To demonstrate our power, we will dispatch nanites already stationed in the Slashdot servers to transpose the eighth and ninth characters in the 11th word of your post. Since you describe our business as "non-existent," we'll probably make that word as incorrect as your assumption.
As a final masterstroke, or nanites will change your post's subject heading so that it does not refer to the NanoBusiness Alliance at all.
Do not cross us again.
Sincerely yours,
Tsar
Supreme Leader
The NanoBusiness Alliance
O.................-"last one through, close that ASCII hole!"
That was one of the most moving parts of the film, it showed that the "soldiers" of the war were often little more than kids, away from home and afraid. I hope you're not trying to get a +Funny by making light of it... -- LEGO PORN!@
You HYPOCRITE! First you condemn me for "making light" of a violent scene in a movie while participating in a discussion of a FPS video game, then you have the nerve to advertise Lego pornography!
Don't you realize that through your thoughtless words, you are legitimizing the objectification of Lego? Not only are older Lego sets being victimized, but tragically, innocent Duplo sets have been increasingly assaulted. These are preschool blocks we're talking about here, people! How long can we let this go on?
Remember, the Duplos of today are the Legos and Mindstorms of tomorrow. If they're assembled in disgusting and perverted ways now, how will they ever fully fit into Lego society (and bigger sets) later in life?
Perhaps Legos and Duplos can fit together, you pervert, but that doesn't make it right. Decent Slashdotters everywhere must act, and act now! Protect our preschool blocks from abuse! STOP DUPLOITATION!
MoH: AA is more realistic in nature than RtCW, and even has Steven Spielberg listed in the game's credits as it draws heavily from the movie "Saving Private Ryan."
I don't know how long I'd be able to keep playing a game that made me sit through five minutes of my character lying in blood and entrails yelling "MAMAAAAAAA!!!!" every time my health went to zero.
I'd assume that Russia's intent with this craft is not to launch a war against the U.S., but to give them the ability to approach other radar-equipped ships at sea without raising the alarm, with the side benefit of being impervious to radar-guided weaponry. Very useful for drug interdiction, coastal patrol, and generally dealing with seafaring baddies who don't have minute-by-minute satellite imagery at their disposal. I think that includes 95% of the world (and most of the U.S. fleet as well.)
Just because the combined intelligence resources of the West could be brought to bear to track one of these things doesn't mean it's useless. Our carriers are pretty easy to spot, and look how handy they've been lately.
So, how can a company like Covad, basically a reseller, expect to survive against the telco selling DSL themselves?
One word—volume.
All kidding (well, most kidding) aside, I recently saw an article referenced on DSLReports that makes an excellent point—in general, DSL customer service sucks. Installation can be time-consuming without a guarantee of eventual success, service is occasionally spotty, and online help can be hit-or-miss. Work-at-home folk who depend on their broadband for their livelihood, as well as those of us who are just willing to pay a bit extra for good service, would likely do business with a reseller who would wrap a telco's DSL line in better support for a slightly higher monthly fee.
On the other end of the spectrum, a reseller could purchase DSL service wholesale and provide stripped-down service (no email, Usenet, or toll-free support) for less than the full-service products offered by the telco. Many of us geeks would go ga-ga for such a service, especially if all extra services (such as static IP's) were offered a la carte.
Proud owner of a self-restored 1968 Ford Fairlane, 302 V8, 9" 4.11 geared...
Self-restored? Wasn't this the setup for a Stephen King novel?
The Transporter Fountain sits alongside a switch or router, and one Transporter Fountain is needed at the sending and receiving ends of a connection. Prices will range between $70,000 and $150,000.
Oh, boy, I'm gonna stop by CompUSA on the way home and grab one of these.
Paper will never be replaced...
on
Electronic Paper
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Although flexible electronic display media may someday surpass paper's resolution and readability, it will never equal its absorbency.
The previous mental connection explains why I bust out in grins whenever someone mentions "the paperless office." The image of a pointy-haired boss beckoning pitifully from the executive washroom door comes to mind every time.
Go to Heavens-Above and enter your location on earth, and it'll provide you with all the info you need to spot the ISS, the Shuttle, and a host of other orbiting objects as they pass over you before sunrise or after sunset. The site has a wealth of other information about satellites and space exploration in general as well, so it is with a very heavy heart that I expose one of my absolute favorite sites to the eminent threat of slashdottery.
Is it running on a tower server?
The enemy is [at the] Gates!
Is HRH trying to upstage Diana's famous crash?
I'd have thought QE version II wouldn't have this bug.
Wait until they cut her off after three Windows Product Activations.
