Well, just for old time's sake try this, if you still have your original game disc handy to get the.GRP file from. Phenomenal Duke 3D port (he's working on Shadow Warrior now) and the network support is now UDP-based, rather than IPX like the original, and works great over broadband. It's remarkable playing Duke Nukem 3D at 1600x1200 resolution with shading and a lot of other modern OpenGL effects, not to mention several other players. Runs flawlessly in Win2K and XP... haven't tried it under Wine yet. I guess the developer is a good friend of Ken Silverman, author of the original Build engine. Whoever he is, he's one sharp cookie.
And you know... that's one of the best objections to Trusted Computing there is, and one of the most important reasons the big boys are pushing for it. That much less accountability (as if they really have any now, any bets AT&T gets off with a wrist-slap on this one? Anyone?)
That's true of course, but to the average person as long as when his car moves when he fills it up he probably won't be that concerned. He'll assume (probably correctly) that the newfangled "synthene" gasoline replacement has been reasonably well-tested. In any event, this wouldn't happen overnight and there will be time to find any issues.
The problem is that we don't yet have anything to replace gasoline. Corn-based "synfuels" aren't the answer: that's just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Electric vehicles? No way... the U.S. power grid would never handle millions of electric cars, even if we had battery technology that would make them comparable to fossil-fueled vehicles in terms of range and power. We're going to have to develop something with which to fill up our cars that doesn't require petroleum distillates, can be manufactured on an enormous scale at prices competitive with petroleum, can be burned in unmodified engines, and has equal or lesser environmental impact. Granted that's just for automobiles, and doesn't account for industrial processes and electric power production... but if we could stop using petroleum products in our vehicles it would be a helluva start.
I remember when Eastman 910 was sold at retail back in the mid-seventies. That stuff was incredible (it was eventually diluted and sold as Crazy Glue) all you had to do was got a tiny drop of it on your hands and touch something and the only way you'd get it off was to lose skin. I accidentally glued my left index finger to my forehead... not funny. No, not funny at all. We eventually discovered that acetone would dissolve it but in the meantime I had my goddamn hand stuck to my head for several hours. A friend of my mothers' glued her hand to her nose. Now that was funny. And it happened instantly, you didn't get a chance to pull it loose.
Yes, and the bonding technique is fairly costly, I understand. I read about a new process a few years ago that used high voltage arcs to bond teflon to metal. Supposedly it was substantially cheaper but I don't know if they ever went anywhere with it.
Mainly because no-one has actually come up with an alternative fuel source that's competitive with petroleum, not one that is sufficiently better than petroleum to make replacing the existing infrastructure economically viable. Remember, it's not enough that a new technology be only as good as what it is replacing... it has to be substantially better in order to attract the investment required to switch over. Take hydrogen, for example... our dear President keeps touting the "hydrogen economy" as a worthy goal. And maybe it is, but converting our vehicles and industrial processes to use hydrogen as a fuel instead of the various petroleum distillates currently in use would be a trillion-dollar effort, if it can even be accomplished at all. It would probably be cheaper to fight another World War.
What you really should be asking "why isn't the U.S. promoting research and development of alternative fuels capable of meeting the energy needs of a vast industrial economy that are compatible with existing power production facilities." That's a bit of a tougher nut to crack, and the answer won't something as simple as "hydrogen".
Privacy is necessary. Period. Screw the witch hunt for tax evaders. Slice some of the pork from the budget, reduce the tax rate, and maybe you'll find a lot more people less interested in evading it. Furthermore, given the shift in taxation from the corporate world to the middle class, I'd say "tax evasion" takes many forms.
Except for really dumb criminals, how does US Visit actually improve security?
Well, I have the feeling that if the government had simply deployed a bunch of dumb terminals instead of Windows machines, they'd have had a much easier time catching dumb criminals. Sometimes you really don't need a fancy-ass GUI to get the job done.
No, you're reacting to his commentary in an extreme way. He may be a fucking asshole but nothing is his comment implied it. He was quite straightforward about it: get the people that can work but just don't want to work out finding it rather than living on the dole. Maybe they don't want to work at a Wal-Mart but they also have no intrinsic right to my hard-earned money, or yours either for that matter. Nothing in the GP's remarks had anything to do with denying medical care to your grandmother.
