A simple game can also be a good thing to write. My choice was "Master Mind". No matter what language you write it in, you need to construct a user interface and behind-the-scenes functionality. You will learn most of what you need to write anything else in that language. Over the years I wrote my chosen game program in "Color BASIC" (Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer), GWBASIC for MS-DOS, Clipper (DOS), C (DOS), Delphi (Windows), C (Windows), and JavaScript. Today I work full-time programming in Delphi. Here is the JavaScript version, built into a Web page that can be saved; you don't need to be connected to the Internet to load it up and play it. So, pick some simple game and have fun learning a new computer language (and you get to have fun playing the game, too).
Suppose you sometimes lock your bicycle with a chain through a wheel, but not actually chained through something (might not be a convenient anchor available). Obviously a potential thief could lift the whole bike into a pickup truck for later sawing-of-chain. But you can make the bike more theft-proof by making it heavier and more unwieldy, by getting a bike trailer for it. I saw one the other day that some mom was using to tote her kid, and she said she got it at Wal-Mart, but you could get something more appropriate for hauling stuff on your trip--and presumably it would have a locking hitch and a locking storage compartment. Of course it is possible to go overboard on the pedal-powered tech gear, as this guy did.
Water isn't so tough to obtain on the Moon.
Just use solar power to extract oxygen from rocks, and then combine with hydrogen collected from the Solar Wind.
After all, since the Moon hasn't got enough atmosphere to block the Solar Wind, collecting hydrogen as it flows by should be fairly easy.
Yes, this a slow-but-sure method. But lots of water isn't really needed, if wastewater recycling is enforced. Then you only need enough new water to replace leakages/losses.
And landed in another.
More "realistically", the Game Designers could, at the boundaries of each of their virtual worlds, offer "portals", which are of course technomagical devices that you walk through, to enter some other virtual world of your choice.
CDs don't suffer from bit-rot like CDRs. Their only problem is that new music is overpriced; it only costs about 50 cents to stamp one of them out, when CDs are mass-produced. Yes, there are other costs associated with packaging and distributing them, but have you not noticed that copyright-expired classical music CDs tend to run about $5 or so? Folks, just let the Law of Supply and Demand do its thing here. Someday some Big Music House will decide to lower prices as an experiment, and the consumer response will be overwhelmingly positive. Then the bean-counters will finally get the message.
No, the best thing they can do is set up a "Long Range Foundation", like that described way back in Heinlein's 1956 novel, "Time for the Stars". Investing in blue-sky research always pays off, eventually.
Fusion power plants are expected to be like conventional nuclear-fission plants in that they will produce lots of electricity. Well, if the power is available enough it can be cheap enough to produce hydrogen to fuel cars, despite the inefficiency of the electrolysis process. I don't want to claim that fusion will make electricity "too cheap to meter" as was originally claimed for fission back in the 1950s, but as long as it produces enough affordable electricity, then uses of it, such as for electrolysis of water to get hydrogen gas as a chemical fuel, will happen on a large scale. In no way will fossil fuels produce enough affordable electricity, as their supplies are used up! Meanwhile, I mentioned the Farnsworth Fusor previously, and it has occurred to me that that particular device might be suited to fuse ordinary protium-hydrogen into deuterium-hydrogen. Even if any Fusor devoted to doing this can't quite reach break-even, an ability to make fuel for all the other types of fusion reactors, out of the commonest substance in the Universe, is worth pursuing for that goal alone.
Folks, if the evidence is that it is all downhill from here, with respect to oil, then every day wasted in not massivly researching controlled nuclear fusion is just going to mean that much less power available later, when it is really needed. It does take time to turn successful research into power plants, after all. And, by "massive research" I mean that ALL the avenues should be explored, even the controversial ones like Pons/Fleischmann Cold Nuclear Fusion. Let's stop the arguing for a time, put a wad of money into it to END the debate one way or another, and if it doesn't work, move on to something else. There's still the proposed super-scaled-up Farnsworth Fusor, there's the new sonofusion results, and so on. Even traditional hot fusion could benefit from a major scale-up. Back in the early days it was noted how a donut-shaped magnetic field leaked because the magnetism was weaker on the outside of the donut than on the inside. But why use a TIGHT donut shape? How about something more like a bicycle inner tube, where the inner and outer radii are nearly the same? Put one of those in, say, the place where the SuperConducting SuperCollider had been planned (with something like a fifty-mile circumference), and the leakage problem all but disappears.
So far as I know (can't say I looked farther due to being satisfied enough), these are the best-quality modest-price headphones Radio Shack sells. They also tend to be on sale fairly often at a reduced price.
