That's what YOU know. My informants have just let me in on the secret as to WHY Quaoar's so important. It's made of rich, perfectly preserved, creamy 50+ better-than-french Brie.
To think we still name our planets after a set of decrepit Roman gods who no-one even believes in anymore (ah, wait, that's not entirely true, sorry about that CowboyNeal) is almost as ludicrous as wondering why the galaxies beyond our own have weird names like XR-0915. Scientists may be orderly, but they've got the poetic sense of a brick in a snowstorm. Me? I'd name the new planet Coca-cola after selling it to the same company.
I've currently got a keyboard, which I specially requested from my ex-boss, which pretty much takes an iron mallet applied with lots of force to get one of the keys to click; however, it does so quickly and efficiently and allows very high typerates. An interesting side effect of this is: NO RSI.
The reason is, my fingers get enough circulation to deport any and all waste products which are a normal part of tissue and muscle function. In plain terms, the less effort you have to spend typing > the quicker your fingers lock up, because the waste products clog up in your fingers with no way out. (This is also why squeezing erasers or coke bottles also helps against RSI, and why the old stenopool typists never had similar problems... you know how hard you had to hit and oldschool typewriter?)
Now I could be wrong, but wouldn't this new keyboard exacerbate this even more? Muscles which are overused for small movements will simply lock up; sounds to me like we should find a way to increase the forces while maintaining the best possible speed. This is only one aspect of RSI, of course, and tennis arms etc probably won't be spared, but if you're looking for a cheap solution to cramped fingers, ask your boss to let you test all the old keyboards they have lying around.
There's no such thing as perfect encryption (yet, although I gather quantum physics might be getting nearer.) I'm betting that within a year of implementation that either some uberhacker will tell you how to sidestep it, some eastern company will sidestep it and massproduce a hack to make a buck, or someone in on the scene will tell people how the encryption works which brings you back to options 1 and 2. The companies are living in a dream and if this is the best they can come up with then they deserve the pummelling they're about to receive anyway.
Adams died relatively recently. I'm betting Hollywood couldn't do jack up to now because Adams refused it for some reason or other... and the end of the Guide isn't particularly positive, is it? Which was probably what Adams wanted in the first place and it certainly fits the strange script as I feel it should. Hollywood movies are wont to yield happy endings, a simmering love story and, as far as movies of books are concerned, often worthless translations of otherwise perfectly fine literature. I wonder if they'll also try to cram it into 90 minutes.
My fav feature is the zoom-in function for text sizes; there's so many idiot webmasters who think 8pt text is big enough that this grants my eyes another 20 years of functionality without contacts.
Jynx
Re:It was bound to happen sooner or later.
on
RIAA Smacked by DoS
·
· Score: 1
Lol... whatwasitagain, Spaceballs? But those are the cooler quotes;)
Jynx
Re:It was bound to happen sooner or later.
on
RIAA Smacked by DoS
·
· Score: 1
If you're gonna bytsj at me, either do it in style and actually have something to say - for example, an argument with some content - or hire someone to dig yourself a grave 40 miles along the rut you're treading in.
Jynx
Don't get it? Get a dictionary.
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
on
RIAA Smacked by DoS
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Besides, I think it's good to give one decent dDOS as a 'shot across the bow' so the RIAA knows what it's playing with. Should the legislature be approved, I somehow don't think the RIAA site will stay online very long anymore; there's relatively few people who control so many computers that they can dDOS at their leisure, but there's enough. Had the dDOS's started after the bill was approved then it would have been next to useless. Now it's still next to useless, but it sparks up a lot more discussion.
Jynx
The RIAA is still a group of fools, though; the boomerang is swinging back to hit them in the face much in the same way US citizens are being screwed for doctor support because everyone's sueing them. US legislature just goes too far in that respect.
Id called in at 0300; they were working late and looking for a way to hornify potential doom3'ers. They made a deal with theirs truly: a good review for the price of (fill in respectable amount of dough here). Sorry gents, the world is a corrupt place. A few controllers run what you hear on the radio, what you play, what you eat, even what you feed your cat. And all/. polls are registered and stuffed together for an overall picture. Don't bitch about Big Brother being on the way - he's already camping in your back yard:)
Micron is one of the giants involved in several Linux projects together with IBM and Intel, as I recall. Instigating factor: not even Senator Disney, rather one of Gates' cronies. I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a big fluke - and I hope the guy behind the court demand finds him/herself dangerously overextended.
Get with it. Being masturbated by my wife is one of the highlights of our relationship. Especially if it happens while I'm playing Q3... Explosive orgasms! Riding the rocket! Orgasmic fuel cells! The sky is the limit.