And he's right: there are one hell of a lot of people on welfare and the rest of us are paying for them. And just so you understand, my father suffered horribly due to advanced diabetes and all the complications (yes, pretty much all of them) and after the insurance ran out he was fortunate enough to suffer total renal failure... that got him on Medicare. The previous two years cost us about $15,000/year in medications, and about the same for insurance, and at least when got on Medicare they paid for his meds. He died anyway, but at least it wasn't on the street. He earned it: he paid into that system for decades.
But that doesn't mean that I have much sympathy for freeloaders. All they do is divert resources that would have been better spent on your grandmother. Yes, I agree that a humane society should provide for those that go through difficult times, but there is one hell of a big difference between "safety net" and "lifestyle."
Let's take another heavily-politicized scientific issue. HIV and AIDs. AIDs was a political hot-button of near-Biblical proportions from day one, with a cure being promised as being just around the corner. With terrible rapidity HIV was identified as the root cause of the disease, and vast funds and resources have been expended in an effort to find a cure for "HIV disease." So far as publicly funded research is concerned, those scientists who are beholden to the bureaucrats in charge of that money are not as free as one would like.
So now, suppose you were a scientist whose research did not support the conclusion that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS. Billions upon billions of dollars are riding on that assumption... and not all researchers are in agreement here. What do you suppose happens to those that don't go with the flow? I'm just an engineer so my opinion on the reality of AIDS or global warming is irrelevant... but I am trying to demonstrate how politics and science have become inextricably intermingled in the U.S. research establishment. In the immortal words of Richard Ballinger Seaton: "this is veree ungood." I am disturbed by this: our understanding of such important aspects of our lives and our world cannot move forward when those tasked with that advancement are not allowed to dissent. What, then, is the point? In such an environment, whatever results are obtained are of little scientific consequence and have no legitimate value in determining public policy. So far as I'm concerned, a President suppressing politically-inconvenient research should be an impeachable offense. There is a certain cost in human lives that must be paid for such actions.
Decisions regarding both AIDS and global warming have enormous implications for whichever way we jump, and in both cases the science frequently takes a back seat to the politics. You would think (just because the consequences of making an error in judgment or policy are so severe) that those in charge would want the best information possible at their disposal. That would, of course, mean good science unfettered by political shackles of any sort. But our imperious leaders (all of them, and I don't just mean the U.S.) are more interested in using the respect our populations have for science to bolster their own credibility, and further their own agendas. Where we figure in all that is yet to be determined.
Yes, VLC is pretty good. Crystal Player, though, has a much more elegant user-interface, and if you download the K-Lite Mega-Codec Pack and turn off the internal splitters, even the free version plays everything I've thrown at it.
The presumption on your part is that America had some sort of intrinsic responsibility to spend billions of dollars that it didn't really have on a war effort to save millions of Europeans who are now largely ungrateful, that corrupted our society and has caused us nothing but grief since. Up 'til the time of World War II, America was a relatively insular nation. We didn't want to be in that war, tried hard to stay out of it (see: Lend Lease) and yes we got into it when Japan foolishly attacked Pearl Harbor (which was a military base, in case you've forgotten.) Like it or not, we expended vast resources to put the lid back on when you Europeans raised yet another demagogic dictator and were yet again unable to handle him. So watch it with the snide remarks. They're not much appreciated at all. If the United States hadn't stepped in when it did, the results would have been very different. The remnants of the British Empire were no longer up to the task, and the rest of Europe combined couldn't stand up to the Axis. Yes, a lot of Russians died in that war... but a lot of other Allied personnel died as well, and ask yourself just how far Hitler and Japan would have gone if the Allies hadn't gone after them.
By the way, here's a picture of the Arizona resort to which you were referring.
I don't know... I suppose it depends upon your definition of "corporate speak" or "business speak". As a software engineer I have spent countless hours over the years working with business, marketing, sales and management people of all stripes. I have never had any difficulty whatsoever in communicating with them by using the language correctly. I suppose if you're at some kind of pump-up-the-sales-force ("go get 'em, rah rah rah!") meeting you can get all flowery: but good communication involves knowing how to use your language, and knowing enough of the other guy's specialized terms to make communication efficient. Unnecessary embellishment simply gets in the way.
