The old DOS scrolling shooter Tyrian had data cubes that you could pick up which would explain plot points, setting, et cetera.
One of these was for the Mega SoundChair:
ARCHIVE DATA
Data
Reference: Mega SoundChair
Sensors on your ship pick up the minute disturbances caused by sound-waves
acting on the very fine particle streams in space, then amplify and filter the identified distortions which are
then sent to your Mega SoundChair for playback. This is a consumer product which has been found to
alleviate stress and panic in untrained pilots who began invading space with their own Star Yachts a
number of years ago. It was found that when placed into silence, people would turn to music to alleviate
the dread (and subsequent insanity) caused by being alone in space and unable to hear anything. This remedy
was insufficient, however, since the music had several adverse side effects: It didn't make sense to the
mind when you're watching meteors and other objects hurtling by, consumers couldn't hear messages
broadcast to them, and people would get so wrapped up in the music they'd relax and wouldn't watch
where they were going. This was an especially bad problem in the time before Automatic Guidance and
Proximity Warning systems were refined. So, they decided to amplify what little sound was out there and
solve the problem of the unending silence panic before there were no more Star Yachts to go around.
HTH!
[awesome game, BTW, although kinda hard to get running on modern systems, even if you can track down Tyrian2000]
Screw that, get a bike. There's nothing like flying down a channel less than a metre wide at 40km/h, while the commuters on either side inch forwards, never getting out of first gear...
A man walking along the road at night sees a mathematician standing under a street lamp, staring at the ground. The mathematician explains that he's looking for his keys. The man asks where he dropped them. The mathematician points at his house, three doors down. "But the light is better over here!"
...
What's purple and commutes? --- an Abelian grape.
What's purple, commutes, and is worshipped by a limited number of people? --- a finitely-venerated Abelian grape.
What's yellow and equivalent to the axiom of choice? --- Zorn's lemon.
...
Back in the days of the iron curtain, a group of Polish mathematicians and scientists decide to steal a plane and escape to the west. They manage to get into an empty plane, but there's a problem: none of them know how to fly. The mathematician volunteers to have a go at figuring out the instruments. While he sits there, looking, the others are getting worried. They can hear approaching sirens. They beg the mathematician to hurry up, to think faster. He replies: "Have patience --- I'm just a simple Pole in a complex plane."
...
What's the contour integral around Western Europe? --- 0, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe. (actually, there are Poles in Western Europe, but they're removable)
Even if someone time travelled into the past for a few seconds, wouldn't they wind up in the icy cold of space while the planet speeds along on its normal course around
Nah, because the rotation of the solar system around the galactic core, combined with the movement of the Milky Way (propelled out by the big bang, and pulled on by the gravity of various neighbouring galaxies) just happen to exactly cancel out the movement of the earth. This means that we are, in fact, absolutely fixed in position in space.
This is why the aliens keep coming here --- we are the only stable point in the universe where time travel can (safely) happen.
Hmm, won't do anything to stop people with your card details spending online (or through mail order / telephone order).
Also not clear if it will prevent counterfiting, where someone swipes your card through a magnetic stripe reader. Get a blank card, copy the magstripe data onto it, and record your own voice print...
The only way that a computer program can possibly analyze a paper fully as a paper is if it read it as a human.
Why not? What universal principal or physical law states this?
I probably wouldn't disagree with you if you said that the current state of technology can't emulate humans here... But to say it will never happen, no matter what?
I think John von Neumann once said --- "If you can tell me exactly what it is that a machine cannot do, then I will build a machine to do exactly that!".
The string module is deprecated these days, I believe. The string functions are now string object methods. (eg, instead of
string.split('foo.bar', '.')
, you would now say
'foo.bar'.split('.')
)
In terms of cleaning up the standard library --- this may be one of the things that happens in Python3000 (the first release which is allowed to actively break backwards-compatibility).
Hmm, you can die of strangulation in Nethack if you wear the wrong amulet... Apparently you can also die of suffocation --- not sure what triggers this... Squeezed to death by a ; maybe?
It is interesting that the New Scientist article basically attributes the idea of studying number partitions to Ramanujan, yet the linked article on him mentions that Euler had studied the problem before, and given a partial solution...
The reason the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in the city on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh no! In one fell swoop, you have patented all my code!
The old DOS scrolling shooter Tyrian had data cubes that you could pick up which would explain plot points, setting, et cetera.
