Some of the asteroids are valued at several billions of dollars each. They contain resources that our industries need. The trick is; how can I economically reach that concentrated valuable stuff floating in space AND get it back to earth? (The answer involves robots...)
Contrast with itty bitty teensie weensie little bits of worthless plastic floating in non-concentrated form in big big ocean...which you want to use to make rather ugly plastic chairs...
No doubt there is. You have no control over quality, and you'll probably end up scooping up huge amounts of other crap as well... As you float in the middle of the ocean, miles from anywhere, what are you going to do with the non-plastic bits? Tip them overboard?
There is an online documentary on the 'floating garbage islands' somewhere. Not really islands. Just lots of little itty bits of plastic spread over a huuuuge area.
Since the plastic debris is spread thinly over a large large area, you'd need to blow through a fair bit of fuel to collect sufficient amounts of plastic to make a chair.
Doable? yes. Economical? No.
Unless you could do this with a sailing boat, or a solar powered boat...and from the article...that boat doesn't look like either.
Come on now, first time they ran the competition. Can't expect everything to be perfect. Besides, judges haven't looked at entries yet.
I do wonder if they will restrict the contest to a specific language if they ever run it again (like say HTML5)...there are a (large) number of entries that do not work. Looks like the judges are going to have a fair job on their hands trying to get all those games to compile and run...
As a die-hard linux user I hate to say this...but if this contest had been Winblows based, I doubt there would've been as many 'broken' entries:( [Time to duck and run for cover]
I've just done some more work on my little non-game, will add a link to that page with an updated version if I can. (Have to keep it separate from the LPC entry;)
You can submit a DNA sample online to identify the 'fish' in your sushi:D http://www.dna-surveillance.auckland.ac.nz/ Plenty of evidence out there that whale and dolphin meat from endangered species is sold as 'fish' both in Japan and exported to various countries in the world.
Not that anyone cares, but here is a real life example of auto-spelling where it is not wanted:
Manager comes across a previously unseen (misspelled) error message in a database field. Database is accessed by several applications. Manager copies and pastes error-message into email and sends it to colleague. Email client auto-corrects misspelled error message. Colleague does a grep using the full spelling corrected error message text, can't find any occurrence of it in his code, and points finger at my code. Grepped my colleagues code for a partial match and found the offending piece of code.
Error - Item processed canceled by user during reconcilliation
There could be any number of reasons for this. We don't know how many people used the Slide products. It could very well be that the Slide products were on a downward usage trend...
I mean really...the one thought that popped into my head when I saw the headline was "And nothing of value was lost."
A three word combination that will make any bloke nervous...
But I suppose some people would welcome this new technology: "In September 2000, a NZ radio DJ was convicted and fined $1100 after impersonating a detective from Interpol. He called Los Angeles police and claimed his three co-workers were trying to enter the United States with kiwi eggs hidden in their "rear cavities". The trio were subsequently held for two hours at LA Airport, questioned and searched."
No, I don't have a picture of her pu...uhh...
Let's just say that you're in the wrong continent altogether, the only cryptids we have here are invisible moose.
Illnesses. Sick animals without treatment have a lower chance of survival.
FIV. It is rampant in feral cat colonies. It has also mutated so that there are strains unique to specific areas and/or colonies.
Unlike HIV it spreads via bites and scratches btw.
I worked with a PhD student doing research on a specific strain of FIV unique to the country I live in - you should've seen some of the feral monsters she dissected. Size of frikkin' horses with fangs that would make Dracula jealous.
We use Joomla for our company website, which hacked and defaced yesterday morning using a trivial SQL injection in a malformed URL. Now our website advertises viagra...
Found the malformed URL in the logs and went to joomla website and forums and could not find _anything_ relating to this 'exploit', No fix, nada, nothing.
I could fix it, it is open source after all, but instead I ripped out the whole joomla install and replaced it with a static version of the site.
Did a google search on the malformed URL and found a (russian) forum with detailed instructions on how to get admin access to Joomla sites, including ready made perl scripts to do all the work for you.... and an additional malformed URL which I had not seen used on our site that will display the contents of any file in/etc/ in the browser. Tried it on our server...and yup, that works. Again no mention of exploit or fix on joomla website.
> Finally, anyone who thinks kids today have been robbed of their imaginations should drop a box of legos in front of them.
I did that to my young cousins the other day. They're 7 and 9, both boys, and guess what? They didn't know what to do with it! Didn't see the point of it!
