" with someone in another cubicle.
The intrusion detection systems I've seen will not detect this type of intrusion. They only detect when the case is opened. This is a job for rat traps and razor blades <Evil grin>.
Careful with that. Most motherboards, many hard drives, lan cards, etc have LEDs on them that are only visible from inside the case. You wouldn't want your box to go boom because you started to download "The Two Towers", would you?
That's kind of stupid. Why not just piggyback the signal onto another fiber?
World Wildlife Fund blew it big time. They should have licenced the WWF logo to the "wrestling" foundation for 0.1% of their gross revenue, and maybe a free comercial spot or two. That way, they wouldn't have to worry about funding ever again, and they would raise awareness among wrestling fans that there are tree hugging pandas in trouble.
Maybe they do, but for most of them, I suspect it is more of a hobby than an actual working language. This device, if they do ever get it working, will eliminate the need for a common international language. Besides, esperanto is heavily eurocentric. Loglan on the other hand...
Cheap, powerful, portable... Choose any three.
The off topic question was "What is a karma cap?". I replied with an explanation. Why does that upset you?
Yes, let's leave the sluggish, cumbersome clockworks back in the 20th century, and get on with the solid state "drives". Oh, and while we're at it, let's grow vertically as well as horizontally. No need to stick to 2D is there?
Everyone with a username on Slashdot has a karma score. Basically it is the sum of all of the moderation scores applied to your posts. If you get a +5 insightful, or a +1 funny, for example, your karma goes up. If you get a -1 offtopic, or whatever, your karma goes down. The Karma score has a maximum value of 50. Your karma point level determines what initial score your posts have.
Have you ever heard a song, and think "man that brings back memories" and only then realize that you used to hate the song?
Fine for sports, but where are you going to put product placement ads in a show like Star Trek - Enterprise? On the bridge monitors? "Gee, that alien spacecraft looks just like the 2003 model Volkswagen Beetle"
You're assuming that political speeches have content.
There are those who think that removing Country Music, Howard Stern, and Commercials, also improves the signal :-)