It is a great fantasy game for all ages. Instead of getting magic powers or wasting baddies with a BFG, though, you are able to get a cool house, a big tv, wife, mistress, and all other manner of fly shit. You can fairly easily upgrade your character's charisma, physical fitness, intelligence, creativity, etc. It appeals to college-age kids who are eager to get out into the real world, as well as to older people who want to recapture that youthful sense of wonder, in a setting where the problems of the RW don't exist.
Good point. After spending $8.25 opening night, I saw it again the other day for two-fiddy. BTW, the movie was still fun the second time I saw it, unlike the boredom that accompanies repeated viewing of Phantom. Not only are the action scenes still entertaining, but the love story scenes-- The Hills are alive!!! With the Sound of Jedi!!!-- are acceptable once you're prepared for them, unlike Annakin's cringe-worthy "Yippee!" dialogue in Ep. 1.
I was driving through my old college stomping grounds of Ann Arbor, MI on Thursday, and decided on a whim to see if there was any chance whatsoever of getting tickets. I doubted that tickets would be available, since Ann Arbor is a geek-heavy town where students can skip class on a whim, let alone for an event as big as Star Wars. Needless to say, I easily got tickets 45 minutes before the 6:00 pm show. I remembered a sold-out theater for the first weekend of the original trilogy re-releases and Phantom, but the opening night showing of Clones was only half-full. Amazing. Apparently, people disliked Ep. 1 more than I anticipated, and decided that the effort to pre-order tickets or stand in line for opening day just wasn't worth it.
Reminds me of those amusing Oldsmobile jingles/skits with Florence Henderson and Bill Hayes, interjected into Olds-sponsored (live) variety shows in the 50s/60s. Similar to the content of the show, and fun, too.
One big problem with modding these: I assume that these devices will be part of the boxes required for digital cable service. My mom's digital cable requires that the box be able to dial-in (by phone line or through DOCSIS (like for cable modems)) daily to the cable company's server in order to download program listings and determine what channels you are allowed to receive. It seems like it would be easy for the cable company to (a) occasionally download new firmware revisions over the network and flash it without you knowing it, or (b) test for a certain firmware revision before unlocking the channels (e.g, if you are indeed revision 1.0.2.5, send me lines xxx-xxy of your code). This would make it significantly more difficult to mod.
If workstations are this bad, imagine how poor PCs are; I'm sure everybody has munched some chips or tossed back a beverage while reading/. or playing Diablo. (The Archbishop Lazarus and his evil succubi once made me spill beer on my ten-year-old brick-like "invincible" IBM 286 keyboard. Unfortunately, Anheisuer Busch made it vincible.) It reminds me of playing Nintendo years ago at my buddy Kris' house; he would always eat dinner while playing Zelda or whatever, then give me the "dinner controller" when we'd play two-player RBI Baseball. Not only was the button response time gimpy from the constant Zelda-playing, but the directional-pad was all greasy with ghosts of dinners past. One day I moved the D-pad to the right and a piece of rancid corn came oozing out . From then on, I insisted on bringing over an extra controller from my house.
I think there is a difference between individual communication (which you seem to be addressing) and mass communication, however. If Bob the Potential Racist is talking to jbl547 on IRC, Bob has no idea what jbl547's racial identity is; if that person later reveals that she's Asian/Jewish/black/etc. then Bob might come to the "all people are really the same" conclusion, like you mentioned. If Bob gets infuriated by Adam Epstein's website, however, that might confirm some budding anti-Jewish prejudice that Bob has.
And by the way, on the Internet, no-one knows you're a dog;)
I agree with you that "every religion has nutjobs that take its dogma to violent extremes." However, Islamic extremists are a bigger danger because Islam has not had a tradition of a secular state. When a Catholic bombs an abortion clinic or an Evangelical Christian kills a homosexual, the vast majority of people in the respective religion denounce the act; by contrast, suicide bombers and terrorist groups are lauded as heroes by the state-controlled medias in the Middle East. "Great job! You will surely enjoy a bevy of virgins in Allah's Kingdom!" The leaders of these countries whip their citizens up in a religious frenzy in order to maintain their power, and without a tradition of secular government to reflect upon* the people don't realize that there can be an alternative structure. This combination of religious intolerance and media brainwashing (anti-Western textbooks in schools, for example) is a huge problem.
*Exceptions I can think of are Turkey, which has a pretty decent secular parliament, and Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, which are fascist and anti-Western/anti-Jewish but not particularly religious.
Christians have shed more blood in God's name than ANY other religeon, ever.
Christian Europe also-- and in large part because of these wars-- underwent a significant change in philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. This led to that whole separation of church and state thing, which is a concept that Islam does not have. While many of the West's laws derive from Judeo-Christian values (murder is illegal, theft is illegal, etc.), the laws aren't the Bible verbatim, and there is room for tolerating those who do not follow the Christian religion; women won't get beaten for not wearing a proper head scarf, as in Taliban Afghanistan, or stoned to death for committing adultery.