True to a point, but in so many areas the big chains have literally killed off all the smaller competitors so you really don't have anywhere else to go. The irony is that people that used to complain about driving a couple miles to the local store may have to drive ten or fifteen to the nearest Wal-Mart.
Put it this way: would you want your physician communicating with your heart surgeon about your upcoming quadruple-bypass operation using corporate-speak? Odds are they'd part you out by accident. Doctors also have their own dialect, just like most professions. Those specialized terms exist so that practitioners of a particular discipline can communicate quickly and efficiently with each other. Yes, jargon is often confusing to the uninitiated... but it can be an effective form of verbal shorthand.
Corporate-speak is the diametric opposite of true jargon, being composed of terms designed to prevent effective communication at all costs, to present an impression of meaning when in fact there is none. This has the added benefit of making the corporate-speak user virtually immune to any form of accountability, since he didn't actually say anything.
As the education and productivity of a workforce rises, so do labor costs.
Yes, because educated, competent valuable people eventually tire of working for peanuts. That has already happened to Japan, and to the U.S. decades earlier. I believe you are correct, but I see a problem in China's vast population. They have an pool of cheap labor that is nearly inexhaustible, and assuming that natural resources hold out long enough to bring the bulk of that population up to the standard of living enjoyed by the United States and Japan, we'll be in very big trouble. Hell, we're already in very big trouble.
Is this maybe what you're referring to? From the linked article:
There is also a very old historical account that could also be explained by a meteor hitting the Moon. This was recorded by Gervase of Canterbury who, in 1178, along with five other monks, saw a very bright flash on the Moon:
"There was a bright New Moon, and as usual in that phase its horns were tilted towards the east. Suddenly, the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of the division, a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out fire, hot coals and sparks."
Some astronomers believe that the crater Bruno, one of the youngest on the lunar surface, may have been formed in this event.
More information in this article. Hope this helps.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, just for old time's sake try this, if you still have your original game disc handy to get the .GRP file from. Phenomenal Duke 3D port (he's working on Shadow Warrior now) and the network support is now UDP-based, rather than IPX like the original, and works great over broadband. It's remarkable playing Duke Nukem 3D at 1600x1200 resolution with shading and a lot of other modern OpenGL effects, not to mention several other players. Runs flawlessly in Win2K and XP ... haven't tried it under Wine yet. I guess the developer is a good friend of Ken Silverman, author of the original Build engine. Whoever he is, he's one sharp cookie.
No, that was the lead balloon that 3D Realms just dropped.
And you know ... that's one of the best objections to Trusted Computing there is, and one of the most important reasons the big boys are pushing for it. That much less accountability (as if they really have any now, any bets AT&T gets off with a wrist-slap on this one? Anyone?)
Remember the old commercials?
Announcer: "privacy invasion, illegal spying, doing our part to bring the police state to America"
Cliff Robertson: "... and who's going to bring it to you? AT&T."
Dude, that's hilarious. "far queue" indeed. I needed that.
That's true of course, but to the average person as long as when his car moves when he fills it up he probably won't be that concerned. He'll assume (probably correctly) that the newfangled "synthene" gasoline replacement has been reasonably well-tested. In any event, this wouldn't happen overnight and there will be time to find any issues.
... the U.S. power grid would never handle millions of electric cars, even if we had battery technology that would make them comparable to fossil-fueled vehicles in terms of range and power. We're going to have to develop something with which to fill up our cars that doesn't require petroleum distillates, can be manufactured on an enormous scale at prices competitive with petroleum, can be burned in unmodified engines, and has equal or lesser environmental impact. Granted that's just for automobiles, and doesn't account for industrial processes and electric power production ... but if we could stop using petroleum products in our vehicles it would be a helluva start.
The problem is that we don't yet have anything to replace gasoline. Corn-based "synfuels" aren't the answer: that's just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Electric vehicles? No way
I remember when Eastman 910 was sold at retail back in the mid-seventies. That stuff was incredible (it was eventually diluted and sold as Crazy Glue) all you had to do was got a tiny drop of it on your hands and touch something and the only way you'd get it off was to lose skin. I accidentally glued my left index finger to my forehead ... not funny. No, not funny at all. We eventually discovered that acetone would dissolve it but in the meantime I had my goddamn hand stuck to my head for several hours. A friend of my mothers' glued her hand to her nose. Now that was funny. And it happened instantly, you didn't get a chance to pull it loose.