The "IT Week" article also mentions, "And they would enable computers to switch on in an instant, which could be good for everyone."
ROFL! "Today my brand new Gecko-Brand PC, installed with Windows Vista and all the latest Service Packs... locked up. I turned it off to reboot, but it is STILL locked up. What do I do now?"
Those chips had BETTER be equipped with some sort of Clear All Memory functionality.:)
Early computers came with "Mask ROM", which couldn't be reprogrammed, and were only inexpensive if manufactured in large quantities, but they were ABSOLUTEY proof against software manipulation. As a compromise, I'd like to get a "simple" PROM technolgy into the BIOS socket. These are programmable ONCE (like a CD-R), and COULD be made such that after being burned that once, never can they have anything added to it (the way a CD-R can be blocked for further recording into blank areas). Maybe I should be a little more specific. Suppose a new empty PROM has every bit set to '1'. Burning the PROM constitutes permanently changing certain bits to '0'. If not "closed", then malware could do an additional burn and change some of the '1's that you wanted to keep into more '0's, thereby trashing the BIOS. Yes, I know that this overall notion is inconvenient when you want to update the BIOS (you need a brand new blank PROM, every time). I'll accept that as the price to keep malware out of my BIOS, thank you!
Copper/aluminum alloys are often used in electrical connections, where either pure copper or pure aluminum must be connected. The alloys are less conductive than either of the two pure metals, but only small amounts are used, and their purpose is to reduce or prevent the possibility of electrochemical corrosion when dissimilar metals are in contact.
Thus, CAT5 could in theory be replaced by a heavier-gauge pure-aluminum cable, and the connectors on the end could be either copper/aluminum alloy or something better, like gold-electroplated aluminum. Aluminum is a very plentiful element compared to copper. The electrical industry found that it could not use the metal reliably in end-use situations (homes, businesses, etc.) because the metal is soft and the connections loosen (and sparks across the gaps have caused fires), but it IS used quite reliably in major power-transmission lines. It COULD be used in communcations wiring because the current loads are tiny (and the appropriate heavier gauge, to match the lower resistance of copper, still costs less than copper). You just need to ensure the communications wiring is well-sealed away from corrosive stuff like "salt air" at an oceanside resort (such as by electroplating exposed aluminum with gold).
The DX1
You can personalize the arrangement of whatever keys you want to use, when playing a game using this keyboard.
I thought I had first learned about it here on Slashdot a while back, but a simple search didn't turn it up, so, here you go!
How about a class-action suit against Microsoft,
on the grounds that they touted the security of their product,
while deliberately including non-security?
knowing your flaws is a great strength for a software community to have
Well, I see them SAYING that there are too many flaws in the kernel.
Would it be too difficult for them to provide an actual list, so they can be fixed?
Absolutely is this story a dupe. Just see this link,
and do a quick scan for the 5th decent-sized paragraph, that starts with this guy's name: Gervasius
If ICANN can "turn over" ownership TO a government body, then what is to keep it from being able to turn over ownership AWAY from that government later? Assuming enough outrage arises over the first turnover, of course!
" Helium in superfluidic state has been known for a long time,"
When talking about superfluidic helium, one is usually referring to Helium-4, which counts as a boson, not a fermion (has even number of fermions).
But Helium-3 (which does count as a fermion) has ALSO been seen in the superfluid state, years ago. It takes a cooler temperature than for Helium-4, but it was indeed done years ago. I suppose the main article here is really about achieving superfluidity at higher temperatures, much like those ceramic-based superconductors were Big News a decade or two ago.
How about:
Start with a HINT popup (as mouse cursor goes over hotspot) showing a little menu.
On the menu would be keyboard shortcuts.
If you are starting from the viewpoint that no keyboard shortcut can be a standard, then just make up some nonstandard ones consistent across YOUR web pages.
For example, ALT-1, ALT-2, ALT-3,..., or CTRL-1, CTRL-2, CTRL-3... (the popup menu would explain which does what)
If it doesn't have free will, then it isn't intelligence as we know it.
If it does have free will, then why is it so cooperative as the press release brags about?
Personally, I think chirps are for the birds (the article says the device emits chirps). He should have started with recordings of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard, and simply jacked up the frequency.
Science Fiction and fantasy aren't the only sort of mind-expanding literature. Mysteries are good for the mind, also. Therefore the classic Nancy Drew books are equally worthy.