My aunt doesn't bother buying them LEGO, they just don't care. They take it out of the box, put it together and never look at it again. I'm not sure if this is because they have no imagination or because they can't be bothered putting in the effort:(
<old geezer grumble> I've heard the current generation referred to as the 'now-now-now' generation. The spoiled-rotten, no-effort-required, you-want-it-you-got-it, instant-gratification generation. </old geezer grumble> I work at a university, and I have noticed that ^^^ attitude in the students...was I such a spoiled whining little shit when I was that age?
> They're gonna ask the public for research themes?... AFTER THEY BOUGHT IT???
This is not unusual.
Universities around the world are filled with expensive equipment that doesn't get much use. What usually happens is that somebody has a vague idea for a research project, applies for a funding grant, but doesn't expect to get it, and then three years down the track the grant gets approved, and you have to buy something that you never expected to get, and you're not sure what to do with it.
Part of my job is making such expensive purchases accessible by as many people as possible. I have access to 4 clusters at the moment, and all four have been 99% idle/underused from the day they were bought, and will continue to be so until I've had a go at them. I've got one cluster to the point that it is now being used to 100% of it's capacity and I've just started on the second one. (This second one has been mostly idle for nearly two years now)
It's quite interesting to note that once people can make full use of a cluster, they will quickly come up with ideas and projects that will start pushing the cluster to it's full capacity.
Heck, Weta FX (Responsible for in Lord of the Rings and King Kong, but I'm pretty sure you knew that;) ran short of rendering grunt for the final battle scene in Return of the King. (The battlescenes with all the oliphaunts) So they rang the producers and got funding for another IBM Blade cluster, at approx $4m (something like that) Bought it, build it, used it for LOTR, used it for a little bit of rendering for two other movies - Zorro and Van Helsink I think - and then it sat idle for a year!
I'll start work on that one soon, I've got access about 150+ 2.8Ghz Intel Xeons that need a good workout;)
(No, none of the clusters run Windows - sorry - and not a single beowulf cluster;^)
Use formal methods, it's what NASA and companies that develop medical software use.
I'd recommend B or Z.
There are even methods/software that will help you convert your specification from B/Z to C/C++ code (or other languages).
(Just a word of warning: This is not going to be easy or fun, but it will make your software robust, and you will catch a lot of errors before you even start coding)
I would recommend against using Xserve's for clustering. We've been using one for the last 5 months, and we've had nothing but trouble with the damn things. The only thing good about them is their comparatively low price:(
Well, in 2004, when I graduated at Waikato University http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ (which do offer hardware majors) the amount of people that graduated with a hardware major per year could be counted on one hand. They also had no trouble getting jobs (and getting good pay - humbug!)
Software majors (like myself) experienced the opposite; plenty of graduates, but trouble finding a job.
There seems to have been a shift over the last few years from people choosing hardware majors to people choosing software majors (or, god forbid, 'information technology' - ugh) I don't know why though...
I know of a number of IT companies here in Auckland that are currently looking for hardware people, and just cannot get them. We might have to import a couple dozen:) Eastern Europe and Russia are quite popular for this at the moment...
> out of curiosity why did you mention the UN in that list?
My list of suggested authorative entities suitable for the management and implementation of a independent and incorruptible global individual human position tracking system was meant as a joke.
I would not trust any of them.
I mentioned the UN because they are more or less the closest thing we have to a 'world-government'. Or not. I think all they do is argue and squabble amongst each other and nobody listens to them, something like that. Or reason B: I've read too much old Sci-Fi, which generally rather optimistically paints a future in which the UN *IS* the world-government. Yeah right.
I think you'd find that the most likely second target for a scheme like this would be (convicted) criminals, not employees.
(IIRC Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders)
First our pets and cattle, then our children, then criminals, then the rest of us.
A while ago, after reading a newspaper article about some hideous unsolved crime, I mentioned to a friend that we should start putting radiotags on criminals. Man, he hit the roof! Wow. He used a variety of terms to describe this idea, the one that I remember most was 'Nazi'.
Radio tagging people has its merits and can certainly make the world a 'Better Place'(tm), but it is simply too prone to abuse/misuse.
Who would you trust to manage and control the monitoring system? Your government? The United Nations? Your local police department? Your favourite church/religion/cult/sect?
Slashdot Mirror
No.
Some of the asteroids are valued at several billions of dollars each. They contain resources that our industries need. The trick is; how can I economically reach that concentrated valuable stuff floating in space AND get it back to earth? (The answer involves robots...)
Contrast with itty bitty teensie weensie little bits of worthless plastic floating in non-concentrated form in big big ocean...which you want to use to make rather ugly plastic chairs...
No doubt there is. You have no control over quality, and you'll probably end up scooping up huge amounts of other crap as well...
As you float in the middle of the ocean, miles from anywhere, what are you going to do with the non-plastic bits? Tip them overboard?
