If an emulator, however cool, gets a 10, then Steve "Slug" Russell playing it last month on the original hardware at the Computer History Museum, definitely goes to eleven.
I don't think any list of "Most Violent Video Games" would be complete without Time Killers. Who needs solid game play or nice graphics when you can just up the ante on blood and gore with the ability to dismember your opponent?
Before there was Mortal Kombat, before there was Time Killers, back in 1986, there was Chiller, by Exidy. Over-the-top even by today's standards.
1. We would like you to stop selling this technology to other countries so they can use it to oppress their citizens.
2. We would like to see a price list, please.
1. Now that the beta testing is complete, we would like you to stop selling this technology to other countries so they can use it to oppress their citizens.
2. Put whatever you like on the price list, because it's not our money, it's our taxpayers' money.
Those of us who are a certain age and were geeky enough to read Danny Dunn books know exactly where the CIA got this idea.
I may not yet be an Invisible Boy, but I've got one hell of a Homework Machine these days. (Especially compared to the computers I grew up with, let alone a 1958 "Miniac" that filled an entire house:)
I haven't checked while not logged in, but I can see "Read the X comments" when logged in.
Weird. I'm simulating "logged out" by disabling cookies. When logged in, the "X comments" doesn't even appear in the HTML source for the page.
I can't see any polls while logged in, though. I haven't checked while logged out.
Give that a try. No slashboxes are visible on my end while logged in. When logged out (cookies disabled), I get the Slashdot Poll, Recent Tags, Interviews, Book Reviews, and Freshmeat.net Releases.
I don't have a fix for missing post counts while logged in, but if your slashboxes are missing, I think I have a fix.
With Javashit disabled, the "Options" thing in the (annoying floating) toolbar goes to this prefs page. With Javashit enabled, clicking the "Options" thing in the (still just as annoying floating) toolbar brings up a shaded menu with a bunch of new settings, including a layout setting that had (for some unknown reason) marked Slashboxes as disabled. Clicking on the thingy to enable slashboxes worked.
My "layout" setting was Small screen-unchecked, Low bandwidth-unchecked, simple design checked.
Enable Javashit, load the main page, click on "options" (and do not open it in a new tab, and you'll see an alpha-blended UI thing appear overtop of the main page. That UI is the one that has a Layout tab that can be used to restore your missing Slashboxes.)
1. Classic Discussion (D1) is missing borders around posts.
On the main page (slashdot.org), are you getting "Read X comments", "Slashdot poll is visible" when not logged-in, but not able to see how many comments are in a thread (and not seeing the/. poll) when logged-in?
That's what I'm seeing on an account with D1 on, Javascript disabled. I haven't dared turn D2 on, because (thanks for taking one for the team) I was afraid I wouldn't be able to turn it off again.
What is the obsession with obnoxious floating headers that always stay at the top of the screen?
Second!
1) Lose the floating headers at the top and side of the screen. Really, really, really DO NOT WANT.
2) Weird bug: On the front page, if cookies are disabled (I'm not logged in): "Read the 1341 comments". If cookies are enabled (I am logged in), "Read." No, really, <span>Read </span> instead of <span>Read the </span> <strong class="comments">14</strong> <span>comments</span>
3) Annoyance: The box into which I'm typing my reply is... too damn small.
4) Annoyance: Ricockulous amounts of whitespace and humongous font. Easily shrunk down.
Slashdot 3.0 sucks less than Slashdot 2.0, but I still miss 1.0 I was running in classic mode. But at least it fails gracefully in that I can read threads (modulo the stupid floating headers/sidebar burning their way into my retinas) without Javashit bogging down a core or two.
Given the option to revert to 1.0, I'd sill take it. But 3.0 isn't so bad as to stop me from coming here. (At least, it won't be once I figure out how to force every browser on every machine I use to hide the assinine floating elements.)
And what are they going to do when they find unhappy employees?
Happiness is mandatory. Trust the Computer!
Your mission, PET-R-GUN, involves a bit of defective work. You and your team of troubleshooters are to locate all of the unhappy employees working in Federal Complex!
Are they going to find out why they are unhappy and see what they are going to do to help? Or are they going to fire them?
Unhappy employees are to be fired On. which basis they're to be fried is up to you.
Note: Any typographical errors in mission briefings are doubtless the result of commie pinko mutant traitors, and certainly not the fault of speech-to-text processing software running on the Computer.
Do you see any typographical errors or potential ambiguities in your mission briefing, PET-R-GUN? (No? Good! You're doing better than your last clone!)
