I hear you, BF1942 is one of the most kick-ass games to have ever been created, but it is still that plain and simple. It would only take a game or two that came out to sit on the shelves with no purchases to make the rest sit up and take notice, but unfortunately noone has that kind of self control and as much as they like to bitch and moan, they are little inclined to do anything about it.
A Smart Weapon based on a dumb-ass concept. Hmm let see be held legally responsible for every bullet you've purchased. Purchase a firearm that cost twice as much and can be disabled by authorities at a distance. Yeh I'll take two please. First off, I don't think they've ever heard of a little concept called identity theft and second, the only way I'd be willing to buy into that is if the military and law enforcement had to as well. Of course they wouldn't want it since a thirteen year old with a wireless connection and laptop could hack their weapons making them fire in the holster or disable them. A firearm is a simple device with a simple role. Complicate that role and it becomes more dangerous to the user and nearly worthless as a tool. The only place I could see such a weapon be even remotely useful is in places such as prisons. Where those that it is to be used against do not have much in the way of resources to fight back.
I guess it's noble to try to make it more difficult for firearms from being abused, but at the same time it's pretty pointless. I've got an idea, instead of chasing the symptoms as so many idealists/liberals typically do, how about going after the source, which is the scum that needs to be filtered from the gene pool. Make it illegal to have children without special safety training, a license, and being able to demonstrate a suitable degree of intelligence and competence. I think that would have a much greater impact on the problem of violence than trying to blame a inanimate object, and in the process waste a great deal of money on a useless scheme. Of course if we put restrictions on reproduction rights then there would be a few areas of the world that would die out in a single generation due to low birth rates. The again that's not entirely a bad thing, since California and parts of Europe are getting awfully crowded anyway.
This is true sort of. Like I mentioned before, Honda already has the market cornered in developing countries with the scooter. I saw a long article about it on one of the learning channels. They talked about how they would first offer the mopeds and large equipment to 3rd world countries, then small cars and trucks, and as demand increased eventually larger and more expensive vehicles would be offerred. They would be produced locally or in another third world country for nothing. The new bike this guy is offering is not established and isn't all that cheap to make by his discription of it. It looks more like it would be to target the lazy American and Euro types. Most cities do not allow gas assisted biycles on the sidewalks and bike paths. The electrics get away with it since they tend to be fairly slow and on top of that quiet. So to use this thing, you would have to ride in the street. Not the safest place to be these days.
The real "hills" that keep people from using a bicycle as transportation, is convenience. Cities would have to make alternate transport more convenient before people would use them. Here's a short list.
1. Require companies to have locker rooms with showers for their employees.
2. Require them to have recharging stations with good bicycle parking areas, and subsidize electric bikes and kits with fuel taxes.
3. Usefull bike ways that are not just a two foot wide strip painted down each side of the street, but actual roads that do not allow standard vehicles on, or the useless recreational paths that don't lead anywhere. This includes elevated paths so that pedstrian, bicycle, and auto traffic don't have to intermingle.
4. Have more bikeways that follow major roads and highways. Not everyone is willing to bike a twenty mile commute, but you'd be surprised at the number who would if the roads where available. The nice thing about bikcycle roads is that they'd last nearly forever and only occational need repairs.
5. Make local ordinances my biker friendly, by allowing them into shopping areas, and making sure new buildings, shopping centers, and malls design with bicyclers in mind.
I road my bike in college to class after my car broke down. Even after getting it fixed I continued to ride the bike. It took me 12 minutes to make it to class by bike, 5 minutes by car but it took anywhere from 5-30 min to find a parking spot and then another 5-10min walk to class. On top of that it would run $1-5 a day to pay for parking. Between the extra money I could spend on more important things like doritos or beer($6 would buy a case of beer and gas was $.85 gal at the time), I had an extra half hour to sleep in the morning and no stress over parking. Until cities actually plan for people to be able to make bikes that convenient and usefull you'll never see mass utilization of them power assisted or not. It's either that or when gas hits $4 a gallon you might see people start to break down and give it a try.
interesting idea, though not very comfortable, at least for me. I'll have to try some other combinations to see if it would better than the T formation everyone is using these days.