There is an online documentary on the 'floating garbage islands' somewhere. Not really islands. Just lots of little itty bits of plastic spread over a huuuuge area.
Since the plastic debris is spread thinly over a large large area, you'd need to blow through a fair bit of fuel to collect sufficient amounts of plastic to make a chair.
Doable? yes.
Economical? No.
Unless you could do this with a sailing boat, or a solar powered boat...and from the article...that boat doesn't look like either.
Yeah...but but...mine would all look exactly the same ;-P
Come on now, first time they ran the competition. Can't expect everything to be perfect. Besides, judges haven't looked at entries yet.
I do wonder if they will restrict the contest to a specific language if they ever run it again (like say HTML5)...there are a (large) number of entries that do not work.
Looks like the judges are going to have a fair job on their hands trying to get all those games to compile and run...
As a die-hard linux user I hate to say this...but if this contest had been Winblows based, I doubt there would've been as many 'broken' entries :(
[Time to duck and run for cover]
Yup, my entry is in there. There's no gameplay, but it's something to look at :D
Try it here:
http://madmarcel.github.com/
I've just done some more work on my little non-game, will add a link to that page with an updated version if I can. ;)
(Have to keep it separate from the LPC entry
Stuck at home, off work sick, so I have some time.
Downloading the art assets now and we'll see if I can find some inspiration in that.
It doesn't look like they got a lot of art entries though...we'll see.
Actually...that 'fish' in your sushi...is not what you think it is...
"report on genetic identification of ‘whale meat’ purchased in sushi restaurants in Los Angeles, CA (USA)"
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/04/08/rsbl.2010.0239.full
You can submit a DNA sample online to identify the 'fish' in your sushi :D
http://www.dna-surveillance.auckland.ac.nz/
Plenty of evidence out there that whale and dolphin meat from endangered species is sold as 'fish' both in Japan and exported to various countries in the world.
Not that anyone cares, but here is a real life example of auto-spelling where it is not wanted:
Manager comes across a previously unseen (misspelled) error message in a database field. Database is accessed by several applications.
Manager copies and pastes error-message into email and sends it to colleague. Email client auto-corrects misspelled error message.
Colleague does a grep using the full spelling corrected error message text, can't find any occurrence of it in his code, and points finger at my code.
Grepped my colleagues code for a partial match and found the offending piece of code.
Error - Item processed canceled by user during reconcilliation
Ach, serves me right for not RTFA.
Just a sensible business decision, nothing to see here, move along now people.
There could be any number of reasons for this.
We don't know how many people used the Slide products. It could very well be that the Slide products were on a downward usage trend...
I mean really...the one thought that popped into my head when I saw the headline was
"And nothing of value was lost."
Cavity - Internal - Airport...
A three word combination that will make any bloke nervous...
But I suppose some people would welcome this new technology:
"In September 2000, a NZ radio DJ was convicted and fined $1100 after impersonating a detective from Interpol. He called Los Angeles police and claimed his three co-workers were trying to enter the United States with kiwi eggs hidden in their "rear cavities". The trio were subsequently held for two hours at LA Airport, questioned and searched."
His colleagues didn't think it was funny btw.
Chupacabras are only found on the American continents. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Moose#Habitat_and_range Our moose have been invisible since 1910 when they developed cloaking technology :D
No, I don't have a picture of her pu...uhh... Let's just say that you're in the wrong continent altogether, the only cryptids we have here are invisible moose.
Illnesses. Sick animals without treatment have a lower chance of survival.
FIV. It is rampant in feral cat colonies. It has also mutated so that there are strains unique to specific areas and/or colonies. Unlike HIV it spreads via bites and scratches btw.
I worked with a PhD student doing research on a specific strain of FIV unique to the country I live in - you should've seen some of the feral monsters she dissected. Size of frikkin' horses with fangs that would make Dracula jealous.
no
We use Joomla for our company website, which hacked and defaced yesterday morning using a trivial SQL injection in a malformed URL. Now our website advertises viagra...
/etc/ in the browser. Tried it on our server...and yup, that works. Again no mention of exploit or fix on joomla website.
Found the malformed URL in the logs and went to joomla website and forums and could not find _anything_ relating to this 'exploit', No fix, nada, nothing.
I could fix it, it is open source after all, but instead I ripped out the whole joomla install and replaced it with a static version of the site.
Did a google search on the malformed URL and found a (russian) forum with detailed instructions on how to get admin access to Joomla sites, including ready made perl scripts to do all the work for you....
and an additional malformed URL which I had not seen used on our site that will display the contents of any file in
Goooodby Joomla. Hope we never meet again.
Just to clear up this common misconception:
Whales are not as intelligent as you may have been led to believe, in fact quite the opposite...ask any marine biologist.