Slashdot Mirror
A simple game can also be a good thing to write. My choice was "Master Mind". No matter what language you write it in, you need to construct a user interface and behind-the-scenes functionality. You will learn most of what you need to write anything else in that language. Over the years I wrote my chosen game program in "Color BASIC" (Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer), GWBASIC for MS-DOS, Clipper (DOS), C (DOS), Delphi (Windows), C (Windows), and JavaScript. Today I work full-time programming in Delphi. Here is the JavaScript version, built into a Web page that can be saved; you don't need to be connected to the Internet to load it up and play it. So, pick some simple game and have fun learning a new computer language (and you get to have fun playing the game, too).
Suppose you sometimes lock your bicycle with a chain through a wheel, but not actually chained through something (might not be a convenient anchor available). Obviously a potential thief could lift the whole bike into a pickup truck for later sawing-of-chain. But you can make the bike more theft-proof by making it heavier and more unwieldy, by getting a bike trailer for it. I saw one the other day that some mom was using to tote her kid, and she said she got it at Wal-Mart, but you could get something more appropriate for hauling stuff on your trip--and presumably it would have a locking hitch and a locking storage compartment. Of course it is possible to go overboard on the pedal-powered tech gear, as this guy did.
They are using optical storage technology, not terribly dissimilar to CD-R and DVD-R technology.
So, how well do their disks stand up against bit-rot?
Water isn't so tough to obtain on the Moon.
Just use solar power to extract oxygen from rocks, and then combine with hydrogen collected from the Solar Wind.
After all, since the Moon hasn't got enough atmosphere to block the Solar Wind, collecting hydrogen as it flows by should be fairly easy.
Yes, this a slow-but-sure method. But lots of water isn't really needed, if wastewater recycling is enforced. Then you only need enough new water to replace leakages/losses.
And landed in another.
More "realistically", the Game Designers could, at the boundaries of each of their virtual worlds, offer "portals", which are of course technomagical devices that you walk through, to enter some other virtual world of your choice.
CDs don't suffer from bit-rot like CDRs. Their only problem is that new music is overpriced; it only costs about 50 cents to stamp one of them out, when CDs are mass-produced. Yes, there are other costs associated with packaging and distributing them, but have you not noticed that copyright-expired classical music CDs tend to run about $5 or so? Folks, just let the Law of Supply and Demand do its thing here. Someday some Big Music House will decide to lower prices as an experiment, and the consumer response will be overwhelmingly positive. Then the bean-counters will finally get the message.
No, the best thing they can do is set up a "Long Range Foundation", like that described way back in Heinlein's 1956 novel, "Time for the Stars". Investing in blue-sky research always pays off, eventually.
Fusion power plants are expected to be like conventional nuclear-fission plants in that they will produce lots of electricity. Well, if the power is available enough it can be cheap enough to produce hydrogen to fuel cars, despite the inefficiency of the electrolysis process. I don't want to claim that fusion will make electricity "too cheap to meter" as was originally claimed for fission back in the 1950s, but as long as it produces enough affordable electricity, then uses of it, such as for electrolysis of water to get hydrogen gas as a chemical fuel, will happen on a large scale. In no way will fossil fuels produce enough affordable electricity, as their supplies are used up! Meanwhile, I mentioned the Farnsworth Fusor previously, and it has occurred to me that that particular device might be suited to fuse ordinary protium-hydrogen into deuterium-hydrogen. Even if any Fusor devoted to doing this can't quite reach break-even, an ability to make fuel for all the other types of fusion reactors, out of the commonest substance in the Universe, is worth pursuing for that goal alone.
Folks, if the evidence is that it is all downhill from here, with respect to oil, then every day wasted in not massivly researching controlled nuclear fusion is just going to mean that much less power available later, when it is really needed. It does take time to turn successful research into power plants, after all. And, by "massive research" I mean that ALL the avenues should be explored, even the controversial ones like Pons/Fleischmann Cold Nuclear Fusion. Let's stop the arguing for a time, put a wad of money into it to END the debate one way or another, and if it doesn't work, move on to something else. There's still the proposed super-scaled-up Farnsworth Fusor, there's the new sonofusion results, and so on. Even traditional hot fusion could benefit from a major scale-up. Back in the early days it was noted how a donut-shaped magnetic field leaked because the magnetism was weaker on the outside of the donut than on the inside. But why use a TIGHT donut shape? How about something more like a bicycle inner tube, where the inner and outer radii are nearly the same? Put one of those in, say, the place where the SuperConducting SuperCollider had been planned (with something like a fifty-mile circumference), and the leakage problem all but disappears.
So far as I know (can't say I looked farther due to being satisfied enough), these are the best-quality modest-price headphones Radio Shack sells. They also tend to be on sale fairly often at a reduced price.
