Come on...they have to start somewhere. I think it's pretty impressive that they got this far, considering that it took Intel some 30-40 years to reach those speeds.
There is no analogy between everquest and terrorist networks. The later work in a defined organisational structure known as cells. These cells have very specific ways of communicating which guarantee anonymity to the maximum amount of cells.
Now how does this relate to how people form a group in EQ? Well, it just doesn't. EQ players don't need that form of anonymity. They don't have different cells working together towards the same goal. While I will admit everyone who plays EQ has the same goal of 'getting more xp'...that's not the same thing, is it? You don't need (or have) all these cells interconnected, talking to each other to 'overthrow a system'.
What the pentagon will find is the mechanics of how a gamne is played...which will bear no reemblance whatsoever to how terrorist cells are organised.
And it's posts like these which show how little is understood.
Thing is, most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabians. Why? Because they're pissed that the US still has a huge force there, ever since the gulf war. Their reasons are more along the lines of "the US is an invading force which has setlled here"...and you know what? By many definitions, they're right. The US barged in and never left. That's one of the reasons behind OBL's crusade, and one of the reasons he gets so many Saudi's involved.
Religious fundamentalism also gets in there, but that's more of a sugar coating than anything else.
Oh, and I consider Bush to be funamentally evil, and someone who is too unstable to posses nuclear and biological weapons, too. GWB and OBL...they're just two sides of the same stupidly evil coin.
Try doing maps in text only format. You'll find that flash can be a very handy tool when your information is vision based...as a hell of a lot of information is.
french bread slicer we made which, when modified to run backwards, could shoot the two halves to hit the ceiling at such speed that if it was days-old, it could shatter the bread:)
But then again, that's what mechanical engineering students should be up to;)
As a warning, caffeine does have it's drawbacks: you get withdrawel symptoms. If you stop drinking coffee after heavy usage over time, you can get headaches.
Isn't it obvious? I just hirachicaly (or however you spel it) set up my startmenu; first level consists of 'utils', 'comms', 'games', 'startup' and a direct link to calculator app. 'utils' is broken up in 'graphic' (again broken up in '2d', '3d' and 'CAE'), 'sound' etc. Easy.
Now if only I could get this in my desktop (big old button on the centre of my desktop which would have the items around it, branching out (and refocussing the newly clicked item and mouse cursor to the centre) when I click...think Lain's Navi). I could do it in flash, but then I'd have to have activedesktop enabled...blearg.
It's just a shame that AutoCAD sucks. BTW, for a reasonable 3d CAD program, try IronCAD. Some great ideas being implemented there, and the 2d/3d snaps are excelent.
God, that reminds me...me and my brother were in the backseat of the car, beaming programs between my IIIc and his new Treo (the bastard!). Eventually we're up to the hacks (he didn't have the magictext hack!) and my mom turns to dad and says "Cripes! We've got criminals for sons! They're hacking back there!":)
Try explaining/that/ to someone who's barely comfortable with windows:)
The difference here is scope of catastrophy: if something goes wrong in the refinery (or a chemical plant, or a nuclear reactor), the surrounding countryside becomes/can become uninhabitable and a huge number of people can be affected.
With just a couple of hundred people (in the case of 747/777/etc), but especially in the case of personal transport, like cars or personal aircraft, user error causes MUCH more fatalities than computer errors will. It's just numbers: less will die if automation is put into place in cars and aircraft. Shit, it's already !fully! in place in aircraft: the autopilot can handle takeoff, flight and landing. These systems are on planes NOW!
Why is there still a pilot? To handle things when stuff goes wrong. But the simple fact of the matter is that the pilot screws up more often than the computer; most crashes in the last years have been due to pilot error. These could have been avoided by relying on the computer. I don't really know how else I can put this: we have the systems in place, but we don't use them because we don't trust them...but there would have been less dead if we had. 5 9's for a computer system is still a hell of a lot better than a human.
It's just that people like to blame people, not computers. Really stupid, but there you are.
Isn't that what the whole 'glass cockpit' is about?
Re:Bob forbid that this should ever come to pass.
on
The End of Solotrek
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· Score: 2
The more I read your list, the better I think it will be for humanity, in the long run:) Except of course number 12, which is just grim in that "if pigs could fly" manner.
No...all we need is to automate it; take control out of peoples hands. It's a tested and proven concept. And the amount of people getting killed because of computer crashes will be a number of factors smaller than the amount getting killed now.
Re:A lot of this happening lately...
on
The End of Solotrek
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually, it can be easier than you think. Automation is the key to safety here...as an example, automation nowadays has made the pilot redundant. Let me say that again: the pilot is not neccessary anymore! There are landing programs (ILS etc), takeoff porgrams and autopilots which take care of everything during the flight. In practice this means that right now the way things work is that the pilot is only doing something during take off and landing! And he's not even needed there! I'll go one further and state the fact that many more crashes are the fault of pilot error rather than hard- or software error; the pilot is actually making flying unsafer!