No, I think that's more of a personality issue.
Yes, and the bonding technique is fairly costly, I understand. I read about a new process a few years ago that used high voltage arcs to bond teflon to metal. Supposedly it was substantially cheaper but I don't know if they ever went anywhere with it.
Mainly because no-one has actually come up with an alternative fuel source that's competitive with petroleum, not one that is sufficiently better than petroleum to make replacing the existing infrastructure economically viable. Remember, it's not enough that a new technology be only as good as what it is replacing ... it has to be substantially better in order to attract the investment required to switch over. Take hydrogen, for example ... our dear President keeps touting the "hydrogen economy" as a worthy goal. And maybe it is, but converting our vehicles and industrial processes to use hydrogen as a fuel instead of the various petroleum distillates currently in use would be a trillion-dollar effort, if it can even be accomplished at all. It would probably be cheaper to fight another World War.
What you really should be asking "why isn't the U.S. promoting research and development of alternative fuels capable of meeting the energy needs of a vast industrial economy that are compatible with existing power production facilities." That's a bit of a tougher nut to crack, and the answer won't something as simple as "hydrogen".
If you're suffering routine failures, check to make sure you aren't running Windows.
Privacy is necessary. Period. Screw the witch hunt for tax evaders. Slice some of the pork from the budget, reduce the tax rate, and maybe you'll find a lot more people less interested in evading it. Furthermore, given the shift in taxation from the corporate world to the middle class, I'd say "tax evasion" takes many forms.
Except for really dumb criminals, how does US Visit actually improve security?
Well, I have the feeling that if the government had simply deployed a bunch of dumb terminals instead of Windows machines, they'd have had a much easier time catching dumb criminals. Sometimes you really don't need a fancy-ass GUI to get the job done.
No, you're reacting to his commentary in an extreme way. He may be a fucking asshole but nothing is his comment implied it. He was quite straightforward about it: get the people that can work but just don't want to work out finding it rather than living on the dole. Maybe they don't want to work at a Wal-Mart but they also have no intrinsic right to my hard-earned money, or yours either for that matter. Nothing in the GP's remarks had anything to do with denying medical care to your grandmother.
... that got him on Medicare. The previous two years cost us about $15,000/year in medications, and about the same for insurance, and at least when got on Medicare they paid for his meds. He died anyway, but at least it wasn't on the street. He earned it: he paid into that system for decades.
And he's right: there are one hell of a lot of people on welfare and the rest of us are paying for them. And just so you understand, my father suffered horribly due to advanced diabetes and all the complications (yes, pretty much all of them) and after the insurance ran out he was fortunate enough to suffer total renal failure
But that doesn't mean that I have much sympathy for freeloaders. All they do is divert resources that would have been better spent on your grandmother. Yes, I agree that a humane society should provide for those that go through difficult times, but there is one hell of a big difference between "safety net" and "lifestyle."
Let's take another heavily-politicized scientific issue. HIV and AIDs. AIDs was a political hot-button of near-Biblical proportions from day one, with a cure being promised as being just around the corner. With terrible rapidity HIV was identified as the root cause of the disease, and vast funds and resources have been expended in an effort to find a cure for "HIV disease." So far as publicly funded research is concerned, those scientists who are beholden to the bureaucrats in charge of that money are not as free as one would like.
... and not all researchers are in agreement here. What do you suppose happens to those that don't go with the flow? I'm just an engineer so my opinion on the reality of AIDS or global warming is irrelevant ... but I am trying to demonstrate how politics and science have become inextricably intermingled in the U.S. research establishment. In the immortal words of Richard Ballinger Seaton: "this is veree ungood." I am disturbed by this: our understanding of such important aspects of our lives and our world cannot move forward when those tasked with that advancement are not allowed to dissent. What, then, is the point? In such an environment, whatever results are obtained are of little scientific consequence and have no legitimate value in determining public policy. So far as I'm concerned, a President suppressing politically-inconvenient research should be an impeachable offense. There is a certain cost in human lives that must be paid for such actions.