I've got a microsoft optical trackball (the one with 4 buttons and a wheel/button) and it doesn't just own, it simply IS. It's been thrown, fallen, the ball's rolled several miles outside the casing, I've worn it down for more than a year of CounterStrike and the bloody thing just won't give up - it's fewkin' invincible. I don't run out of mouse space, it doesn't get clogged so you can't make the necessary twist at the critical moment, and the precision is amazing. For example, in any Quake or similar I can be running forward, hear fire from behind me, jump, turn 180 degrees, shoot the annoyance behind me down, twist 180 degrees back and still have half a second before I land. It just takes a week or two of getting used to, that's what IMHO is preventing most people from using trackballs; I think it's a computer-evolutionary flop that we started with mice in the first place. But there's probably a lot of other interesting things these days... anyone have experience Quaking with one of those penpads? Is it Movepen-touch-targetdies, or is it still difficult enough that us ballers still have a chance?;)
(On the side, I read somewhere down below that Logitech makes MS's stuff, which somehow doesn't surprise me.)
I'm beginning to wonder why don't take a more drastic approach. What they could do is get, say, a dozen heavy-duty telescopes up into orbit, only this time put them in orbit around the sun, not the earth, and put them at a fair distance - say, between Mars and Jupiter. Then they let all 12 scopes takes pictures of the target in as many different spectra as they are able. This done, all you have to do is beam the images back to earth and let some big fat mainframe calculate the differences in image; what you get then is an image of your target that is lightyears clearer than anything they can produce now because you have effectively created a telescope with a diameter of the orbit of the 12 sattelites. Make a dish that big and you won't have imaging problems for quite a while (although delegating the rights to use it will be difficult since everyone will be jumping at the chance:P)
But I would guess this problem is similar to that of the space elevator: the costs of building something on such a scale is prohibitive at this time for any one nation. Maybe if we all got together it would be doable, though. I personally think they should do the space elevator first, then we can launch the lenses from space; way cheaper.
With 3800 bucks, I could... erm... well... do really cool things. Can somebody loan it to me? Santa'll pay you back. Honest. On the side, maybe someone can finally explain why so many people watch soap operas but can't stand their friends.
They have psychologists for that, chief. Shock therapy can do miraculous things for a graphic imagination;) But why did you have to tell us about it? Now I won't be sleeping for 3 days for fear of bad dreams. But if you want something really creepy, imagine US Senate meetings at a naturist resort.
El Jynx
Fun with photons and your mom's jewellry!
on
Stopping Light
·
· Score: 1
An interesting one, although I remember/. posting the comment before. The concept really gets into gear, though, when you consider the guys who have been creating optical computers using a diamond spinning at very high speeds (they are able to perform calculations by creating minuite variations in the speed of the spinning crystal). If you can make a calculation, flash it to your new 'hard disk' (or rather, gas-light tank) and beam it out again whenever you need it, all at the speed of light and no resistance if done in a vacuum, then you get very energy-efficient, relatively easy/cheap to build computers. I don't know what their speeds would be compared to today's computers - probably lower, since electronics is quite a few generations ahead in development - but the potential is enough to be interesting.
NWN had several alternatives built in to counter the climbing and swimming problem; as I recall it had something to do with layer triggers (i.e. stand at the bottom of the picture of the ladder and you'll go to the top and similar). It won't be the real thing, of course, and all those wonderful tricks you used to be able to do with nothing but a 1st level character, Rope Use and 100 feet of manila rope won't be part of the show, but it's close enough for my liking. The reviews will really have to suck to scare me off.
I've been drooling for NWN to come out for ages now. I think this will blow unsurpassed life into D&D again:
- Dicerolling is all done by the poor computer.
- Getting people to be able to come over on the same day as well as longer term reliability is much easier.
- No more arguments about "I was behind 90% cover, honest!" What fireballs you is what you sweat.
- The unique semi-P2P setup of the game will allow for a vast realm to come into existence.
Based on the screenshots and the other facts they gave us I think NWN will be one of the greatest games to come out for the coming five years; the sheer scope of the conept (D&D and nead-limitless creativity) allows for immense replay value. Come to think of it, has anyone heard anything BAD about NWN?
- Jynx
Hey, it could just be me, but didn't some Israeli firm offer the same thing at CeBIT not too long ago? I think it was posted here on/. just a few days back... Has Siemens been sticking their spies in other companies' dark crevices again?
Jynxy
Slashdot Mirror
Now THERE'S a game with arrogant, stuck-up stoopid gods...
My point was, however, that we waste time calling jupiter jupiter at all anymore. I want to buy it and call it "The Place Laughing Gas Comes From".
