The Alpha was always one of the better processors. It was fast and powerful and way ahead of its time. It is a shame that a truly great processor was killed by the economy and mergers galore. It will be missed.
I can't remember the name of the program, but it was one of those "Look what's new in science" type programs on the Discovery Channel. On this one I remember, I saw them talking about a sonic fridge. This was 10 years ago. They had a prototype 10 years ago. What happened to that?
The Earth is widely regarded as 4.6 billion years old and life is 3.9 billion years old. Now, I'm not sure (me not being a geologist), but I didn't think Earth had oceans at 700 million years. If we didn't have oceans, it seems somewhat unlikely that life would have developed in one.
A lot of people are concerned about Will Smith not pulling off the role right. I'm more worried that Alex Proyas will get the mood of the movie wrong. The mood of the book I, Robot is anything but dark and Alex Proyas is only known for his dark movies? Will he turn I, Robot into something a lot darker than the book?
...yet. We still don't know much about weather. Meteorology is not a sure science. And these kinds of experience with making rain, while noble, have the potential to cause quite a few deaths. The rain seeding experiment is an example of that.
We should avoid these sorts of experiments until we have a good understanding about how our weather works.
While I don't think that video games should be ignored in universities, they shouldn't be focused on. Like most things, the application of a field shouldn't be taught. The foundations of that field should be taught and the student that learned those foundations well will be able to apply them to anything.
Similarly, Computer Science should not be taught as a course in game development. A student that is taught nothing but game development will fail miserably if they do anything else. And, in my experience, students of so-called video game schools know how to slap down code, but don't understand the workings of that code. You probably couldn't give them a original piece of code and have them understand it immediately.
However, a student who is taught the fundamentals of programming and the basis of computer science will be able to adapt to create games. He knows the foundation and will be able to apply it to a specific task. Furthermore, they will have the expertise to work outside of that field, should they not get a job as a game developer (a very real possibility).
A broad understanding of the fundamentals and foundations of Computer Science is better than learning a specific application. A good programmer will be able to adapt and could probably end up programming a better game than the one taught to just make video games.
To all the people that are saying "Why not spend the $40B on going to Mars/Moon/Whatever?" A space station is *neccessary* to that goal. Unless you want NASA to perform a series of visits that last a day and then leave, you're going to want a orbital staging point. Any colonization efforts will almost certainly require a space station of some sort.
Why, you ask? Because it costs too much to launch from Earth every time (And a colony WILL require a lot of launches at first). Ideally, what we want is a dry dock in space where we can build any space craft. Simply send materials up and have them built in space. Then launch the completed ship from there.
Furthermore, a orbital habitat would give us a place to become acclimated to the environment of space.
The ultimate plan should be to build a space station, and put people up there in a more permanent manner in order to get some people acclimated. After a simple space station is completed, a dry dock should be built. From that dry dock, a ship should be built. That ship would be sent to the Moon, where a colony and a similar space station/dry dock would be built. Once we have a staging point around the Moon, then we would be able to colonize Mars.
I really don't care about putting people on Mars for a few days and then having them come back. Anything they could do on a two day mission, a probe can probably do the same thing. The only reason I want a person on Mars is to start a colony and a LOT of preparation must be made in order to feasibly do that.
Not the most popular (or even the most known) sci-fi series, but it stands out as the best. What makes it so good? For one, the idea of it is entirely original (as far as I know). You'll have to read to find out what it is, but it is a pretty good story.
Secondly, the science is very hard. Hard science fiction is a genre that is very hard to pull off. A lot of authors who do hard sci-fi spend most of the pages of a book just describing their hard science. Baxter manages to seamlessly weave it in to the story and you barely notice, but is leaves an impression.
However, what truly makes it great is that he weaves the plot and the science together perfectly. A lot of sci-fi authors simply use sci-fi as a setting and tell a traditional type story. A sci-fi love story or a sci-fi crime thriller or a sci-fi horror story. These are all sci-fi, but can only achieve the rank of 'good' sci-fi. Truly great sci-fi needs to have science in it, but also relate it to the plot.
When I read a piece of science fiction, I like to know how the advanced science affected the culture. So, in the future there is some really cool technology. Well, how do people's lives change? What are the consequences? These are all focuses in Baxter's series. A big part of the plot is the interaction between the technologically superior Xeelee and the (comparitively) primitive human race, and the resulting war between the two races. Add to that the impending death of the universe and the pursuit of science among all of this, which leads to some startling discoveries about the Xeelee.