Now carry out your mission, Citizen! Trust the Computer! The Computer is your Friend!
One of the best places is ACCRC. Usable stuff is refurbished for charity organizations, schools, etc. and the rest is handled responsibly and locally by ECS Refining in Santa Clara
Unlike the "normal" e-waste companies who take hardware and ship it Chindifrica to places where kids melt components off PCBs over an open fire, ACCRC actually does it right.
My God, has it really been 5 Thanksgivings since I wrote my Alice's Restaurant parody in response to a comment on a Slashdot post on "Whose Burden is it to Recycle Computers?" when the CA law came out.
The punchline to the joke is that less than two years after I wrote it, life imitated art. Officer Obie really did have a problem when someone took a big pile of garbage and turned it into something that a school could use, and it was only through the dumb luck of blind justice that the Judge didn't see it that way.
I've never had to pay a dime to ACCRC, but whenever I make a dropoff, I've always tossed a few bucks in as a donation, because I know that anything useful will get used - if not at a school, at least in an art project, and the rest will be disposed of of safely and responsibly.
So we'll sing it again when it comes around on the guitar.
"Reuse any hardware you want from Natalie's Restaurant,
(excepting drives with.JPGs of Natalie)
Reuse any hardware you want from Natalie's Restaurant,
Monitors, just around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
And you can get any grits you want at Natalie's Restaurant."
With EMI spreading files far and wide, their experts grudgingly admit that it's impossible to tell which links are authorized and which are not.
Looks like EMI ruined their own business model.
There's an unlimited supply
That's why there is no reason why
In a browser or IFRAME,
They cound the hits to measure fame.
(Who?)
EMI!
And the Rapidshare links breaking
Loss-leaders lead to money making
To download is not to steal,
It's just to increase the appeal!
(Of?)
EMI!
They spread their files far and wide,
Just to find the reason why,
There's an unlimited supply,
(of what?)
EMI!
Jane heard it from Wanda who read it on Judy's Facebook page that according to Robert who spoke with Susie, you're SO getting dumped this weekend. Totally.
...who saw the original poster pass out 31 Flavors last night! I guess it's pretty serious.
Actually, it's not even that complicated. I'm not sure whether adding in third- and fourth-order effects would increase accuracy or just muddy the waters, so let's take the simplest possible option: our old friends Alice, Bob, and Charlie.
Suppose we start with Alice and Bob, who are presumed to be in a relationship with each other by virtue of frequent affectionate (as defined by keywords/scoring) communications with each other (both public and "private"). (e.g. "Alice u were so hot last nite!" "Luv u BOB"!)
Then, observe a slight dropoff in affectionately-loaded keywords in the communications between Alice and Bob, and a spike in communications between Alice and Charlie. Furthermore, observe that Alice and Charlie's communications patterns have gone from "all/mostly in public, no/few affectionate keywords" to "no/minimal change in public communications, but a spike in 'private' communications".
Furthermore, weight the language and tone in Alice and Charlie's public and private communications separately: If she's saying "'sup charlie" in public, and "OMG so good to see u again missed u so much" in private, the difference between the emotional tone of the Alice/Charlie public conversation and the Alice/Charlie private conversation is yet another big red flag.
Facebook knows damn well when someone's about to get dumped. It's just not telling. (Unless it wants to monetize it by feeding Bob more ads for dating services the week before Valentine's Day, and Alice and Charlie start getting ads for restaurant reservations.)
And the lists go on. I'm surrounded by warnings that if a good actions puts yourself at risk, then the action is BAD. And I weep a little...
If you re-enter a burning building, you're one more person that a fireman is going to have to haul out. If you intervene in a shooting, you're one more armed person against whom the SWAT team is going to have to make a shoot/no-shoot decision on.
It's OK to voluntarily put yourself at risk for the sake of others. It's not OK to put the lives of first responders (or in our hypothetical situations here, second responders:) at risk. Their lives count too, and you're asking them to voluntarily put their lives at risk for yours.
Trying to be more heroic than the situation calls for scores minus several million for good judgement without even getting the 10/10 points for style.
What happens north of New Vegas... stays north of New Vegas.
(When I first saw a picture of the thing, I thought it was an asset from Fallout:New Vegas. It's a Robobrain come to life... awesome!:)
These things could actually have civilian applications. Scatter a bunch over Death Valley or other remote areas, and partner 'em with a high-altitude drone overlooking the area for stranded motorists or backcountry hikers, and send an autonomous mount with a few gallons of water after 'em after a few hours of immobility. It'll have pretty decent odds of getting there in time to help, and the remote operator can then talk with the hiker/motorist to determine what sort of human intervention (if any) is necessary.