Thing is, pilots themselves don't trust a computer to fly an airplane. Of course not: they'd be out of job. What's also said is taht the general public wouldn't trust a computer. As for the informed general public (I count myself here)...well, knowing what I know, I would have no problem with it...I'd actually feel safer knowing there wasn't some failed military wannabe in the cockpit. As for the uninformed general public? I dunno, but I think they'd accept anything in exchange for the cheaper flights it will bring when you don't have to employ pilots anymore.
Oh, as for cars: there are a number of projects which automate car travel...have you never seen those cars riding 'in convoy'? They travel automated, super close to each other. When one's engine breaks down, it gets chucked out of the line (safely) and the rest chug on. It looks really cool, and is probably what inspired the car system in Minority Report.
Why not just use WORM media? Solves most of the problems, I'd say. Then all the auditing trail needed would be a secure IDtag on the media itself and sign in/out sheets.
I think the only thing it would be used for is the news. It would be a perfect format...a couple of paragraphs of text, accompanied by a clip. That's basically what the news on tv is too:
"blah blah blah Iraq blah blah" --shot of weapons inspectors looking at pidgeon droppings on the ground--
"Blah, blah flood blah Bangladesh" --shot of twenty families of ten people sitting on a roof of 4m^2, surrounded by water--
That, and pr0n, of course. Including upskirt movies from your friends made with their camera-phones...killer app, dude.
"they're all hoping that Philips doesn't come along and price the technology out of a reasonable profit margin"
Could you elaborate on that? I mean, I know Phillips invented the CD, and thus set up the red-book standard...but what tech do they hold the key to in other digital sound and video?
Appart from the fact that you seem to have lost a deal of your sence of wonder (for which my sincerest condolences), I'd also say you never read the likes of Gaiman (the Sandman), Miller (his SinCity series), Wagner (Grendel) or any of the truly greats. There are some grandmasters in comics which deserve Booker Prises. And I find sometimes a dose of pulp like the Dragon or most of Dark Horse Comics (some gems, some good pulp) enliven my day too.
I'll give you 'overpriced' though. That's what stops me from getting all the 'Lone wolf and cub' series.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on...they have to start somewhere. I think it's pretty impressive that they got this far, considering that it took Intel some 30-40 years to reach those speeds.
There is no analogy between everquest and terrorist networks. The later work in a defined organisational structure known as cells. These cells have very specific ways of communicating which guarantee anonymity to the maximum amount of cells.
Now how does this relate to how people form a group in EQ? Well, it just doesn't. EQ players don't need that form of anonymity. They don't have different cells working together towards the same goal. While I will admit everyone who plays EQ has the same goal of 'getting more xp'...that's not the same thing, is it? You don't need (or have) all these cells interconnected, talking to each other to 'overthrow a system'.
What the pentagon will find is the mechanics of how a gamne is played...which will bear no reemblance whatsoever to how terrorist cells are organised.
And it's posts like these which show how little is understood.
Thing is, most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabians. Why? Because they're pissed that the US still has a huge force there, ever since the gulf war. Their reasons are more along the lines of "the US is an invading force which has setlled here"...and you know what? By many definitions, they're right. The US barged in and never left. That's one of the reasons behind OBL's crusade, and one of the reasons he gets so many Saudi's involved.
Religious fundamentalism also gets in there, but that's more of a sugar coating than anything else.
Oh, and I consider Bush to be funamentally evil, and someone who is too unstable to posses nuclear and biological weapons, too. GWB and OBL...they're just two sides of the same stupidly evil coin.
Try doing maps in text only format. You'll find that flash can be a very handy tool when your information is vision based...as a hell of a lot of information is.
french bread slicer we made which, when modified to run backwards, could shoot the two halves to hit the ceiling at such speed that if it was days-old, it could shatter the bread :)
;)
But then again, that's what mechanical engineering students should be up to
As a warning, caffeine does have it's drawbacks: you get withdrawel symptoms. If you stop drinking coffee after heavy usage over time, you can get headaches.
All of them. If you think otherwise, grow up and smell who pays for the coffee.
Isn't it obvious? I just hirachicaly (or however you spel it) set up my startmenu; first level consists of 'utils', 'comms', 'games', 'startup' and a direct link to calculator app. 'utils' is broken up in 'graphic' (again broken up in '2d', '3d' and 'CAE'), 'sound' etc. Easy.
Now if only I could get this in my desktop (big old button on the centre of my desktop which would have the items around it, branching out (and refocussing the newly clicked item and mouse cursor to the centre) when I click...think Lain's Navi). I could do it in flash, but then I'd have to have activedesktop enabled...blearg.
It's just a shame that AutoCAD sucks. BTW, for a reasonable 3d CAD program, try IronCAD. Some great ideas being implemented there, and the 2d/3d snaps are excelent.