Already/.ed? See, royal inbreeding does cause DNA problems.
And finally...
"Your highness, the people have no open source..." "Well, let them run DRDOS!"
...only that it was the most complex network he'd ever seen.
Personally, I can think of some rather complex topologies for even a twelve-computer network, even ignoring multi-homing possibilities. Depending on how the network structure is designed, as well as how many other networkable devices are involved and how they are connected (I'd assume a rather large contingent of wireless devices as well), this network might well be more complex than anything you or I have seen or even visualized.
Could you make a commuter train...
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
...with a Beowulf cluster of these? (yes, I had to ask)
Remember the strip where Calvin's dad explained to him how they calculate the weight limit on bridges? He said they drove heavier and heavier trucks across it until it collapsed, then they rebuilt it exactly the same way and set the limit at the weight of the last truck that made it across.
Why don't we establish a video game's rating the same way? Let a control group of six year olds, seven year olds, eight year olds, etc., play the game for a month. Then set the minimum age for playing the game to one year older than the oldest child driven by the game to commit a violent and/or sexual offense.
Z5 is the an interactive fiction story file format (Z for Zork). You need an Infocom/Inform interpreter to run it. These include Frotz and Zip, and are available for many platforms, such as:
Having gotten a copy of the original Colossal Cave Adventure with my first PC, I have a soft spot in my heart for such creations, and hope they continue to be created and experienced forever.
I've heard plenty about how the Hugo-winning Harry Potter books are singlehandedly making the printed page fun for kids again. Perhaps the next generation, newly enchanted with textual adventure, will spawn a new surge of popularity for the beleaguered interactive fiction genre.
I like the notion of building protection against common, insidious errors, but why did they have to create a new language to accomplish it? I didn't quite understand that point.
And isn't a cyclone an infinite loop?
"Our ultimate goal is to have something as humongous as the Linux operating system built in Cyclone," says Morrisett.
You have to like a scientist who uses the word humongous.
I submitted a story just recently about this story in SpaceDaily detailing a breakthrough in magnetic semiconductors, crucial to M-RAM technology. This group created a semiconductor that shows magnetic properties at room temperature and beyond. The excitement is palpable.
How vulnerable are we? In June, a two-day simulation exercise called Dark Winter was held at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. It began with a fictional scenario depicting a covert smallpox attack by Iraq that left 24 infected in Oklahoma. After an imaginary two weeks, decisions by the assembled politicians coupled with the quick exhaustion of the stockpiled vaccine would have resulted in 16,000 people infected in 25 states and 1,000 dead, 10 other countries reporting cases and the grim prediction that within three weeks there would be 300,000 victims, a third of whom would die.
Very scary stuff. I think I'll sign up for that Mars mission now.
Remembering the Slashdot stories about the DVD player with adjustable ratings [slashdot.org] and this voice-duplication system [slashdot.org] makes me wonder—when will films come with face-mapping data built into the DVD (or whatever format) and allow us to replace any actor in the film with the face/voice combination of our choice?
The '&' ampersand in the previous comment was intended to be an '—' em dash. Guess you never get too big to preview your posts.
I think it's fine to do this sort of thing, but that the film should indicate in the opening credits which actors are digital likenesses, so the viewer can take that into account.
Remembering the Slashdot stories about the DVD player with adjustable ratings and this voice-duplication system makes me wonder&when will films come with face-mapping data built into the DVD (or whatever format) and allow us to replace any actor in the film with the face/voice combination of our choice?
It could start out as a novelty, of course, where you and your friends pop up as extras in the background, but eventually I could see picking and choosing your favorite actors as easily as picking tracks for a CD compilation.
How far do you suppose we are from this happening?
However, [IBM] hasn't tried to *hamper development* of projects using this strange and unusual UI covention.
No, but they've definitely used it to their advantage. I came across this information around a decade ago, so forgive me if I'm overly broad or forgotten some of the details, but this is how I understand IBM operated during the original Attack Of The Clones.
Let's say you and I decided back in 1986 to start building IBM compatible PC's. Hey, everyone's doing it, we'll sell 'em cheaper than IBM and make a fortune. So we get the board and case suppliers online, license our own version of the Phoenix BIOS and negotiate bundling licenses for MS-DOS, and we're underway.
Pretty soon after getting started, we get a nice little packet from IBM's legal department which contains photocopies of a few PC-technology-related patents held by IBM, and a polite letter wishing us success in our venture and inviting us to come on in to negotiate a patent-licensing agreement. You and I, being young turks who've never dealt with Big Blue, decide that IBM isn't going to bother with us over a few patents, and blithely continue our little operation.