It is no secret that groups that have increased contact with another group will find something to complain about.
This reminds me of an article on group identity I read a while back. It argued that there isn't much antisemitism in South America, Australia, East Asia, etc. because people in those areas don't interact with Jews on a day-to-day basis. However in places like Europe or New York ("Hymietown" to quote the esteemed Jesse Jackson), people blame normal human failings- and their own misfortunes- on the visible minority: that Goldstein guy I sit by in class is rude to me because all Jews are snobs (not because he's simply a jerkwad), I lost the business account to Levinson firm because those people are shrewd (not because I did a poor job), etc.
Somewhat obvious, of course (Newsflash: people blame others for their misfortunes to make themselves feel better), but I thought it was interesting.
Ride a bike for 10 minutes, get a couple of hours worth of light so you can read and learn.
Get on the treadmill or do thirty benchpress reps-- otherwise, it's no Ernest Hemingway for you! It's killing two birds with one stone, really, since most academics I know are 90 lb. weaklings or, ahem, supersized.
This might have some interesting military/police uses, so people can train to keep their cool under pressure. Maybe they can incorporate this technology into the gun handle on an arcade-style shooting game, for instance, or the steering wheel of a tank/flight simulator.
warez and mp3s... are not an appropriate use of the limited bandwidth of a K-12 institution as they provide little in the way of an educational resource
Then why is that all the old school warez web sites I used to go to had the disclaimer "for educational purposes only!!!" ?
Too bad the author, Neil Turok, didn't go into archaelogy. Then he could have been "Neil Turok, Dinosaur Hunter." (groan)
Re:Open Source? More like Openly Racist
on
Open Source & Embedded
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Oh my. While I don't doubt that this is intended as flamebait, I personally find it +5 Funny. Maybe the author should submit it to the Onion or SatireWire or something.
For a few moments, I thought that the phrase "base" (for baseline) on his graph was a reference to "all your base are belong to us." It would have been neat to see how quickly that phrase appeared, then decayed!
If you misallocate all your funds and can't build any more units on campus, other local universities will send wave after wave of orcish peons to overrun your administration building. Zug zug!
If someone were to steal your machine and turn it on elsewhere without noticing what card you have, the security folks would immediatly know where their machine went
Heh, maybe 3Com can rush order some to Los Alamos, then.
These cards might be a good idea for laptops, especially in "nonconventional workspace" offices where there are hubs everywhere but no set workstations.
Good idea! This would be great not only for sports games' rosters, but would work for stats-oriented role playing games, too. Rolling up a Baldur's Gate character, for example. ("Dude, check out the 18/00 strength, 90 point Paladin I rolled during math class!") Back in my day I had to tool around on the TI-81 during boring lectures; once these babies come out I'll have to go back to school just for the goofing-off time.
Other than that, though, its uses seem fairly limited.
Harmless, my eye!
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 5, Funny
The generators would then convert the energy into harmless microwave beams, which would be aimed at collecting stations on Earth
Apparently this dude has never put a marshmallow in his microwave oven.
Slashdot Mirror
It is a great fantasy game for all ages. Instead of getting magic powers or wasting baddies with a BFG, though, you are able to get a cool house, a big tv, wife, mistress, and all other manner of fly shit. You can fairly easily upgrade your character's charisma, physical fitness, intelligence, creativity, etc. It appeals to college-age kids who are eager to get out into the real world, as well as to older people who want to recapture that youthful sense of wonder, in a setting where the problems of the RW don't exist.
Wait a minute! I'm eagerly awaiting the Dreamcast 2. Coincidentally, I also need another low-cost BSD router.
Good point. After spending $8.25 opening night, I saw it again the other day for two-fiddy. BTW, the movie was still fun the second time I saw it, unlike the boredom that accompanies repeated viewing of Phantom. Not only are the action scenes still entertaining, but the love story scenes-- The Hills are alive!!! With the Sound of Jedi!!!-- are acceptable once you're prepared for them, unlike Annakin's cringe-worthy "Yippee!" dialogue in Ep. 1.
I was driving through my old college stomping grounds of Ann Arbor, MI on Thursday, and decided on a whim to see if there was any chance whatsoever of getting tickets. I doubted that tickets would be available, since Ann Arbor is a geek-heavy town where students can skip class on a whim, let alone for an event as big as Star Wars. Needless to say, I easily got tickets 45 minutes before the 6:00 pm show. I remembered a sold-out theater for the first weekend of the original trilogy re-releases and Phantom, but the opening night showing of Clones was only half-full. Amazing. Apparently, people disliked Ep. 1 more than I anticipated, and decided that the effort to pre-order tickets or stand in line for opening day just wasn't worth it.
Reminds me of those amusing Oldsmobile jingles/skits with Florence Henderson and Bill Hayes, interjected into Olds-sponsored (live) variety shows in the 50s/60s. Similar to the content of the show, and fun, too.