Few other sci-fi universes has these elements together. The only other one that I can think of off hand is the Foundation trilogy, which is second on my list. It only falls behind Baxter's series because the science is less than hard.
As I understand it, ShowEQ is usually run on a different computer on the same network as the EQ box. It sniffs packets and then does its thing accordingly. Why not use that ShowEQ box to block the initial key exchange and generate and send its own key. The EQ server will then encrypt the key and send it to the ShowEQ. ShowEQ can then just decrypt it. It would only be a matter of figuring out the protocol and type of encryption that the servers use.
The Man in the Middle attack is one of the oldest and still most effective attack on public key encryption.
I don't know all the details, unfortunately. They may very well have tried this already.
A lot of people are saying "What about ?" The article was about canceled *ADVENTURE* games. The whole point of the article was that adventure game fans get shat on. Any potentially good seller gets canned before it can come out.
On that note, I personally don't get adventure games. I don't think I've ever played a good one.
Who cares if you can't watch Farscape on some night? Is it that big of a deal that these people have to exert this sort of extreme amount of effort?
I just don't get it. There are fights that are a lot more meaningful and worthy of this kind of attention than Farscape being cancelled. Instead of making a commercial, why not help the community? I suppose that is asking too much, eh?
Think about it. Do you really want someone who is able to run unsigned code on XBox Live? I sure as hell don't. I don't want to play MechAssault only to find someone has a program that runs on his modded XBox that lets him never overheat. Banning people with modded XBoxes prevents that. If a few innocent people have to suffer because of it, so be it.
There is no moral or ethical difference between strapping a bomb to your chest in order to kill innocent people and driving a tank into a Palestinian town in order to launch tank shells at innoocent people. Both groups have great roots in terrorism and both engage in terrorism now. The only difference is that today's Israeli terrorism is legitamized because we are backing them.
By the way, for those that doubt the claim of Israeli terrorism, do a Google search on the Stern Gang, a group of terrorists who went to great lengths to kill and terroize as many British as they could in order to pursuade them into granting them a state in Palestine (what would become Israel). Stern was such a fanatic, that he actually *supported* the Nazis, because he was hoping they would destroy the British. Another terrorist group in Israel is the Jewish Defense League, a group who has attempted to bomb several mosques.
The Best Buy in my town was completely sold out. When I asked a employee about XBox Live, he said I'd have to 'get in line' because their next order was completely sold out, already. They must be doing right. Thankfully, I already had it from the beta test.
I've been playing MechAssault all Friday and Saturday and I must say that it is EXTREMELY fun. My roommate got a kick out of trash talking people online. The service is fun, stable, and there is very little lag. I'd have to give Microsoft a thumbs up.
Nuclear piles have been used for power sources in deep space probes for quite a while. All of the Voyagers have used this type of power source. I'm not sure the exact workings of the mechanism that is talked about in the article, but it probably just converts the heat from nuclear decay to energy. No fision is involved, as there certainly wouldn't be enough mass to reach critical mass. The radiation is also beta radiation, so there isn't much risk of it damaging you.
You don't know what you're talking about. The number of Open Source people that have the experience and knowledge to analyze the NSA cryptosystems is far outnumbered by the people that can analyze it that are employed by the NSA. Typically, cryptography should be open for scrutiny, but with NSA's army of mathematicians, they have no need for that.
The only thing that would happen if they made the cryposystem public is that they would be letting loose a very strong cryptosystem into the hands of people that could potentially use it against the US.
Actually, by the Patriot Act, hacking IS an act of terrorism. I forget the exact wording of it, but any attempt to gain access to a government computer system is considered a act of terrorism.
Actually, you're almost right. But so very wrong. There is one cryptosystem that is IMPOSSIBLE(!!) to break: the One Time Pad. With that exception, it just becomes very hard.
Another thing to realize about these codes is that *none* of them are provably hard. They are thought to be hard, but some mathematical genius might come out tomorrow with a fast method of computing discrete logs, or factoring primes, or figuring out elliptic curves. For now, it is practically impossible, but it might very well be trivial should such a breakthrough occur.
Dell and quality is never two words I would ever put together. My Dell laptop crashed and burned hard. There were five major failures in my computer (about one a month). I eventually had the thing returned. I've pretty much sworn off Dells. However, I will admit that their customer service is top notch.
It's very interesting though. I've met a lot of people who swear by Dells and will never buy anything other than a Dell. I've also met several people who have had Dell lemons. Dell seems capable of producing high quality products, but they don't seem to be too consistent about it.