Some time later (reports vary), there's a knock on our door. Several suits enter, one of them carrying a largish briefcase. They introduce themselves as legal representatives of the IBM Corporation, and in the course of time reveal the contents of the case. In it are complete copies of over four hundred patents with direct application in the construction of a fully IBM-compatible PC, covering everything from the ISA bus to the way the cursor moves when you hit the Enter key. They explain the situation to us, and finally dawn breaks upon our fevered brows.
We sign an agreement granting us permission to use any and all patents involved in PC construction, in return for a nice healthy royalty to IBM for every PC we make. We also sign a non-disclosure agreement which states that we will not only keep the agreement confidential, we will keep the existence of the agreement confidential.
Thus, for several years, IBM made money from every PC ever made, whether it had IBM on the label or not. I assume the patents in question have expired by now, but IBM is a technology-creating machine even now, and a large chunk of their revenue still comes from royalties.
Side note: I fully support this kind of use of intellectual property. If I create something and someone else is making money directly from my creation, I should profit as well. If someone is using my creation for free, however, that's another kettle of fish, and I lack room in these margins to deal with that issue fully.
You know how, when you type the last character that'll fit on the last line in a text window, the top line disappears, all the other lines move up one, and the cursor appears in the first position of a new blank line?
Personally, I think the entire Internet community has been in training for long-duration space missions. How long can you stay in an enclosed space with nothing but a computer, food, water and sanitary facilities? I don't know about you, but I've done it for days on end, and only stopped because I had to go to work. And I'm getting better at it all the time.
Aren't we all a bit less dependent on interpersonal contact thanks to the ability to drown ourselves in information at the click of a mouse?
When this story was first posted, an alert Slashdotter pointed out that the 200-year figure was not generally agreed upon, because using Venus as the gravity slingshot (actually, it's more of a trebuchet, isn't it?) would allow launching a mission in any year. Plus, there's no real compelling evidence that the atmosphere will freeze out during the Plutonian winter.
Don't get me wrong—I do want to see a mission to Pluto in my lifetime, but I just want to get the facts straight. Anyone with supporting data either way?
Problem is, they DO insure internat'l shipments!
on
How Not To Ship Computers
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Packages shipped via UPS Ground from Canada are protected automatically against damage or loss up to $100, and Excess Value Insurance
(brochure available here) can be purchased for values exceeding that. The cost is only 35 cents per $100 of value, up to $50,000 of coverage. Looks like he just didn't opt for the coverage.
Slashdot Mirror
We find your lack of faith disturbing.
To demonstrate our power, we will dispatch nanites already stationed in the Slashdot servers to transpose the eighth and ninth characters in the 11th word of your post. Since you describe our business as "non-existent," we'll probably make that word as incorrect as your assumption.
As a final masterstroke, or nanites will change your post's subject heading so that it does not refer to the NanoBusiness Alliance at all.
Do not cross us again.
Sincerely yours,
Tsar
Supreme Leader
The NanoBusiness Alliance
O.................-"last one through, close that ASCII hole!"
That was one of the most moving parts of the film, it showed that the "soldiers" of the war were often little more than kids, away from home and afraid. I hope you're not trying to get a +Funny by making light of it...
--
LEGO PORN!@
You HYPOCRITE! First you condemn me for "making light" of a violent scene in a movie while participating in a discussion of a FPS video game, then you have the nerve to advertise Lego pornography!
Don't you realize that through your thoughtless words, you are legitimizing the objectification of Lego? Not only are older Lego sets being victimized, but tragically, innocent Duplo sets have been increasingly assaulted. These are preschool blocks we're talking about here, people! How long can we let this go on?
Remember, the Duplos of today are the Legos and Mindstorms of tomorrow. If they're assembled in disgusting and perverted ways now, how will they ever fully fit into Lego society (and bigger sets) later in life?
Perhaps Legos and Duplos can fit together, you pervert, but that doesn't make it right. Decent Slashdotters everywhere must act, and act now! Protect our preschool blocks from abuse! STOP DUPLOITATION!
And don't even get me started on Tinkertoys.
MoH: AA is more realistic in nature than RtCW, and even has Steven Spielberg listed in the game's credits as it draws heavily from the movie "Saving Private Ryan."
I don't know how long I'd be able to keep playing a game that made me sit through five minutes of my character lying in blood and entrails yelling "MAMAAAAAAA!!!!" every time my health went to zero.