Microsoft and Adobe merging is an option that would increase efficiency. That way I can direct my hatred in one direction with less distraction from various evil companies.
OK, if you Don't Wanna Be Evil, how about
Google? They've got even more interest in Flash-on-mobile as a stopgap against Apple World Domination as Microsoft does, and could probably write a PDF viewer in less than 100 megabytes.
initially available as part of a $300 set-top box from Logitech, or as part of a high-end line of TV sets from Sony.
...initially available as something that costs more than a decent HTPC, or as part of a $2000 TV that (given that you paid $2000 for it) you'll probably keep for 5-10 years, or long after Google TV has been replaced with something else.
Desktop: I run a formerly high-end 1600x1200 CRT that I could get for free at the curbside these days. The computer to which it's attached has been replaced (motherboard) at least three times during that CRT's life. We just had our discussion of "why can't I find LCDs at 1200 vertical pixels" a few days ago.
Connectivity: Dialup, DSL, cable, 4g wireless. Even these technologies have tended eclipse each other over periods of 3-5 years - still shorter than the time period you'd expect to get out of a $2000 TV.
Content Distribution: Ten years ago, you'd want Napster built into your stereo. Five years ago, you'd want a Gnutella client built into your TV. Three years ago, people who bought subscription music offerings got PlayedForSure.
Content Playback: Ten years ago, it was.MPGs and.AVIs. Five years ago, a DiVX at sufficiently high resolution could drag a single-core CPU to the ground. You really think that Google TV's gonna be able to render 3D-mega-HD-whatever in 2015-2020?:)
The things you use to get content have far shorter lifecycles than the products you use to view content. Embedding one within the other is a WOMBAT: Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time.
1) Wikileaks has leaked details of draft ACTA proposals, and these have somewhat politically embarassing to the politicians who are doing MAFIAA's work.
2) MAFIAA hates it when people singing songs with lyrics like "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" and they really hate that funky sequel that begins with "6692d179032205".
Well I work about 5 minutes from their old HQ (in fact I'm going to a meeting in that office park tomorrow)...anyone in the/. community want me to pick up something nice?
Yeah. I'll take Darl McBride's head on a spike. I'm willing to go as high as $100.
You're outbid.
"I'd also like to be there when they cut off Darl McBride's head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations of intellectual property lawyers that for some favors, even $600 is too high a price. I would look up into his lifeless eyes and wave, like this. *smileywave*. Can you the United States Trustees arrange that for me, Judge Stewart?" - What the CEO of Novell should have said when the case was finally closed.
Slashdot Mirror
What happen?
What you say?!
You have no chance to survive. Make your time.
(For great justice. Move packets!)
If an emulator, however cool, gets a 10, then Steve "Slug" Russell playing it last month on the original hardware at the Computer History Museum, definitely goes to eleven.
Before there was Mortal Kombat, before there was Time Killers, back in 1986, there was Chiller, by Exidy. Over-the-top even by today's standards.
1. Now that the beta testing is complete, we would like you to stop selling this technology to other countries so they can use it to oppress their citizens.
2. Put whatever you like on the price list, because it's not our money, it's our taxpayers' money.
I may not yet be an Invisible Boy, but I've got one hell of a Homework Machine these days. (Especially compared to the computers I grew up with, let alone a 1958 "Miniac" that filled an entire house :)
Weird. I'm simulating "logged out" by disabling cookies. When logged in, the "X comments" doesn't even appear in the HTML source for the page.
Give that a try. No slashboxes are visible on my end while logged in. When logged out (cookies disabled), I get the Slashdot Poll, Recent Tags, Interviews, Book Reviews, and Freshmeat.net Releases.
I don't have a fix for missing post counts while logged in, but if your slashboxes are missing, I think I have a fix.
With Javashit disabled, the "Options" thing in the (annoying floating) toolbar goes to this prefs page. With Javashit enabled, clicking the "Options" thing in the (still just as annoying floating) toolbar brings up a shaded menu with a bunch of new settings, including a layout setting that had (for some unknown reason) marked Slashboxes as disabled. Clicking on the thingy to enable slashboxes worked.
My "layout" setting was Small screen-unchecked, Low bandwidth-unchecked, simple design checked.