One big problem with modding these: I assume that these devices will be part of the boxes required for digital cable service. My mom's digital cable requires that the box be able to dial-in (by phone line or through DOCSIS (like for cable modems)) daily to the cable company's server in order to download program listings and determine what channels you are allowed to receive. It seems like it would be easy for the cable company to (a) occasionally download new firmware revisions over the network and flash it without you knowing it, or (b) test for a certain firmware revision before unlocking the channels (e.g, if you are indeed revision 1.0.2.5, send me lines xxx-xxy of your code). This would make it significantly more difficult to mod.
If workstations are this bad, imagine how poor PCs are; I'm sure everybody has munched some chips or tossed back a beverage while reading /. or playing Diablo. (The Archbishop Lazarus and his evil succubi once made me spill beer on my ten-year-old brick-like "invincible" IBM 286 keyboard. Unfortunately, Anheisuer Busch made it vincible.) It reminds me of playing Nintendo years ago at my buddy Kris' house; he would always eat dinner while playing Zelda or whatever, then give me the "dinner controller" when we'd play two-player RBI Baseball. Not only was the button response time gimpy from the constant Zelda-playing, but the directional-pad was all greasy with ghosts of dinners past. One day I moved the D-pad to the right and a piece of rancid corn came oozing out . From then on, I insisted on bringing over an extra controller from my house.
And by the way, on the Internet, no-one knows you're a dog ;)
Instead of bread and circuses, it'l be quarter-pounders and porn. Where do I sign up?
*Exceptions I can think of are Turkey, which has a pretty decent secular parliament, and Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, which are fascist and anti-Western/anti-Jewish but not particularly religious.
Christian Europe also-- and in large part because of these wars-- underwent a significant change in philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. This led to that whole separation of church and state thing, which is a concept that Islam does not have. While many of the West's laws derive from Judeo-Christian values (murder is illegal, theft is illegal, etc.), the laws aren't the Bible verbatim, and there is room for tolerating those who do not follow the Christian religion; women won't get beaten for not wearing a proper head scarf, as in Taliban Afghanistan, or stoned to death for committing adultery.
This reminds me of an article on group identity I read a while back. It argued that there isn't much antisemitism in South America, Australia, East Asia, etc. because people in those areas don't interact with Jews on a day-to-day basis. However in places like Europe or New York ("Hymietown" to quote the esteemed Jesse Jackson), people blame normal human failings- and their own misfortunes- on the visible minority: that Goldstein guy I sit by in class is rude to me because all Jews are snobs (not because he's simply a jerkwad), I lost the business account to Levinson firm because those people are shrewd (not because I did a poor job), etc.
Somewhat obvious, of course (Newsflash: people blame others for their misfortunes to make themselves feel better), but I thought it was interesting.
Get on the treadmill or do thirty benchpress reps-- otherwise, it's no Ernest Hemingway for you! It's killing two birds with one stone, really, since most academics I know are 90 lb. weaklings or, ahem, supersized.
What's with the advert in the middle of your post, eh? I feel like I'm reading UGO.
This might have some interesting military/police uses, so people can train to keep their cool under pressure. Maybe they can incorporate this technology into the gun handle on an arcade-style shooting game, for instance, or the steering wheel of a tank/flight simulator.
Then why is that all the old school warez web sites I used to go to had the disclaimer "for educational purposes only!!!" ?
Personally, I'm waiting for the 933 Mhz bus. Script kiddies everywhere would be dying to get their hands on a new "133x7" pentium.
Too bad the author, Neil Turok, didn't go into archaelogy. Then he could have been "Neil Turok, Dinosaur Hunter." (groan)
Oh my. While I don't doubt that this is intended as flamebait, I personally find it +5 Funny. Maybe the author should submit it to the Onion or SatireWire or something.
For a few moments, I thought that the phrase "base" (for baseline) on his graph was a reference to "all your base are belong to us." It would have been neat to see how quickly that phrase appeared, then decayed!
With all the coffee they drank, they were probably IT guys. I just knew that "Ned" character from the IBM commercials was up to no good.
If you misallocate all your funds and can't build any more units on campus, other local universities will send wave after wave of orcish peons to overrun your administration building. Zug zug!
Heh, maybe 3Com can rush order some to Los Alamos, then. These cards might be a good idea for laptops, especially in "nonconventional workspace" offices where there are hubs everywhere but no set workstations.
Good idea! This would be great not only for sports games' rosters, but would work for stats-oriented role playing games, too. Rolling up a Baldur's Gate character, for example. ("Dude, check out the 18/00 strength, 90 point Paladin I rolled during math class!") Back in my day I had to tool around on the TI-81 during boring lectures; once these babies come out I'll have to go back to school just for the goofing-off time.
Other than that, though, its uses seem fairly limited.
Apparently this dude has never put a marshmallow in his microwave oven.