I'll give MicroSoft one thing. They have and continue to make some of the best peripherials for the PC. They seem to dick everything else up pretty well, but that's one department no one can really complain about.
XBox games already run on PC's, of course the opposite is not true without some hefty streamlining, which wouldn't be a bad thing for the PC gaming industry. That would also bring in the masses still trying to use a controller in the mouse dominated world of FPS. Like lambs to the slaughter.
Want games in Linux? Then stop buying games for Windows. It's that simple people.
Actually they already do that with PC's. Look at the wide variety of SIM/Tycoon games out there. The software hasn't changed hardly any since the first versions came out three/four years ago. Same goes for Half-Life/Counter strike. That game is crap compaired to what is out now, gameplay and graphics, but it'll run on just about anything so it remains very popular. The high end graphic (Unreal and others) games are the only big problem for companies, but they represent only a tiny portion of the market. Besides the high end "games" are usually just self-repaying developement tools to show off a companies latest game engine. They build a crapy game with all the bells and whistles in order to get companies to license their software and build descent games. Cough, cough UT2003 & Unreal 2 cough, cough.
I wouldn't call PS1/2 games mind blowingly complex. Find the key/weapon/item puzzle adventure games have been out since text based gaming. Anyone remember Madness and the Minotar? Consoles are for gamers that are afraid or don't want to be bothered with a PC or wish to play certain game types not available elsewhere. Admit it for the most part the PC lacks big time a descent variety of fighting, driving, or RPC games.
I would love it if PC games would take full advantage of available RAM. One load from the HD into RAM would mean only one long wait. After that a map would load in a second or two instead of the minute plus they do now. Let's see CD-ROM 7mb/s (real sucky), HD 30-30mb/s (better), 1-2GB of PC2700 RAM 2700mb/s (oh Yeh!) I had two 512mb sticks in my machine, but it had no affect on anything besides photoshop so I took it back out and sold it to a friend. Maybe next year we'll see a little more preloading of maps into ram to speed things up.
Sorry violent WASD is to slow and cuts off a whole column of keys. Move it to the right one and use ESDF then you've got three extra keys for weapon hot keys or A & G for left and right lean functions. (It also still works on the natural key boards that split at the G key) Or get really wacky and make it YGHJ if you just absoluting insist on programing every key bind in BattleField 1842 to be reachable by the left hand. If you want a controller to go with your mouse a friend of mine uses MicroSofts battlefield commander or what ever that wierd C&C controller they came up with is called. He had an easy time programing and then using all the easy to reach buttons and it was much faster than a joystick which tend to be set up for right handers anyway.