God, that reminds me...me and my brother were in the backseat of the car, beaming programs between my IIIc and his new Treo (the bastard!). Eventually we're up to the hacks (he didn't have the magictext hack!) and my mom turns to dad and says "Cripes! We've got criminals for sons! They're hacking back there!" :)
/that/ to someone who's barely comfortable with windows :)
Try explaining
MAn, not to troll or anything...but when will you guys realise that voodoo is dead! As a doorstop! And so is it's proprietary api. Let them go, dudes.
Yeah, 'cos there are so many 3d games for all those other platforms.
The speed increace may also be due to the fact that a few specialfx have been implemented in a simpler form, thereby gobbling less processing power.
...the virtual keyboard...projected using infrared light. Now that's so usefull; a keyboard you can't see!
The difference here is scope of catastrophy: if something goes wrong in the refinery (or a chemical plant, or a nuclear reactor), the surrounding countryside becomes/can become uninhabitable and a huge number of people can be affected.
With just a couple of hundred people (in the case of 747/777/etc), but especially in the case of personal transport, like cars or personal aircraft, user error causes MUCH more fatalities than computer errors will. It's just numbers: less will die if automation is put into place in cars and aircraft.
Shit, it's already !fully! in place in aircraft: the autopilot can handle takeoff, flight and landing. These systems are on planes NOW!
Why is there still a pilot? To handle things when stuff goes wrong. But the simple fact of the matter is that the pilot screws up more often than the computer; most crashes in the last years have been due to pilot error. These could have been avoided by relying on the computer. I don't really know how else I can put this: we have the systems in place, but we don't use them because we don't trust them...but there would have been less dead if we had. 5 9's for a computer system is still a hell of a lot better than a human.
It's just that people like to blame people, not computers. Really stupid, but there you are.
Isn't that what the whole 'glass cockpit' is about?
The more I read your list, the better I think it will be for humanity, in the long run :) Except of course number 12, which is just grim in that "if pigs could fly" manner.
No...all we need is to automate it; take control out of peoples hands. It's a tested and proven concept. And the amount of people getting killed because of computer crashes will be a number of factors smaller than the amount getting killed now.
Actually, it can be easier than you think. Automation is the key to safety here...as an example, automation nowadays has made the pilot redundant. Let me say that again: the pilot is not neccessary anymore! There are landing programs (ILS etc), takeoff porgrams and autopilots which take care of everything during the flight. In practice this means that right now the way things work is that the pilot is only doing something during take off and landing! And he's not even needed there!
I'll go one further and state the fact that many more crashes are the fault of pilot error rather than hard- or software error; the pilot is actually making flying unsafer!
Thing is, pilots themselves don't trust a computer to fly an airplane. Of course not: they'd be out of job. What's also said is taht the general public wouldn't trust a computer. As for the informed general public (I count myself here)...well, knowing what I know, I would have no problem with it...I'd actually feel safer knowing there wasn't some failed military wannabe in the cockpit. As for the uninformed general public? I dunno, but I think they'd accept anything in exchange for the cheaper flights it will bring when you don't have to employ pilots anymore.
Oh, as for cars: there are a number of projects which automate car travel...have you never seen those cars riding 'in convoy'? They travel automated, super close to each other. When one's engine breaks down, it gets chucked out of the line (safely) and the rest chug on. It looks really cool, and is probably what inspired the car system in Minority Report.
Why not just use WORM media? Solves most of the problems, I'd say. Then all the auditing trail needed would be a secure IDtag on the media itself and sign in/out sheets.
I think the only thing it would be used for is the news. It would be a perfect format...a couple of paragraphs of text, accompanied by a clip. That's basically what the news on tv is too:
"blah blah blah Iraq blah blah"
--shot of weapons inspectors looking at pidgeon droppings on the ground--
"Blah, blah flood blah Bangladesh"
--shot of twenty families of ten people sitting on a roof of 4m^2, surrounded by water--
That, and pr0n, of course. Including upskirt movies from your friends made with their camera-phones...killer app, dude.
"they're all hoping that Philips doesn't come along and price the technology out of a reasonable profit margin"
Could you elaborate on that? I mean, I know Phillips invented the CD, and thus set up the red-book standard...but what tech do they hold the key to in other digital sound and video?
Appart from the fact that you seem to have lost a deal of your sence of wonder (for which my sincerest condolences), I'd also say you never read the likes of Gaiman (the Sandman), Miller (his SinCity series), Wagner (Grendel) or any of the truly greats. There are some grandmasters in comics which deserve Booker Prises.
And I find sometimes a dose of pulp like the Dragon or most of Dark Horse Comics (some gems, some good pulp) enliven my day too.
I'll give you 'overpriced' though. That's what stops me from getting all the 'Lone wolf and cub' series.
Doing that with spam however only allerts the spamnmer to the fact that he has a live email adress in his hands, which only leads to more spam.
Janitoirs all over the world must cringe at that form of advertising.