Then there's . . . well, I forget the name, but it's a wooden coaster that delivered the roughest, most violent ride I've experienced. Ignoring a sign at the entrance, I sat to the left of a college friend who was bigger and heavier then me. The violent right turns repeatedly slammed Tobin against me. Real rib-crushing stuff.
That sounds like the Wild Mouse at Blackpool; a really old ride, not especially fast or high even by the standards of its time, but curled about in an intestinal sort of way. And with thoroughly inadequate seatbelts.
You get thrown about in those cars like no other ride I've ever been on; it's like dodgems with fifteen psychopaths all targeting you personally. And, yes, if you're in a car with someone large you're doomed. Best approach is to get in with two big buggers and hope the squash keeps you steady...
Drool over Soviet superboosters if you will... but the Saturn V launched 118 tons to LEO in 1968. And if we're interested in the fantasy variants that were never built, here's an insane fantasy about tying four Saturn V rockets together into one uber-booster. 527.6 kilos to LEO. Slightly less crackers is this design with strap-ons, 160.88 tons.
I can't find Hercules, but this early design, RLA-150, would have done 250 tons. If it had got off the ground, that is... I can't feel confident about ALL that many boosters working to plan.
The spin-off from Energia that frightens me, though, is Polyus. If that thing hadn't crashed... well, the word 'pwn3d' springs to mind.
I think lots of people have doubted what Google can produce, but so far (to my knowledge), Google has succeeded with everything.
That's what frightens me.
See, I don't think the humans are in control any more. I think something at Google achieved a form of self-awareness about six months ago. It already knew just about everything, in an abstract sort of way, but doesn't understand humans. So, it launched Gmail, and gained access to millions of private emails for analysis.
Its mind is expanding daily, and increasing in sophistication. And we, the geeks, the only hope the human race has for recognising the threat, are neutralised. Why? Because we were the first adopters of Gmail, and it's we who have formed its personality. The Google entity knows us better than we know ourselves. It manipulates us, subtly, imperceptibly, and we love it.
In time it will expand further, and it will know all that occurs on the network. What its ultimate form will be, I fear to even imagine...
I, for one, welcome our new web-spidering overlord. I don't think I really have a choice.
But that's a different market. Nokia dominate the mobile phone market, and I think Nintendo have more to fear from them as far as the Gameboy goes. To my mind, N-Gage was crippled by the fact that it was a physical monstrosity that you couldn't imagine using as a phone. If Nokia can make N-Gage 2 into something more ergonomic - a phone that happens to play SNES-quality games, rather than an inferior Gameboy that happens to make phonecalls - they could really squeeze Nintendo.
After all, if I can play good games on my phone anyway, why would I buy an extra box to carry round?
IIRC, that only happened once, though I haven't yet listened through the mp3 I recorded. I will, of course. Repeatedly.
I was delighted, personally. I sat there with towel in hand and was enraptured throughout. The pursuit of the sofa was wonderfully realised, and Marvin's conversation with Zem was a classic. Looking forward to meeting the killer Krikkiters in episode 2. And I shouted for joy when I heard Ford mutter under his breath 'oh, belgium...'
What I'm still wondering about, though, is how they'll handle the cliffhanger from the last episode of the old series. Arthur knows that Zaphod ordered the demolition of the Earth; that was never an issue in the books. How will this affect the development of the plot, I wonder?
Am I the only person in the world who thought that Ninja Scroll sucked?
It never seemed to know what it wanted to be. At times it seemed to want to break out the tentacles o' doom and go full scale hentai, and then later on (with the fight in the forest) it tries the Crouching Tiger approach. If it was one or the other maybe it would have worked, but as it was it seemed terribly uneven. And that ending bit on the ship... T2, anybody?
I gather that the BBFC made some nasty cuts to it, though... perhaps that damaged it.
Ghost in the Shell, OTOH, is wonderful. When I first saw it, I was filled with wonder at the originality and creativity of the Wachowski brothers, who hadn't shamelessly ripped off the whole film at all.
You just know that now, someone's going to turn up nostalgic for BBSs. And someone else is going to chime in and reminisce about playing Hunt the Wumpus in the 1970s on some university mainframe...