So now, suppose you were a scientist whose research did not support the conclusion that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS. Billions upon billions of dollars are riding on that assumption
Decisions regarding both AIDS and global warming have enormous implications for whichever way we jump, and in both cases the science frequently takes a back seat to the politics. You would think (just because the consequences of making an error in judgment or policy are so severe) that those in charge would want the best information possible at their disposal. That would, of course, mean good science unfettered by political shackles of any sort. But our imperious leaders (all of them, and I don't just mean the U.S.) are more interested in using the respect our populations have for science to bolster their own credibility, and further their own agendas. Where we figure in all that is yet to be determined.
Yes, I think I've received that one too, except that it was his brother-in-law.
Yes, VLC is pretty good. Crystal Player, though, has a much more elegant user-interface, and if you download the K-Lite Mega-Codec Pack and turn off the internal splitters, even the free version plays everything I've thrown at it.
You have a rather unique view of history.
... but a lot of other Allied personnel died as well, and ask yourself just how far Hitler and Japan would have gone if the Allies hadn't gone after them.
The presumption on your part is that America had some sort of intrinsic responsibility to spend billions of dollars that it didn't really have on a war effort to save millions of Europeans who are now largely ungrateful, that corrupted our society and has caused us nothing but grief since. Up 'til the time of World War II, America was a relatively insular nation. We didn't want to be in that war, tried hard to stay out of it (see: Lend Lease) and yes we got into it when Japan foolishly attacked Pearl Harbor (which was a military base, in case you've forgotten.) Like it or not, we expended vast resources to put the lid back on when you Europeans raised yet another demagogic dictator and were yet again unable to handle him. So watch it with the snide remarks. They're not much appreciated at all. If the United States hadn't stepped in when it did, the results would have been very different. The remnants of the British Empire were no longer up to the task, and the rest of Europe combined couldn't stand up to the Axis. Yes, a lot of Russians died in that war
By the way, here's a picture of the Arizona resort to which you were referring.
Jawohl!
I don't know ... I suppose it depends upon your definition of "corporate speak" or "business speak". As a software engineer I have spent countless hours over the years working with business, marketing, sales and management people of all stripes. I have never had any difficulty whatsoever in communicating with them by using the language correctly. I suppose if you're at some kind of pump-up-the-sales-force ("go get 'em, rah rah rah!") meeting you can get all flowery: but good communication involves knowing how to use your language, and knowing enough of the other guy's specialized terms to make communication efficient. Unnecessary embellishment simply gets in the way.
True to a point, but in so many areas the big chains have literally killed off all the smaller competitors so you really don't have anywhere else to go. The irony is that people that used to complain about driving a couple miles to the local store may have to drive ten or fifteen to the nearest Wal-Mart.
freedom-loving Bible Belt types
One of the great non-sequiturs of our age.
Put it this way: would you want your physician communicating with your heart surgeon about your upcoming quadruple-bypass operation using corporate-speak? Odds are they'd part you out by accident. Doctors also have their own dialect, just like most professions. Those specialized terms exist so that practitioners of a particular discipline can communicate quickly and efficiently with each other. Yes, jargon is often confusing to the uninitiated ... but it can be an effective form of verbal shorthand.
Corporate-speak is the diametric opposite of true jargon, being composed of terms designed to prevent effective communication at all costs, to present an impression of meaning when in fact there is none. This has the added benefit of making the corporate-speak user virtually immune to any form of accountability, since he didn't actually say anything.
As the education and productivity of a workforce rises, so do labor costs.
Yes, because educated, competent valuable people eventually tire of working for peanuts. That has already happened to Japan, and to the U.S. decades earlier. I believe you are correct, but I see a problem in China's vast population. They have an pool of cheap labor that is nearly inexhaustible, and assuming that natural resources hold out long enough to bring the bulk of that population up to the standard of living enjoyed by the United States and Japan, we'll be in very big trouble. Hell, we're already in very big trouble.
Is this maybe what you're referring to? From the linked article:
There is also a very old historical account that could also be explained by a meteor hitting the Moon. This was recorded by Gervase of Canterbury who, in 1178, along with five other monks, saw a very bright flash on the Moon:
"There was a bright New Moon, and as usual in that phase its horns were tilted towards the east. Suddenly, the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of the division, a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out fire, hot coals and sparks."
Some astronomers believe that the crater Bruno, one of the youngest on the lunar surface, may have been formed in this event.
More information in this article. Hope this helps.
The parent expressed what is arguably one of the least-informed opinions yet presented on Slashdot.