The "IT Week" article also mentions, "And they would enable computers to switch on in an instant, which could be good for everyone." ... locked up. I turned it off to reboot, but it is STILL locked up. What do I do now?"
:)
ROFL! "Today my brand new Gecko-Brand PC, installed with Windows Vista and all the latest Service Packs
Those chips had BETTER be equipped with some sort of Clear All Memory functionality.
Early computers came with "Mask ROM", which couldn't be reprogrammed, and were only inexpensive if manufactured in large quantities, but they were ABSOLUTEY proof against software manipulation. As a compromise, I'd like to get a "simple" PROM technolgy into the BIOS socket. These are programmable ONCE (like a CD-R), and COULD be made such that after being burned that once, never can they have anything added to it (the way a CD-R can be blocked for further recording into blank areas). Maybe I should be a little more specific. Suppose a new empty PROM has every bit set to '1'. Burning the PROM constitutes permanently changing certain bits to '0'. If not "closed", then malware could do an additional burn and change some of the '1's that you wanted to keep into more '0's, thereby trashing the BIOS. Yes, I know that this overall notion is inconvenient when you want to update the BIOS (you need a brand new blank PROM, every time). I'll accept that as the price to keep malware out of my BIOS, thank you!
Copper/aluminum alloys are often used in electrical connections, where either pure copper or pure aluminum must be connected. The alloys are less conductive than either of the two pure metals, but only small amounts are used, and their purpose is to reduce or prevent the possibility of electrochemical corrosion when dissimilar metals are in contact.
Thus, CAT5 could in theory be replaced by a heavier-gauge pure-aluminum cable, and the connectors on the end could be either copper/aluminum alloy or something better, like gold-electroplated aluminum. Aluminum is a very plentiful element compared to copper. The electrical industry found that it could not use the metal reliably in end-use situations (homes, businesses, etc.) because the metal is soft and the connections loosen (and sparks across the gaps have caused fires), but it IS used quite reliably in major power-transmission lines. It COULD be used in communcations wiring because the current loads are tiny (and the appropriate heavier gauge, to match the lower resistance of copper, still costs less than copper). You just need to ensure the communications wiring is well-sealed away from corrosive stuff like "salt air" at an oceanside resort (such as by electroplating exposed aluminum with gold).
The DX1
You can personalize the arrangement of whatever keys you want to use, when playing a game using this keyboard.
I thought I had first learned about it here on Slashdot a while back, but a simple search didn't turn it up, so, here you go!
I confess to have given some thought to issues like this.
"Would you like to play a game?"
Also, why use "long lasting paper", if something else can work better?
How about a class-action suit against Microsoft,
on the grounds that they touted the security of their product,
while deliberately including non-security?
knowing your flaws is a great strength for a software community to have
Well, I see them SAYING that there are too many flaws in the kernel.
Would it be too difficult for them to provide an actual list, so they can be fixed?
Absolutely is this story a dupe. Just see this link,
and do a quick scan for the 5th decent-sized paragraph, that starts with this guy's name: Gervasius
If ICANN can "turn over" ownership TO a government body, then what is to keep it from being able to turn over ownership AWAY from that government later? Assuming enough outrage arises over the first turnover, of course!
" Helium in superfluidic state has been known for a long time,"
When talking about superfluidic helium, one is usually referring to Helium-4, which counts as a boson, not a fermion (has even number of fermions).
But Helium-3 (which does count as a fermion) has ALSO been seen in the superfluid state, years ago. It takes a cooler temperature than for Helium-4, but it was indeed done years ago. I suppose the main article here is really about achieving superfluidity at higher temperatures, much like those ceramic-based superconductors were Big News a decade or two ago.
How about: ..., or CTRL-1, CTRL-2, CTRL-3... (the popup menu would explain which does what)
Start with a HINT popup (as mouse cursor goes over hotspot) showing a little menu.
On the menu would be keyboard shortcuts.
If you are starting from the viewpoint that no keyboard shortcut can be a standard, then just make up some nonstandard ones consistent across YOUR web pages.
For example, ALT-1, ALT-2, ALT-3,
Embrace, Extend, and Exterminate
Remember?
If it doesn't have free will, then it isn't intelligence as we know it.
If it does have free will, then why is it so cooperative as the press release brags about?
Personally, I think chirps are for the birds (the article says the device emits chirps). He should have started with recordings of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard, and simply jacked up the frequency.
Science Fiction and fantasy aren't the only sort of mind-expanding literature. Mysteries are good for the mind, also. Therefore the classic Nancy Drew books are equally worthy.