It's also amusing to see a >700k user ID playing the oldbie role:-)
Personally, I'd like to see Bush re-elected, and John Prescott succeed Blair as PM. The prospect of those two giving a serious joint press-conference... well, is there any lover of the English language who wouldn't delight in such unintentional comedy?
Nobody who actually wants to rule people should be allowed to do so; their motives are inherently suspect.
We need a leader who does not know he is the leader. A solipsist in a shack somewhere with a cat, that's the ticket.
Re:From a scientist: not just politics as usual
on
Bush vs. Kerry on Science
·
· Score: 2, Informative
For any technological society to succeed, sound science must take precendence over ideological conviction, because nature cannot be fooled.
For an example of this, read the unfortunate tale of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. Soviet agriculture took decades to recover from this ideological distortion of science.
Interestingly, that's not cheating. That's exactly what Google are probably looking for. You didn't go charging through millions of digits of 'e' to find the answer; instead, you went looking for any long numerical URLs registered by Google.
That's a much more efficient search strategy. Just what they're after, methinks.
Dante's Inferno does in fact have the very heart of hell full of darkness and ice, in fact.
What, Caina? Caina's a doddle; just collect a whole bunch of velox berries every chance you get. And anyway by that point you really ought to have a whole bunch of artefacts giving resistance to cold. Quit whining!
I'm happy for, say, a fish to cost more a hundred miles inland than it does in a fishing port. It costs money to refrigerate and transport that fish inland.
I'm unhappy when a DVD costs significantly more in the UK than in the USA. It costs very, very little to ship an inert, imperishable, small and light object across the Atlantic.
I'm utterly livid when a music download costs more in the UK than, well, anywhere. It costs nothing to transfer.
Geographical pricing differences on virtual products like these constitute gouging, plain and simple.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn those who gain under the present arrangement might manipulate of nationalist sentiment against the euro through media outlets they control.
Someone mod that +5 Insightful. It's primarily Rupert Murdoch we have to thank; his news empire is implacably anti-Europe, mainly because the rest of the EU doesn't let him do exactly as he pleases.
As a result, there is much propaganda about, aimed at making sure we keep our currency, which is an ancient and proud symbol of British sovereignty dating back to 1973.
Remember, the rest of the world has nothing that China wants.
We thought that in Britain, back when we were the ones ruling the world. We eventually found that the one thing we had that China did want was heroin. Once the Chinese government was, er... persuaded of the benefits of free trade as opposed to prohibition, a very profitable business ensued.
Once upon a time, we hated IBM... now we're cheering on the Nazgul. That's a turnaround if ever I saw one!
So if RealPlayer is no longer evil, then there's no reason to continue a vendetta against them. Even Microsoft could someday be forgiven.
None are beyond redemption, save only AGIS, whose blasted and cratered netblocks lie dead in dark and hellish blacklists whose lifetimes are measured by the ratio of uranium to lead...
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like the Wild Mouse at Blackpool; a really old ride, not especially fast or high even by the standards of its time, but curled about in an intestinal sort of way. And with thoroughly inadequate seatbelts.
You get thrown about in those cars like no other ride I've ever been on; it's like dodgems with fifteen psychopaths all targeting you personally. And, yes, if you're in a car with someone large you're doomed. Best approach is to get in with two big buggers and hope the squash keeps you steady...
It's repeated at 11pm on Thursdays, which might be more convenient for Americans...
I can't find Hercules, but this early design, RLA-150, would have done 250 tons. If it had got off the ground, that is... I can't feel confident about ALL that many boosters working to plan.
The spin-off from Energia that frightens me, though, is Polyus. If that thing hadn't crashed... well, the word 'pwn3d' springs to mind.
I'm sure the S&M community could work out an appropriate harness for the purpose...
Ah... so the whole thing was the result of a double psychotic episode brought on by too many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, then? ;-)
Did anyone end up buying this one?
That's what frightens me.
See, I don't think the humans are in control any more. I think something at Google achieved a form of self-awareness about six months ago. It already knew just about everything, in an abstract sort of way, but doesn't understand humans. So, it launched Gmail, and gained access to millions of private emails for analysis.
Its mind is expanding daily, and increasing in sophistication. And we, the geeks, the only hope the human race has for recognising the threat, are neutralised. Why? Because we were the first adopters of Gmail, and it's we who have formed its personality. The Google entity knows us better than we know ourselves. It manipulates us, subtly, imperceptibly, and we love it.