> Finally, anyone who thinks kids today have been robbed of their imaginations should drop a box of legos in front of them.
:(
I did that to my young cousins the other day. They're 7 and 9, both boys, and guess what?
They didn't know what to do with it! Didn't see the point of it!
My aunt doesn't bother buying them LEGO, they just don't care. They take it out of the box, put it together and never look at it again.
I'm not sure if this is because they have no imagination or because they can't be bothered putting in the effort
<old geezer grumble>
I've heard the current generation referred to as the 'now-now-now' generation. The spoiled-rotten, no-effort-required, you-want-it-you-got-it, instant-gratification generation.
</old geezer grumble>
I work at a university, and I have noticed that ^^^ attitude in the students...was I such a spoiled whining little shit when I was that age?
> They're gonna ask the public for research themes? ... AFTER THEY BOUGHT IT???
;)
;)
;^)
This is not unusual.
Universities around the world are filled with expensive equipment that doesn't get much use.
What usually happens is that somebody has a vague idea for a research project, applies for a funding grant, but doesn't expect to get it, and then three years down the track the grant gets approved, and you have to buy something that you never expected to get, and you're not sure what to do with it.
Part of my job is making such expensive purchases accessible by as many people as possible.
I have access to 4 clusters at the moment, and all four have been 99% idle/underused from the day they were bought, and will continue to be so until I've had a go at them. I've got one cluster to the point that it is now being used to 100% of it's capacity and I've just started on the second one. (This second one has been mostly idle for nearly two years now)
It's quite interesting to note that once people can make full use of a cluster, they will quickly come up with ideas and projects that will start pushing the cluster to it's full capacity.
Heck, Weta FX (Responsible for in Lord of the Rings and King Kong, but I'm pretty sure you knew that
ran short of rendering grunt for the final battle scene in Return of the King.
(The battlescenes with all the oliphaunts)
So they rang the producers and got funding for another IBM Blade cluster, at approx $4m (something like that)
Bought it, build it, used it for LOTR, used it for a little bit of rendering for two other movies - Zorro and Van Helsink I think - and then it sat idle for a year!
I'll start work on that one soon, I've got access about 150+ 2.8Ghz Intel Xeons that need a good workout
(No, none of the clusters run Windows - sorry - and not a single beowulf cluster
Use formal methods, it's what NASA and companies that develop medical software use.
I'd recommend B or Z.
There are even methods/software that will help you convert your specification from B/Z to C/C++ code (or other languages).
(Just a word of warning: This is not going to be easy or fun, but it will make your software robust, and you will catch a lot of errors before you even start coding)
http://www.zuser.org/z/
http://czt.sourceforge.net/
I would recommend against using Xserve's for clustering. We've been using one for the last 5 months, and we've had nothing but trouble with the damn things. The only thing good about them is their comparatively low price :(
Not recommended.
Well, in 2004, when I graduated at Waikato University http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ (which do offer hardware majors) the amount of people that graduated with a hardware major per year could be counted on one hand. They also had no trouble getting jobs (and getting good pay - humbug!)
:) Eastern Europe and Russia are quite popular for this at the moment...
Software majors (like myself) experienced the opposite; plenty of graduates, but trouble finding a job.
There seems to have been a shift over the last few years from people choosing hardware majors to people choosing software majors (or, god forbid, 'information technology' - ugh)
I don't know why though...
I know of a number of IT companies here in Auckland that are currently looking for hardware people, and just cannot get them. We might have to import a couple dozen
> out of curiosity why did you mention the UN in that list?
My list of suggested authorative entities suitable for the management and implementation of a independent and incorruptible global individual human position tracking system was meant as a joke.
I would not trust any of them.
I mentioned the UN because they are more or less the closest thing we have to a 'world-government'. Or not. I think all they do is argue and squabble amongst each other and nobody listens to them, something like that.
Or reason B: I've read too much old Sci-Fi, which generally rather optimistically paints a future in which the UN *IS* the world-government. Yeah right.
I think you'd find that the most likely second target for a scheme like this would be (convicted) criminals, not employees.
(IIRC Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders)
First our pets and cattle, then our children, then criminals, then the rest of us.
A while ago, after reading a newspaper article about some hideous unsolved crime, I mentioned to a friend that we should start putting radiotags on criminals. Man, he hit the roof! Wow. He used a variety of terms to describe this idea, the one that I remember most was 'Nazi'.
Radio tagging people has its merits and can certainly make the world a 'Better Place'(tm), but it is simply too prone to abuse/misuse.
Who would you trust to manage and control the monitoring system? Your government? The United Nations? Your local police department? Your favourite church/religion/cult/sect?