TL;DR: if Javashit is disabled, the options thing in the floating toolbar goes to an unpredictable URL. On one tab, it goes to http://slashdot.org/prefs/exclusions, on this tab it goes to http://slashdot.org/faq/UI.shtml#ui700
Enable Javashit, load the main page, click on "options" (and do not open it in a new tab, and you'll see an alpha-blended UI thing appear overtop of the main page. That UI is the one that has a Layout tab that can be used to restore your missing Slashboxes.)
On the main page (slashdot.org), are you getting "Read X comments", "Slashdot poll is visible" when not logged-in, but not able to see how many comments are in a thread (and not seeing the /. poll) when logged-in?
That's what I'm seeing on an account with D1 on, Javascript disabled. I haven't dared turn D2 on, because (thanks for taking one for the team) I was afraid I wouldn't be able to turn it off again.
Second!
1) Lose the floating headers at the top and side of the screen. Really, really, really DO NOT WANT.
2) Weird bug: On the front page, if cookies are disabled (I'm not logged in): "Read the 1341 comments". If cookies are enabled (I am logged in), "Read." No, really, <span>Read </span> instead of <span>Read the </span> <strong class="comments">14</strong> <span>comments</span>
3) Annoyance: The box into which I'm typing my reply is... too damn small.
4) Annoyance: Ricockulous amounts of whitespace and humongous font. Easily shrunk down.
Slashdot 3.0 sucks less than Slashdot 2.0, but I still miss 1.0 I was running in classic mode. But at least it fails gracefully in that I can read threads (modulo the stupid floating headers/sidebar burning their way into my retinas) without Javashit bogging down a core or two.
Given the option to revert to 1.0, I'd sill take it. But 3.0 isn't so bad as to stop me from coming here. (At least, it won't be once I figure out how to force every browser on every machine I use to hide the assinine floating elements.)
I can't. I don't even know what wine goes with elephant, let alone what wine goes with mammoth.
Happiness is mandatory. Trust the Computer!
Your mission, PET-R-GUN, involves a bit of defective work. You and your team of troubleshooters are to locate all of the unhappy employees working in Federal Complex!
Unhappy employees are to be fired On. which basis they're to be fried is up to you.
Note: Any typographical errors in mission briefings are doubtless the result of commie pinko mutant traitors, and certainly not the fault of speech-to-text processing software running on the Computer.
Do you see any typographical errors or potential ambiguities in your mission briefing, PET-R-GUN? (No? Good! You're doing better than your last clone!)
Now carry out your mission, Citizen! Trust the Computer! The Computer is your Friend!
Oh, that's right. Even 22 years later, VAXen, my children, just don't belong in some places :)
If only there were some sort of site, maybe like a website whose pages were editable by anybody, through which material could be leaked...
Unlike the "normal" e-waste companies who take hardware and ship it Chindifrica to places where kids melt components off PCBs over an open fire, ACCRC actually does it right.
My God, has it really been 5 Thanksgivings since I wrote my Alice's Restaurant parody in response to a comment on a Slashdot post on "Whose Burden is it to Recycle Computers?" when the CA law came out.
The punchline to the joke is that less than two years after I wrote it, life imitated art. Officer Obie really did have a problem when someone took a big pile of garbage and turned it into something that a school could use, and it was only through the dumb luck of blind justice that the Judge didn't see it that way.
I've never had to pay a dime to ACCRC, but whenever I make a dropoff, I've always tossed a few bucks in as a donation, because I know that anything useful will get used - if not at a school, at least in an art project, and the rest will be disposed of of safely and responsibly.
So we'll sing it again when it comes around on the guitar.
"Reuse any hardware you want from Natalie's Restaurant, .JPGs of Natalie)
(excepting drives with
Reuse any hardware you want from Natalie's Restaurant,
Monitors, just around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
And you can get any grits you want at Natalie's Restaurant."
Do de do, dee de doo de doo...
There's an unlimited supply
That's why there is no reason why
In a browser or IFRAME,
They cound the hits to measure fame.
(Who?)
EMI!
And the Rapidshare links breaking
Loss-leaders lead to money making
To download is not to steal,
It's just to increase the appeal!
(Of?)
EMI!
They spread their files far and wide,
Just to find the reason why,
There's an unlimited supply,
(of what?)
EMI!
- With apologies to the Sex Pistols.
Actually, it's not even that complicated. I'm not sure whether adding in third- and fourth-order effects would increase accuracy or just muddy the waters, so let's take the simplest possible option: our old friends Alice, Bob, and Charlie.