I'd assume that Russia's intent with this craft is not to launch a war against the U.S., but to give them the ability to approach other radar-equipped ships at sea without raising the alarm, with the side benefit of being impervious to radar-guided weaponry. Very useful for drug interdiction, coastal patrol, and generally dealing with seafaring baddies who don't have minute-by-minute satellite imagery at their disposal. I think that includes 95% of the world (and most of the U.S. fleet as well.)
Just because the combined intelligence resources of the West could be brought to bear to track one of these things doesn't mean it's useless. Our carriers are pretty easy to spot, and look how handy they've been lately.
So, how can a company like Covad, basically a reseller, expect to survive against the telco selling DSL themselves?
One word—volume.
All kidding (well, most kidding) aside, I recently saw an article referenced on DSLReports that makes an excellent point—in general, DSL customer service sucks. Installation can be time-consuming without a guarantee of eventual success, service is occasionally spotty, and online help can be hit-or-miss. Work-at-home folk who depend on their broadband for their livelihood, as well as those of us who are just willing to pay a bit extra for good service, would likely do business with a reseller who would wrap a telco's DSL line in better support for a slightly higher monthly fee.
On the other end of the spectrum, a reseller could purchase DSL service wholesale and provide stripped-down service (no email, Usenet, or toll-free support) for less than the full-service products offered by the telco. Many of us geeks would go ga-ga for such a service, especially if all extra services (such as static IP's) were offered a la carte.
Proud owner of a self-restored 1968 Ford Fairlane, 302 V8, 9" 4.11 geared...
Self-restored? Wasn't this the setup for a Stephen King novel?
...next we'll have single-neuron Slashdot posters.
Look, the future is now!
The Transporter Fountain sits alongside a switch or router, and one Transporter Fountain is needed at the sending and receiving ends of a connection. Prices will range between $70,000 and $150,000.
Oh, boy, I'm gonna stop by CompUSA on the way home and grab one of these.
Although flexible electronic display media may someday surpass paper's resolution and readability, it will never equal its absorbency.
The previous mental connection explains why I bust out in grins whenever someone mentions "the paperless office." The image of a pointy-haired boss beckoning pitifully from the executive washroom door comes to mind every time.
Go to Heavens-Above and enter your location on earth, and it'll provide you with all the info you need to spot the ISS, the Shuttle, and a host of other orbiting objects as they pass over you before sunrise or after sunset. The site has a wealth of other information about satellites and space exploration in general as well, so it is with a very heavy heart that I expose one of my absolute favorite sites to the eminent threat of slashdottery.
Is it running on a tower server? /.ed? See, royal inbreeding does cause DNA problems.
The enemy is [at the] Gates!
Is HRH trying to upstage Diana's famous crash?
I'd have thought QE version II wouldn't have this bug.
Wait until they cut her off after three Windows Product Activations.
Already
And finally...
"Your highness, the people have no open source..."
"Well, let them run DRDOS!"
...only that it was the most complex network he'd ever seen.
Personally, I can think of some rather complex topologies for even a twelve-computer network, even ignoring multi-homing possibilities. Depending on how the network structure is designed, as well as how many other networkable devices are involved and how they are connected (I'd assume a rather large contingent of wireless devices as well), this network might well be more complex than anything you or I have seen or even visualized.
...with a Beowulf cluster of these? (yes, I had to ask)
Remember the strip where Calvin's dad explained to him how they calculate the weight limit on bridges? He said they drove heavier and heavier trucks across it until it collapsed, then they rebuilt it exactly the same way and set the limit at the weight of the last truck that made it across.
Why don't we establish a video game's rating the same way? Let a control group of six year olds, seven year olds, eight year olds, etc., play the game for a month. Then set the minimum age for playing the game to one year older than the oldest child driven by the game to commit a violent and/or sexual offense.
Or would that be wrong?
- XZip. for X-Windows
- WinFrotz for Windows
- MaxZip for Macintosh
- Frotz for DOS, WinCE, Amiga, OS/2, and Psion
- Pilot-Frotz for Palm OS
Run the appropriate interpreter, load the story file, and off you go.Having gotten a copy of the original Colossal Cave Adventure with my first PC, I have a soft spot in my heart for such creations, and hope they continue to be created and experienced forever.
I've heard plenty about how the Hugo-winning Harry Potter books are singlehandedly making the printed page fun for kids again. Perhaps the next generation, newly enchanted with textual adventure, will spawn a new surge of popularity for the beleaguered interactive fiction genre.
And isn't a cyclone an infinite loop? You have to like a scientist who uses the word humongous.