No kidding those things have been around since the seventies and amazingly they get 80-100mpg already, the same as or better than what his mountain bike can do. You pedal them to start them and then ride. The funny thing is that you can still order brand new ones from Honda for under $1000. I wonder what his conversion hub is going to cost? All the extra parts that are custom made don't sound cheap. On top of that a mountain bike is not exactly the most comfortable commuter vehicle. If I were going to go to the trouble of riding a powered vehicle why wouldn't I just get the more comfortable moped that I only have to pedal to start? The other thing is the noise level; those small engines running at hi rpms are pretty loud. Between the comfort and noise I Might as well buy a 500-600cc bike that only gets 40-60mpg and as a bonus looks cool, is comfortable, and can actually can do 60mph/100kph+
What I don't get is why every other "new" invention bashes electric by saying "this will tide us over till batteries get better and with gas you can fill up anywhere" I thought the whole point is to get away from gas once in for all. I have a good idea, how about spending a little more time and money on research on electric instead of fiddle farting around with glorified weed-whacker engines so we don't have to wait around. His claims of 85lbs for electric bikes are a bit off. They make NiMH electric conversions in the neighborhood of 20lbs. That's only ten pounds heavier than his "petite" 2 stroke. No gas or oil to mess with, no noise, no fumes, and nothing to have to tune up, just plug the thing in and go. I would also like to know where he rides where there is no electricity? Does he plan on using his bike for the two-hour commute into LA on the 405 during rush hour? Who would be willing to ride on a mountain bike for reasons other than sport far enough to actually run out of juice in the batteries, much less gas for his version. So range isn't really an issue since you could plug the thing in just about anywhere. This is another example of another fine product to "revolutionize" the world, as we know it. What this inventor has yet to figure out is those that are already willing to ride a bicycle to work are already doing so and that within a short period of time get in good enough shape to pedal it their damn selves, and don't need the extra weight and cost to get them up to the top of those theoretical "hills" these inventors always ramble on about as being the big determining factor as to why people don't ride bicycles. Here is a little clue for him, people who are too lazy to even pedal ten miles on a bike are certainly not going to want to even ride the same distance on a powered one. There's no heat & no AC for one, no protection from the elements, no comfortable bucket seat to park their fat ass in, no cd player, and where the hell are they going to plug in their cell phone and where are they going to put their McDonalds value meal #2 at along with all their junk they drag around with them? On top of that he hasn't even figured out the idea has already been done a thousand times, and that no one wants it. Don't take my word for it just look in the back of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine you find half a dozen conversion kits "that if you order now you'll get free shipping".
Aside from having no clue I do give this guy bonus points for finally containing everything in the hub instead of the ridiculous bolt on contraptions some people have come up with electric or gas.
The real question is not whether or not SETI@home is a waste of time, but what you are running on your machine, and if the answer is nothing, then why not?
Past Projects:
Seti@home 4400cpu-hours Presently: United Devices 5400cpu-hours
Anthrax - completed
Cancer & Small Pox - running
Considering up till Seti@home came along, ask anyone what distributed computing was and they'd scratch their head and say "I donno"
"Worthwhile" endevors cannot begin until somebody completes the ground work and research. I think the Seti@home program is brilliant, even though I support UD cancer project now. They created a simple piece of software and for the cost of a few servers and bandwidth they ended up with one of the most powerful computers on the planet. Doesn't exactly sound like a waste of time to me. Once individuals, schools, research orginizations, and companies saw the potential of such a system and what kind of support it could receive, a great deal has been invested in projects that are "worthwhile". So don't knock the inovators they opened the door for everyone else to step through.
Screw the mile high club, how about the 200 mile high club. Fooling around in an elevator defintely wouldn't be a quicky anymore.....floor 26,153 lady's lingerie
Also what about those bratty kids that hit every button and then jump off the elevator. If you got caught in one of those you'd starve to death before reaching orbit.
Got the nail right on the head. I personally like the concept put forward in the Star Ship Troopers book, not the movie(the movie was pretty far off from the book, but who wouldn't like co-ed basic training). Pretty much two kinds of people civilians and citizens. Civilians where the type that are willing to roll over and submit to what ever is needed to "protect them" as a consequence they could not hold public office or vote. Shy of opinion polls he had no say in what the government did. On the other hand the citizen could, but the catch was that he had to earn it. The next generation (it doesn't matter which, it's always the next one) doesn't apprietiate the sacrifices of the previous (Wars, monetary, time, and effort). Well instead of handing them their freedom and the rights on a silver platter for them to squander, they had to earn it through public service. Public service could be anything from being a cop or a fireman to serving in the Mobile Infantry. Basically it had to be any form of duty that was for the benefit of society, but at personal risk to the individual. In the end, in theory, it would at least put people in the government that cared more about the whole of society than themselves.
In this system the sheep could go on being sheep, and hopefully it would create shepards of greater moral character than the typical "public servants" we have in office these days.
Great now I'm going to have to carry a microwave around in my pants if I want to shoplift! They've talked about using a microwave for small clothes driers for years. I'm sure anyone whose seen Uncle Buck has tried it at least once. Works fine on cottons. Just make sure you don't have any change or anything metal in your pockets.