Jynx
That's what YOU know. My informants have just let me in on the secret as to WHY Quaoar's so important. It's made of rich, perfectly preserved, creamy 50+ better-than-french Brie.
- Jynx
To think we still name our planets after a set of decrepit Roman gods who no-one even believes in anymore (ah, wait, that's not entirely true, sorry about that CowboyNeal) is almost as ludicrous as wondering why the galaxies beyond our own have weird names like XR-0915. Scientists may be orderly, but they've got the poetic sense of a brick in a snowstorm. Me? I'd name the new planet Coca-cola after selling it to the same company.
- Jynx
...the keys are spaced a bit too far apart for that. Then again, maybe the pretentious feline in question was stalking on stilts? ;)
- Jynx
I've currently got a keyboard, which I specially requested from my ex-boss, which pretty much takes an iron mallet applied with lots of force to get one of the keys to click; however, it does so quickly and efficiently and allows very high typerates. An interesting side effect of this is: NO RSI.
The reason is, my fingers get enough circulation to deport any and all waste products which are a normal part of tissue and muscle function. In plain terms, the less effort you have to spend typing > the quicker your fingers lock up, because the waste products clog up in your fingers with no way out. (This is also why squeezing erasers or coke bottles also helps against RSI, and why the old stenopool typists never had similar problems... you know how hard you had to hit and oldschool typewriter?)
Now I could be wrong, but wouldn't this new keyboard exacerbate this even more? Muscles which are overused for small movements will simply lock up; sounds to me like we should find a way to increase the forces while maintaining the best possible speed. This is only one aspect of RSI, of course, and tennis arms etc probably won't be spared, but if you're looking for a cheap solution to cramped fingers, ask your boss to let you test all the old keyboards they have lying around.
- Jynx
602Suite. Check http://www.software602.com/
There's no such thing as perfect encryption (yet, although I gather quantum physics might be getting nearer.) I'm betting that within a year of implementation that either some uberhacker will tell you how to sidestep it, some eastern company will sidestep it and massproduce a hack to make a buck, or someone in on the scene will tell people how the encryption works which brings you back to options 1 and 2. The companies are living in a dream and if this is the best they can come up with then they deserve the pummelling they're about to receive anyway.
Jynx
Adams died relatively recently. I'm betting Hollywood couldn't do jack up to now because Adams refused it for some reason or other... and the end of the Guide isn't particularly positive, is it? Which was probably what Adams wanted in the first place and it certainly fits the strange script as I feel it should. Hollywood movies are wont to yield happy endings, a simmering love story and, as far as movies of books are concerned, often worthless translations of otherwise perfectly fine literature. I wonder if they'll also try to cram it into 90 minutes.
Jynx
Nah. They won't. (see reason below)
My fav feature is the zoom-in function for text sizes; there's so many idiot webmasters who think 8pt text is big enough that this grants my eyes another 20 years of functionality without contacts.
Jynx
Lol... whatwasitagain, Spaceballs? But those are the cooler quotes ;)
Jynx
If you're gonna bytsj at me, either do it in style and actually have something to say - for example, an argument with some content - or hire someone to dig yourself a grave 40 miles along the rut you're treading in.
Jynx
Don't get it? Get a dictionary.
Besides, I think it's good to give one decent dDOS as a 'shot across the bow' so the RIAA knows what it's playing with. Should the legislature be approved, I somehow don't think the RIAA site will stay online very long anymore; there's relatively few people who control so many computers that they can dDOS at their leisure, but there's enough. Had the dDOS's started after the bill was approved then it would have been next to useless. Now it's still next to useless, but it sparks up a lot more discussion.
Jynx
The RIAA is still a group of fools, though; the boomerang is swinging back to hit them in the face much in the same way US citizens are being screwed for doctor support because everyone's sueing them. US legislature just goes too far in that respect.
Id called in at 0300; they were working late and looking for a way to hornify potential doom3'ers. They made a deal with theirs truly: a good review for the price of (fill in respectable amount of dough here). Sorry gents, the world is a corrupt place. A few controllers run what you hear on the radio, what you play, what you eat, even what you feed your cat. And all /. polls are registered and stuffed together for an overall picture. Don't bitch about Big Brother being on the way - he's already camping in your back yard :)
Jynx
"What do you mean? Of COURSE I know everything!"
Micron is one of the giants involved in several Linux projects together with IBM and Intel, as I recall. Instigating factor: not even Senator Disney, rather one of Gates' cronies. I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a big fluke - and I hope the guy behind the court demand finds him/herself dangerously overextended.
Jynx
Jesse Helms should probably be shot, too.