I submitted a story just recently about this story in SpaceDaily detailing a breakthrough in magnetic semiconductors, crucial to M-RAM technology. This group created a semiconductor that shows magnetic properties at room temperature and beyond. The excitement is palpable.
Remembering the Slashdot stories about the DVD player with adjustable ratings [slashdot.org] and this voice-duplication system [slashdot.org] makes me wonder—when will films come with face-mapping data built into the DVD (or whatever format) and allow us to replace any actor in the film with the face/voice combination of our choice?
The '&' ampersand in the previous comment was intended to be an '—' em dash. Guess you never get too big to preview your posts.
"Character entities are hard!" — Web Guru Barbie
I think it's fine to do this sort of thing, but that the film should indicate in the opening credits which actors are digital likenesses, so the viewer can take that into account.
Remembering the Slashdot stories about the DVD player with adjustable ratings and this voice-duplication system makes me wonder&when will films come with face-mapping data built into the DVD (or whatever format) and allow us to replace any actor in the film with the face/voice combination of our choice?
It could start out as a novelty, of course, where you and your friends pop up as extras in the background, but eventually I could see picking and choosing your favorite actors as easily as picking tracks for a CD compilation.
How far do you suppose we are from this happening?
However, [IBM] hasn't tried to *hamper development* of projects using this strange and unusual UI covention.
No, but they've definitely used it to their advantage. I came across this information around a decade ago, so forgive me if I'm overly broad or forgotten some of the details, but this is how I understand IBM operated during the original Attack Of The Clones.
Let's say you and I decided back in 1986 to start building IBM compatible PC's. Hey, everyone's doing it, we'll sell 'em cheaper than IBM and make a fortune. So we get the board and case suppliers online, license our own version of the Phoenix BIOS and negotiate bundling licenses for MS-DOS, and we're underway.
Pretty soon after getting started, we get a nice little packet from IBM's legal department which contains photocopies of a few PC-technology-related patents held by IBM, and a polite letter wishing us success in our venture and inviting us to come on in to negotiate a patent-licensing agreement. You and I, being young turks who've never dealt with Big Blue, decide that IBM isn't going to bother with us over a few patents, and blithely continue our little operation.
Some time later (reports vary), there's a knock on our door. Several suits enter, one of them carrying a largish briefcase. They introduce themselves as legal representatives of the IBM Corporation, and in the course of time reveal the contents of the case. In it are complete copies of over four hundred patents with direct application in the construction of a fully IBM-compatible PC, covering everything from the ISA bus to the way the cursor moves when you hit the Enter key. They explain the situation to us, and finally dawn breaks upon our fevered brows.
We sign an agreement granting us permission to use any and all patents involved in PC construction, in return for a nice healthy royalty to IBM for every PC we make. We also sign a non-disclosure agreement which states that we will not only keep the agreement confidential, we will keep the existence of the agreement confidential.
Thus, for several years, IBM made money from every PC ever made, whether it had IBM on the label or not. I assume the patents in question have expired by now, but IBM is a technology-creating machine even now, and a large chunk of their revenue still comes from royalties.
Side note: I fully support this kind of use of intellectual property. If I create something and someone else is making money directly from my creation, I should profit as well. If someone is using my creation for free, however, that's another kettle of fish, and I lack room in these margins to deal with that issue fully.
You know how, when you type the last character that'll fit on the last line in a text window, the top line disappears, all the other lines move up one, and the cursor appears in the first position of a new blank line?
IBM has a patent on that.
Personally, I think the entire Internet community has been in training for long-duration space missions. How long can you stay in an enclosed space with nothing but a computer, food, water and sanitary facilities? I don't know about you, but I've done it for days on end, and only stopped because I had to go to work. And I'm getting better at it all the time.
Aren't we all a bit less dependent on interpersonal contact thanks to the ability to drown ourselves in information at the click of a mouse?
Or is it just me?
Come on, you can be honest...
When this story was first posted, an alert Slashdotter pointed out that the 200-year figure was not generally agreed upon, because using Venus as the gravity slingshot (actually, it's more of a trebuchet , isn't it?) would allow launching a mission in any year. Plus, there's no real compelling evidence that the atmosphere will freeze out during the Plutonian winter.
Don't get me wrong—I do want to see a mission to Pluto in my lifetime, but I just want to get the facts straight. Anyone with supporting data either way?
Packages shipped via UPS Ground from Canada are protected automatically against damage or loss up to $100, and Excess Value Insurance (brochure available here) can be purchased for values exceeding that. The cost is only 35 cents per $100 of value, up to $50,000 of coverage. Looks like he just didn't opt for the coverage.
Caveat expeditor.