This guy (I guess he's a photographer, though I didn't see much in the article that proves it.) needs to leave the bench marking to the computer geeks. The test was half-assed. A brand new custom laptop from Alienware and a discontinued Mac laptop. Mac's latest desktop and a Dell (Says with snear while dreaming of strangling the stupid kids from the Dell commercials) That's like comparing a Porche, a year old Jetta, a Passat, and 98 Hyundi. (Volkswaggen is the Mac of cars, at least in owner behavior.)
The author of the comparison forgets little things like the ammounts of RAM, bus speed and the harddrive have a drastic impact on simple data crunching operations. He goes for what the typical computer ignorant consumer always goes for, processor speed. I agree with the above poster I would have like to seen the machines put through their paces with special effects applications and adjustments which can really bog down a machine. I also can't find any referance in his test to what his settings in Photoshop are. Important ones like scratch disk settings or maxium ram ussage. While I don't doubt the latests PC's could smoke a Mac in many of the applications, I would have like to seen it. Rather than some half-assed test that has too many disparities to be usefull or prove anything.
Also in response to the FPS of a digital camera. Why would you need more than 3 seconds of sustained photo shooting, what are shooting, a movie? Besides go look at the digital Nikons if you want some more FPS. Cannon has been dragging ass with their digital cameras, and needs to play catch-up. (Funny it used to be that film looked better than digital, now it's just digital is slower.)
Yeh, he was an evil SOB. My only real point is that their isn't a country or group of people that aren't at least ankle deep in the blood of people they've sought to slaughter.
If they can put all the data they want into bactery then donwloading files could get pretty kinky. My question would be how would antivirus work (pill or harddrive?), and how would computer geeks ever get and new software? She said she downloaded that MP3 from a safe place doc, but after I got the song from her it started burning when I pee.
The point is humans are not the only game in town. As far as better, I'll take a chimp or a dolphin over half of the people on this planet any day. It's not a question of will they be "equal" or "better", but rather than assuming that it's just a dumb animal (organic automation), and is repeatedly being proven that animals can think, learn, problem solve, count, have emotions, have language, play, and intentially kill over territory, group, race and species. To lift a quote from an animal research program (Love discovery/animal planet/history channel)"It's becoming apparent that intelligence whether animal or human is a question of degree rather than type." . Hope I didn't butcher that to badly. The above commenter seems to hold onto the human arrogance that we are the only ones that can do what we do. They also miss the fact that that the "Bar" does get moved, as it always has in the past, when ever something new comes along that might contradict long held beliefs in science, religion, or social norms.
Hey what a great idea. I could finally get those backyard topless sunbathing (insert name of actress here) that I've always wanted. Anyone got an extra space station ticket I could have?
Your close, but not quite there. PC depends on your perspective. Tradition US beliefs sure what you said is true. From a liberal bent it would be:
George Washington chopped down the cherry tree not because he wanted to, but that he was incorrectly indoctrinated by his male dominated society to disrespect the environment.
Half of what is required learning in public schools on history is watered down, and the other half are the hold over myths such as old George's axe rampage.
Here's a few more myths to dispell since we are veering off topic.
In God We Trust. Not the motto our nation was founded on. Added during the cold war to make sure we appeared more rightious. Same goes for the "Under God" in the pledge. The US was not founded by your modern friendly, though annoying, Christians, but by criminals, religious fanatics, outcasts, and profiteers. The settling (stealing) of the US led to the deaths of 20+ million Native Americans (Not to mention the slave trade, but that is full of it's own myths too.) through disease, starvation, murder, and warfare. I might add that's more than Hitler managed to kill.
I would love to see little tid-bits like that in the history books. Would make History class easier to pay attention in.