Get with it. Being masturbated by my wife is one of the highlights of our relationship. Especially if it happens while I'm playing Q3... Explosive orgasms! Riding the rocket! Orgasmic fuel cells! The sky is the limit.
Jynx
Where do you want to shag today?
I've got a microsoft optical trackball (the one with 4 buttons and a wheel/button) and it doesn't just own, it simply IS. It's been thrown, fallen, the ball's rolled several miles outside the casing, I've worn it down for more than a year of CounterStrike and the bloody thing just won't give up - it's fewkin' invincible. I don't run out of mouse space, it doesn't get clogged so you can't make the necessary twist at the critical moment, and the precision is amazing. For example, in any Quake or similar I can be running forward, hear fire from behind me, jump, turn 180 degrees, shoot the annoyance behind me down, twist 180 degrees back and still have half a second before I land. It just takes a week or two of getting used to, that's what IMHO is preventing most people from using trackballs; I think it's a computer-evolutionary flop that we started with mice in the first place. But there's probably a lot of other interesting things these days... anyone have experience Quaking with one of those penpads? Is it Movepen-touch-targetdies, or is it still difficult enough that us ballers still have a chance? ;)
(On the side, I read somewhere down below that Logitech makes MS's stuff, which somehow doesn't surprise me.)
El Jynx
I'm beginning to wonder why don't take a more drastic approach. What they could do is get, say, a dozen heavy-duty telescopes up into orbit, only this time put them in orbit around the sun, not the earth, and put them at a fair distance - say, between Mars and Jupiter. Then they let all 12 scopes takes pictures of the target in as many different spectra as they are able. This done, all you have to do is beam the images back to earth and let some big fat mainframe calculate the differences in image; what you get then is an image of your target that is lightyears clearer than anything they can produce now because you have effectively created a telescope with a diameter of the orbit of the 12 sattelites. Make a dish that big and you won't have imaging problems for quite a while (although delegating the rights to use it will be difficult since everyone will be jumping at the chance :P)
But I would guess this problem is similar to that of the space elevator: the costs of building something on such a scale is prohibitive at this time for any one nation. Maybe if we all got together it would be doable, though. I personally think they should do the space elevator first, then we can launch the lenses from space; way cheaper.
With 3800 bucks, I could... erm... well... do really cool things. Can somebody loan it to me? Santa'll pay you back. Honest. On the side, maybe someone can finally explain why so many people watch soap operas but can't stand their friends.
They have psychologists for that, chief. Shock therapy can do miraculous things for a graphic imagination ;) But why did you have to tell us about it? Now I won't be sleeping for 3 days for fear of bad dreams. But if you want something really creepy, imagine US Senate meetings at a naturist resort.
El Jynx
An interesting one, although I remember /. posting the comment before. The concept really gets into gear, though, when you consider the guys who have been creating optical computers using a diamond spinning at very high speeds (they are able to perform calculations by creating minuite variations in the speed of the spinning crystal). If you can make a calculation, flash it to your new 'hard disk' (or rather, gas-light tank) and beam it out again whenever you need it, all at the speed of light and no resistance if done in a vacuum, then you get very energy-efficient, relatively easy/cheap to build computers. I don't know what their speeds would be compared to today's computers - probably lower, since electronics is quite a few generations ahead in development - but the potential is enough to be interesting.
- Jynx
NWN had several alternatives built in to counter the climbing and swimming problem; as I recall it had something to do with layer triggers (i.e. stand at the bottom of the picture of the ladder and you'll go to the top and similar). It won't be the real thing, of course, and all those wonderful tricks you used to be able to do with nothing but a 1st level character, Rope Use and 100 feet of manila rope won't be part of the show, but it's close enough for my liking. The reviews will really have to suck to scare me off.
- Jynx
I've been drooling for NWN to come out for ages now. I think this will blow unsurpassed life into D&D again: - Dicerolling is all done by the poor computer. - Getting people to be able to come over on the same day as well as longer term reliability is much easier. - No more arguments about "I was behind 90% cover, honest!" What fireballs you is what you sweat. - The unique semi-P2P setup of the game will allow for a vast realm to come into existence. Based on the screenshots and the other facts they gave us I think NWN will be one of the greatest games to come out for the coming five years; the sheer scope of the conept (D&D and nead-limitless creativity) allows for immense replay value. Come to think of it, has anyone heard anything BAD about NWN? - Jynx
Hey, it could just be me, but didn't some Israeli firm offer the same thing at CeBIT not too long ago? I think it was posted here on /. just a few days back... Has Siemens been sticking their spies in other companies' dark crevices again?
Jynxy