I see a lot of people complaing that OS X is supposedly a lot different from Unix. Well, hate to break to the Linux fanatics out there, but it is a lot CLOSER to Unix than Linux. Remember that Linux is not actually Unix, but a Unix-like operating system. OS X is Unix. It is BSD through and through. OS X is more Unix than Linux will ever be.
I wonder if Steve Jobs will rename Apple HQ to Macca. Start praying, Mac people!
Minix is far from dead...
on
The End Of Minix?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Minix has always lived as Andrew T intended and probably will remain that way for quite some time. Minix is an EDUCATIONAL tool. It is meant to be gone over and understood within a semester in college. It excels at this purpose and many colleges use it to this end. It will die when all the colleges use something else. Just because hackers and tinkerers don't use it anymore doesn't mean it is dead.
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The Alpha was always one of the better processors. It was fast and powerful and way ahead of its time. It is a shame that a truly great processor was killed by the economy and mergers galore. It will be missed.
I can't remember the name of the program, but it was one of those "Look what's new in science" type programs on the Discovery Channel. On this one I remember, I saw them talking about a sonic fridge. This was 10 years ago. They had a prototype 10 years ago. What happened to that?
If I am wrong, please correct me.
A lot of people are concerned about Will Smith not pulling off the role right. I'm more worried that Alex Proyas will get the mood of the movie wrong. The mood of the book I, Robot is anything but dark and Alex Proyas is only known for his dark movies? Will he turn I, Robot into something a lot darker than the book?
We should avoid these sorts of experiments until we have a good understanding about how our weather works.
Similarly, Computer Science should not be taught as a course in game development. A student that is taught nothing but game development will fail miserably if they do anything else. And, in my experience, students of so-called video game schools know how to slap down code, but don't understand the workings of that code. You probably couldn't give them a original piece of code and have them understand it immediately.
However, a student who is taught the fundamentals of programming and the basis of computer science will be able to adapt to create games. He knows the foundation and will be able to apply it to a specific task. Furthermore, they will have the expertise to work outside of that field, should they not get a job as a game developer (a very real possibility).
A broad understanding of the fundamentals and foundations of Computer Science is better than learning a specific application. A good programmer will be able to adapt and could probably end up programming a better game than the one taught to just make video games.
Why, you ask? Because it costs too much to launch from Earth every time (And a colony WILL require a lot of launches at first). Ideally, what we want is a dry dock in space where we can build any space craft. Simply send materials up and have them built in space. Then launch the completed ship from there.
Furthermore, a orbital habitat would give us a place to become acclimated to the environment of space.
The ultimate plan should be to build a space station, and put people up there in a more permanent manner in order to get some people acclimated. After a simple space station is completed, a dry dock should be built. From that dry dock, a ship should be built. That ship would be sent to the Moon, where a colony and a similar space station/dry dock would be built. Once we have a staging point around the Moon, then we would be able to colonize Mars.
I really don't care about putting people on Mars for a few days and then having them come back. Anything they could do on a two day mission, a probe can probably do the same thing. The only reason I want a person on Mars is to start a colony and a LOT of preparation must be made in order to feasibly do that.
Secondly, the science is very hard. Hard science fiction is a genre that is very hard to pull off. A lot of authors who do hard sci-fi spend most of the pages of a book just describing their hard science. Baxter manages to seamlessly weave it in to the story and you barely notice, but is leaves an impression.
However, what truly makes it great is that he weaves the plot and the science together perfectly. A lot of sci-fi authors simply use sci-fi as a setting and tell a traditional type story. A sci-fi love story or a sci-fi crime thriller or a sci-fi horror story. These are all sci-fi, but can only achieve the rank of 'good' sci-fi. Truly great sci-fi needs to have science in it, but also relate it to the plot.
When I read a piece of science fiction, I like to know how the advanced science affected the culture. So, in the future there is some really cool technology. Well, how do people's lives change? What are the consequences? These are all focuses in Baxter's series. A big part of the plot is the interaction between the technologically superior Xeelee and the (comparitively) primitive human race, and the resulting war between the two races. Add to that the impending death of the universe and the pursuit of science among all of this, which leads to some startling discoveries about the Xeelee.
Few other sci-fi universes has these elements together. The only other one that I can think of off hand is the Foundation trilogy, which is second on my list. It only falls behind Baxter's series because the science is less than hard.
The Man in the Middle attack is one of the oldest and still most effective attack on public key encryption.
I don't know all the details, unfortunately. They may very well have tried this already.
I once built the Borg Cube out of Legos.