You're compairing apples to oranges. A scooter is designed to operate on the road. They are looking to the Segway where only pedestrians are normally allowed. It's a different animal looking to fill a different nitch. SAM's used to put there employees, especially the cute girls in roller blades, to zip around the store doing errands and customer service. Same concept for the Segway. Zoo's, guided tours, security, messengers, you get the idea. Saw a ton of these things at Epcot Center in Florida. These guys were roving information booths and probably security to boot. It's a good concept and if it can be cut in half in size I can imagine quite a few people who have many miles everyday will look into them to be more productive. Personally I think they just need to close off a lot of the streets to cars and make everyone use shuttles or bikes, but then that's just me.
Have you played online lately? [Sarcasm]Little dirty mouthed brats are invading everything. They whine, the team kill, they cry, they yell and those are the one's in their twenties. The one's in their teens/preteens can be even worse![/Sarcasm] Can you tell I'm an old fart? Damn it where are my teeth? Reguardless I still love to game, and will be one of many in the years to come that will demand a pretty nurse and 100gbs transfer rate in my nursing home room. Back on topic forget trying to save everyone, we need to cut the population down anyway. I just want all the youngsters, the under 18 crowd and those that act it, off my favorite gaming servers. A little more control of the sale and policing(non-govt) of online games, if it results in better experience on line, sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Shoo, go home, the street lights are on, wash behind your ears and goto bed!
Cool idea, but it needs to be water proofed to (I like to scuba dive, but hate replacing flooded gear), and how about power? Not much good if you're batteries are always dead. Now if they could come up with a standard looking plastic book or pad that had solar collecting pages and cover (regular electricity isn't exactly enviro-friendly either), I'd be first in line, but reading books on a computer, laptop, or pda blows donkey balls.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear you, BF1942 is one of the most kick-ass games to have ever been created, but it is still that plain and simple. It would only take a game or two that came out to sit on the shelves with no purchases to make the rest sit up and take notice, but unfortunately noone has that kind of self control and as much as they like to bitch and moan, they are little inclined to do anything about it.
A Smart Weapon based on a dumb-ass concept. Hmm let see be held legally responsible for every bullet you've purchased. Purchase a firearm that cost twice as much and can be disabled by authorities at a distance. Yeh I'll take two please. First off, I don't think they've ever heard of a little concept called identity theft and second, the only way I'd be willing to buy into that is if the military and law enforcement had to as well. Of course they wouldn't want it since a thirteen year old with a wireless connection and laptop could hack their weapons making them fire in the holster or disable them. A firearm is a simple device with a simple role. Complicate that role and it becomes more dangerous to the user and nearly worthless as a tool. The only place I could see such a weapon be even remotely useful is in places such as prisons. Where those that it is to be used against do not have much in the way of resources to fight back. I guess it's noble to try to make it more difficult for firearms from being abused, but at the same time it's pretty pointless. I've got an idea, instead of chasing the symptoms as so many idealists/liberals typically do, how about going after the source, which is the scum that needs to be filtered from the gene pool. Make it illegal to have children without special safety training, a license, and being able to demonstrate a suitable degree of intelligence and competence. I think that would have a much greater impact on the problem of violence than trying to blame a inanimate object, and in the process waste a great deal of money on a useless scheme. Of course if we put restrictions on reproduction rights then there would be a few areas of the world that would die out in a single generation due to low birth rates. The again that's not entirely a bad thing, since California and parts of Europe are getting awfully crowded anyway.
This is true sort of. Like I mentioned before, Honda already has the market cornered in developing countries with the scooter. I saw a long article about it on one of the learning channels. They talked about how they would first offer the mopeds and large equipment to 3rd world countries, then small cars and trucks, and as demand increased eventually larger and more expensive vehicles would be offerred. They would be produced locally or in another third world country for nothing. The new bike this guy is offering is not established and isn't all that cheap to make by his discription of it. It looks more like it would be to target the lazy American and Euro types. Most cities do not allow gas assisted biycles on the sidewalks and bike paths. The electrics get away with it since they tend to be fairly slow and on top of that quiet. So to use this thing, you would have to ride in the street. Not the safest place to be these days. The real "hills" that keep people from using a bicycle as transportation, is convenience. Cities would have to make alternate transport more convenient before people would use them. Here's a short list. 1. Require companies to have locker rooms with showers for their employees.