Suppose we start with Alice and Bob, who are presumed to be in a relationship with each other by virtue of frequent affectionate (as defined by keywords/scoring) communications with each other (both public and "private"). (e.g. "Alice u were so hot last nite!" "Luv u BOB"!)
Then, observe a slight dropoff in affectionately-loaded keywords in the communications between Alice and Bob, and a spike in communications between Alice and Charlie. Furthermore, observe that Alice and Charlie's communications patterns have gone from "all/mostly in public, no/few affectionate keywords" to "no/minimal change in public communications, but a spike in 'private' communications".
Furthermore, weight the language and tone in Alice and Charlie's public and private communications separately: If she's saying "'sup charlie" in public, and "OMG so good to see u again missed u so much" in private, the difference between the emotional tone of the Alice/Charlie public conversation and the Alice/Charlie private conversation is yet another big red flag.
Facebook knows damn well when someone's about to get dumped. It's just not telling. (Unless it wants to monetize it by feeding Bob more ads for dating services the week before Valentine's Day, and Alice and Charlie start getting ads for restaurant reservations.)
If you re-enter a burning building, you're one more person that a fireman is going to have to haul out. If you intervene in a shooting, you're one more armed person against whom the SWAT team is going to have to make a shoot/no-shoot decision on.
It's OK to voluntarily put yourself at risk for the sake of others. It's not OK to put the lives of first responders (or in our hypothetical situations here, second responders :) at risk. Their lives count too, and you're asking them to voluntarily put their lives at risk for yours.
Trying to be more heroic than the situation calls for scores minus several million for good judgement without even getting the 10/10 points for style.
Later. Right now, let's play Global Thermonuclear War.
Which reminds me, it's time to see how Subversion is coming along.
"Whitrolled? That's not a meme!"
"It is now."
(When I first saw a picture of the thing, I thought it was an asset from Fallout:New Vegas. It's a Robobrain come to life... awesome! :)
These things could actually have civilian applications. Scatter a bunch over Death Valley or other remote areas, and partner 'em with a high-altitude drone overlooking the area for stranded motorists or backcountry hikers, and send an autonomous mount with a few gallons of water after 'em after a few hours of immobility. It'll have pretty decent odds of getting there in time to help, and the remote operator can then talk with the hiker/motorist to determine what sort of human intervention (if any) is necessary.
OK, if you Don't Wanna Be Evil, how about Google? They've got even more interest in Flash-on-mobile as a stopgap against Apple World Domination as Microsoft does, and could probably write a PDF viewer in less than 100 megabytes.
Desktop: I run a formerly high-end 1600x1200 CRT that I could get for free at the curbside these days. The computer to which it's attached has been replaced (motherboard) at least three times during that CRT's life. We just had our discussion of "why can't I find LCDs at 1200 vertical pixels" a few days ago.
Connectivity: Dialup, DSL, cable, 4g wireless. Even these technologies have tended eclipse each other over periods of 3-5 years - still shorter than the time period you'd expect to get out of a $2000 TV.
Content Distribution: Ten years ago, you'd want Napster built into your stereo. Five years ago, you'd want a Gnutella client built into your TV. Three years ago, people who bought subscription music offerings got PlayedForSure.
Content Playback: Ten years ago, it was .MPGs and .AVIs. Five years ago, a DiVX at sufficiently high resolution could drag a single-core CPU to the ground. You really think that Google TV's gonna be able to render 3D-mega-HD-whatever in 2015-2020? :)
The things you use to get content have far shorter lifecycles than the products you use to view content. Embedding one within the other is a WOMBAT: Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time.
OK, it's actually not too long, it's a great review. I'll have a more in-depth comment on it after this turn...
I can think of at least two reasons:
1) Wikileaks has leaked details of draft ACTA proposals, and these have somewhat politically embarassing to the politicians who are doing MAFIAA's work.
2) MAFIAA hates it when people singing songs with lyrics like "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" and they really hate that funky sequel that begins with "6692d179032205".
I love potatoes,
I love to kick some ass,
I love the SWAT teams,
Who aim for center mass!
~Boom-de-headshot, boom-de-headshot, boom-de-headshot, boom-de-headshot~
You're outbid. "I'd also like to be there when they cut off Darl McBride's head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations of intellectual property lawyers that for some favors, even $600 is too high a price. I would look up into his lifeless eyes and wave, like this. *smileywave*. Can you the United States Trustees arrange that for me, Judge Stewart?"
- What the CEO of Novell should have said when the case was finally closed.