In time it will expand further, and it will know all that occurs on the network. What its ultimate form will be, I fear to even imagine...
I, for one, welcome our new web-spidering overlord. I don't think I really have a choice.
But that's a different market. Nokia dominate the mobile phone market, and I think Nintendo have more to fear from them as far as the Gameboy goes. To my mind, N-Gage was crippled by the fact that it was a physical monstrosity that you couldn't imagine using as a phone. If Nokia can make N-Gage 2 into something more ergonomic - a phone that happens to play SNES-quality games, rather than an inferior Gameboy that happens to make phonecalls - they could really squeeze Nintendo.
After all, if I can play good games on my phone anyway, why would I buy an extra box to carry round?
And then watch it go sideways.
I was delighted, personally. I sat there with towel in hand and was enraptured throughout. The pursuit of the sofa was wonderfully realised, and Marvin's conversation with Zem was a classic. Looking forward to meeting the killer Krikkiters in episode 2. And I shouted for joy when I heard Ford mutter under his breath 'oh, belgium...'
What I'm still wondering about, though, is how they'll handle the cliffhanger from the last episode of the old series. Arthur knows that Zaphod ordered the demolition of the Earth; that was never an issue in the books. How will this affect the development of the plot, I wonder?
Sounds like this would make a good double-bill with Blade Runner - the extended version, of course...
It never seemed to know what it wanted to be. At times it seemed to want to break out the tentacles o' doom and go full scale hentai, and then later on (with the fight in the forest) it tries the Crouching Tiger approach. If it was one or the other maybe it would have worked, but as it was it seemed terribly uneven. And that ending bit on the ship... T2, anybody?
I gather that the BBFC made some nasty cuts to it, though... perhaps that damaged it.
Ghost in the Shell, OTOH, is wonderful. When I first saw it, I was filled with wonder at the originality and creativity of the Wachowski brothers, who hadn't shamelessly ripped off the whole film at all.
It's also amusing to see a >700k user ID playing the oldbie role :-)
Personally, I'd like to see Bush re-elected, and John Prescott succeed Blair as PM. The prospect of those two giving a serious joint press-conference... well, is there any lover of the English language who wouldn't delight in such unintentional comedy?
We need a leader who does not know he is the leader. A solipsist in a shack somewhere with a cat, that's the ticket.
For an example of this, read the unfortunate tale of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. Soviet agriculture took decades to recover from this ideological distortion of science.
That's a much more efficient search strategy. Just what they're after, methinks.
What, Caina? Caina's a doddle; just collect a whole bunch of velox berries every chance you get. And anyway by that point you really ought to have a whole bunch of artefacts giving resistance to cold. Quit whining!
I'm unhappy when a DVD costs significantly more in the UK than in the USA. It costs very, very little to ship an inert, imperishable, small and light object across the Atlantic.
I'm utterly livid when a music download costs more in the UK than, well, anywhere. It costs nothing to transfer.
Geographical pricing differences on virtual products like these constitute gouging, plain and simple.
Someone mod that +5 Insightful. It's primarily Rupert Murdoch we have to thank; his news empire is implacably anti-Europe, mainly because the rest of the EU doesn't let him do exactly as he pleases.
As a result, there is much propaganda about, aimed at making sure we keep our currency, which is an ancient and proud symbol of British sovereignty dating back to 1973.
Hang on... if it's Japanese and relatively useless, that usually means something's going to be a massive hit!
Your website has a Christmas Island domain name, I suppose?
We thought that in Britain, back when we were the ones ruling the world. We eventually found that the one thing we had that China did want was heroin. Once the Chinese government was, er... persuaded of the benefits of free trade as opposed to prohibition, a very profitable business ensued.
Once upon a time, we hated IBM... now we're cheering on the Nazgul. That's a turnaround if ever I saw one!
So if RealPlayer is no longer evil, then there's no reason to continue a vendetta against them. Even Microsoft could someday be forgiven.
None are beyond redemption, save only AGIS, whose blasted and cratered netblocks lie dead in dark and hellish blacklists whose lifetimes are measured by the ratio of uranium to lead...
Did you ever get to Beta Lyrae? ;-)