One of these was for the Mega SoundChair:
ARCHIVE DATA
Data
Reference: Mega SoundChair
Sensors on your ship pick up the minute disturbances caused by sound-waves acting on the very fine particle streams in space, then amplify and filter the identified distortions which are then sent to your Mega SoundChair for playback. This is a consumer product which has been found to alleviate stress and panic in untrained pilots who began invading space with their own Star Yachts a number of years ago. It was found that when placed into silence, people would turn to music to alleviate the dread (and subsequent insanity) caused by being alone in space and unable to hear anything. This remedy was insufficient, however, since the music had several adverse side effects: It didn't make sense to the mind when you're watching meteors and other objects hurtling by, consumers couldn't hear messages broadcast to them, and people would get so wrapped up in the music they'd relax and wouldn't watch where they were going. This was an especially bad problem in the time before Automatic Guidance and Proximity Warning systems were refined. So, they decided to amplify what little sound was out there and solve the problem of the unending silence panic before there were no more Star Yachts to go around.
HTH!
[awesome game, BTW, although kinda hard to get running on modern systems, even if you can track down Tyrian2000]
Screw that, get a bike. There's nothing like flying down a channel less than a metre wide at 40km/h, while the commuters on either side inch forwards, never getting out of first gear...
...no one apart from Apple will be allowed to make a tablet Macintosh?
TIHS ILLEGAL MONOPOLY MUST STOP!!!
Hey, I can play this game.
A man walking along the road at night sees a mathematician standing under a street lamp, staring at the ground. The mathematician explains that he's looking for his keys. The man asks where he dropped them. The mathematician points at his house, three doors down. "But the light is better over here!"
...
What's purple and commutes? --- an Abelian grape.
What's purple, commutes, and is worshipped by a limited number of people? --- a finitely-venerated Abelian grape.
What's yellow and equivalent to the axiom of choice? --- Zorn's lemon.
...
Back in the days of the iron curtain, a group of Polish mathematicians and scientists decide to steal a plane and escape to the west. They manage to get into an empty plane, but there's a problem: none of them know how to fly. The mathematician volunteers to have a go at figuring out the instruments. While he sits there, looking, the others are getting worried. They can hear approaching sirens. They beg the mathematician to hurry up, to think faster. He replies: "Have patience --- I'm just a simple Pole in a complex plane."
...
What's the contour integral around Western Europe? --- 0, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe. (actually, there are Poles in Western Europe, but they're removable)
...
(all from memory)
Even if someone time travelled into the past for a few seconds, wouldn't they wind up in the icy cold of space while the planet speeds along on its normal course around
Nah, because the rotation of the solar system around the galactic core, combined with the movement of the Milky Way (propelled out by the big bang, and pulled on by the gravity of various neighbouring galaxies) just happen to exactly cancel out the movement of the earth. This means that we are, in fact, absolutely fixed in position in space.
This is why the aliens keep coming here --- we are the only stable point in the universe where time travel can (safely) happen.
HTH.
Hmm, won't do anything to stop people with your card details spending online (or through mail order / telephone order).
Also not clear if it will prevent counterfiting, where someone swipes your card through a magnetic stripe reader. Get a blank card, copy the magstripe data onto it, and record your own voice print...
Y'know, my initial reaction, on reading the summary, was --- "Oh, it'll hit America, so I don't have to worry too much."
Hooray for Holywood...
What more is there to be than "just" a theory?
Why not? What universal principal or physical law states this?
I probably wouldn't disagree with you if you said that the current state of technology can't emulate humans here ... But to say it will never happen, no matter what?
I think John von Neumann once said --- "If you can tell me exactly what it is that a machine cannot do, then I will build a machine to do exactly that!".
Did you mean "interactive" or "iterative"? It's just one letter difference either way!
The string module is deprecated these days, I believe. The string functions are now string object methods. (eg, instead of
, you would now say )In terms of cleaning up the standard library --- this may be one of the things that happens in Python3000 (the first release which is allowed to actively break backwards-compatibility).
Hmm, you can die of strangulation in Nethack if you wear the wrong amulet ... Apparently you can also die of suffocation --- not sure what triggers this... Squeezed to death by a ; maybe?
Here?
This truly brings tears to my eyes...
Oh why aren't we teaching more people to code like this?
It is interesting that the New Scientist article basically attributes the idea of studying number partitions to Ramanujan, yet the linked article on him mentions that Euler had studied the problem before, and given a partial solution...
Another of those important innovations that Microsoft has pioneered...
I think we're all missing something important, here: It's a patent.
This means that ONLY Amazon is allowed to ruthlessly invade your privacy.
So all you have to do is not shop at Amazon and you'll be safe from the data miners forever!
[Off-topic] Are you reading Stephen Donaldson at the moment? I can't think of anywhere else I've ever met the word...
As TP put it:
But ... but ... Have you seen their motto? They _must_ be on our side!
So is this thing actually granted or what?
UserChrisCanter4 wrote:
Bellyflop wrote:
(both currently rated +4 Insightful)
So ... Does anyone actually _know_?
And what about when you want to make those Windows apps you've just written interact with one another (or with other Windows software)?
You need the Component Object Model --- commmonly abbreviated as COM...