A lot of people are saying "What about ?" The article was about canceled *ADVENTURE* games. The whole point of the article was that adventure game fans get shat on. Any potentially good seller gets canned before it can come out. On that note, I personally don't get adventure games. I don't think I've ever played a good one.
I just don't get it. There are fights that are a lot more meaningful and worthy of this kind of attention than Farscape being cancelled. Instead of making a commercial, why not help the community? I suppose that is asking too much, eh?
Think about it. Do you really want someone who is able to run unsigned code on XBox Live? I sure as hell don't. I don't want to play MechAssault only to find someone has a program that runs on his modded XBox that lets him never overheat. Banning people with modded XBoxes prevents that. If a few innocent people have to suffer because of it, so be it.
I'm 20 and I still don't know how to work emacs.
There is no moral or ethical difference between strapping a bomb to your chest in order to kill innocent people and driving a tank into a Palestinian town in order to launch tank shells at innoocent people. Both groups have great roots in terrorism and both engage in terrorism now. The only difference is that today's Israeli terrorism is legitamized because we are backing them. By the way, for those that doubt the claim of Israeli terrorism, do a Google search on the Stern Gang, a group of terrorists who went to great lengths to kill and terroize as many British as they could in order to pursuade them into granting them a state in Palestine (what would become Israel). Stern was such a fanatic, that he actually *supported* the Nazis, because he was hoping they would destroy the British. Another terrorist group in Israel is the Jewish Defense League, a group who has attempted to bomb several mosques.
The Best Buy in my town was completely sold out. When I asked a employee about XBox Live, he said I'd have to 'get in line' because their next order was completely sold out, already. They must be doing right. Thankfully, I already had it from the beta test. I've been playing MechAssault all Friday and Saturday and I must say that it is EXTREMELY fun. My roommate got a kick out of trash talking people online. The service is fun, stable, and there is very little lag. I'd have to give Microsoft a thumbs up.
Nuclear piles have been used for power sources in deep space probes for quite a while. All of the Voyagers have used this type of power source. I'm not sure the exact workings of the mechanism that is talked about in the article, but it probably just converts the heat from nuclear decay to energy. No fision is involved, as there certainly wouldn't be enough mass to reach critical mass. The radiation is also beta radiation, so there isn't much risk of it damaging you.
You don't know what you're talking about. The number of Open Source people that have the experience and knowledge to analyze the NSA cryptosystems is far outnumbered by the people that can analyze it that are employed by the NSA. Typically, cryptography should be open for scrutiny, but with NSA's army of mathematicians, they have no need for that. The only thing that would happen if they made the cryposystem public is that they would be letting loose a very strong cryptosystem into the hands of people that could potentially use it against the US.
Actually, by the Patriot Act, hacking IS an act of terrorism. I forget the exact wording of it, but any attempt to gain access to a government computer system is considered a act of terrorism.
Actually, you're almost right. But so very wrong. There is one cryptosystem that is IMPOSSIBLE(!!) to break: the One Time Pad. With that exception, it just becomes very hard. Another thing to realize about these codes is that *none* of them are provably hard. They are thought to be hard, but some mathematical genius might come out tomorrow with a fast method of computing discrete logs, or factoring primes, or figuring out elliptic curves. For now, it is practically impossible, but it might very well be trivial should such a breakthrough occur.
Dell and quality is never two words I would ever put together. My Dell laptop crashed and burned hard. There were five major failures in my computer (about one a month). I eventually had the thing returned. I've pretty much sworn off Dells. However, I will admit that their customer service is top notch. It's very interesting though. I've met a lot of people who swear by Dells and will never buy anything other than a Dell. I've also met several people who have had Dell lemons. Dell seems capable of producing high quality products, but they don't seem to be too consistent about it.
Besides perhaps Firefly, SG-1 is the best sci-fi show on TV. ALthough I certainly hope they bring Daniel back somehow after they killed him.
I see a lot of people complaing that OS X is supposedly a lot different from Unix. Well, hate to break to the Linux fanatics out there, but it is a lot CLOSER to Unix than Linux. Remember that Linux is not actually Unix, but a Unix-like operating system. OS X is Unix. It is BSD through and through. OS X is more Unix than Linux will ever be.
I wonder if Steve Jobs will rename Apple HQ to Macca. Start praying, Mac people!
Minix has always lived as Andrew T intended and probably will remain that way for quite some time. Minix is an EDUCATIONAL tool. It is meant to be gone over and understood within a semester in college. It excels at this purpose and many colleges use it to this end. It will die when all the colleges use something else. Just because hackers and tinkerers don't use it anymore doesn't mean it is dead.