2. Require them to have recharging stations with good bicycle parking areas, and subsidize electric bikes and kits with fuel taxes.
3. Usefull bike ways that are not just a two foot wide strip painted down each side of the street, but actual roads that do not allow standard vehicles on, or the useless recreational paths that don't lead anywhere. This includes elevated paths so that pedstrian, bicycle, and auto traffic don't have to intermingle. 4. Have more bikeways that follow major roads and highways. Not everyone is willing to bike a twenty mile commute, but you'd be surprised at the number who would if the roads where available. The nice thing about bikcycle roads is that they'd last nearly forever and only occational need repairs. 5. Make local ordinances my biker friendly, by allowing them into shopping areas, and making sure new buildings, shopping centers, and malls design with bicyclers in mind. I road my bike in college to class after my car broke down. Even after getting it fixed I continued to ride the bike. It took me 12 minutes to make it to class by bike, 5 minutes by car but it took anywhere from 5-30 min to find a parking spot and then another 5-10min walk to class. On top of that it would run $1-5 a day to pay for parking. Between the extra money I could spend on more important things like doritos or beer($6 would buy a case of beer and gas was $.85 gal at the time), I had an extra half hour to sleep in the morning and no stress over parking. Until cities actually plan for people to be able to make bikes that convenient and usefull you'll never see mass utilization of them power assisted or not. It's either that or when gas hits $4 a gallon you might see people start to break down and give it a try.
interesting idea, though not very comfortable, at least for me. I'll have to try some other combinations to see if it would better than the T formation everyone is using these days.
Sure they do. Where do you think they designed and tested them in the first place, on a MAC?
I'll give MicroSoft one thing. They have and continue to make some of the best peripherials for the PC. They seem to dick everything else up pretty well, but that's one department no one can really complain about.
Want games in Linux? Then stop buying games for Windows. It's that simple people.
I wouldn't call PS1/2 games mind blowingly complex. Find the key/weapon/item puzzle adventure games have been out since text based gaming. Anyone remember Madness and the Minotar? Consoles are for gamers that are afraid or don't want to be bothered with a PC or wish to play certain game types not available elsewhere. Admit it for the most part the PC lacks big time a descent variety of fighting, driving, or RPC games.
I would love it if PC games would take full advantage of available RAM. One load from the HD into RAM would mean only one long wait. After that a map would load in a second or two instead of the minute plus they do now. Let's see CD-ROM 7mb/s (real sucky), HD 30-30mb/s (better), 1-2GB of PC2700 RAM 2700mb/s (oh Yeh!) I had two 512mb sticks in my machine, but it had no affect on anything besides photoshop so I took it back out and sold it to a friend. Maybe next year we'll see a little more preloading of maps into ram to speed things up.
Sorry violent WASD is to slow and cuts off a whole column of keys. Move it to the right one and use ESDF then you've got three extra keys for weapon hot keys or A & G for left and right lean functions. (It also still works on the natural key boards that split at the G key) Or get really wacky and make it YGHJ if you just absoluting insist on programing every key bind in BattleField 1842 to be reachable by the left hand. If you want a controller to go with your mouse a friend of mine uses MicroSofts battlefield commander or what ever that wierd C&C controller they came up with is called. He had an easy time programing and then using all the easy to reach buttons and it was much faster than a joystick which tend to be set up for right handers anyway.
What I don't get is why every other "new" invention bashes electric by saying "this will tide us over till batteries get better and with gas you can fill up anywhere" I thought the whole point is to get away from gas once in for all. I have a good idea, how about spending a little more time and money on research on electric instead of fiddle farting around with glorified weed-whacker engines so we don't have to wait around. His claims of 85lbs for electric bikes are a bit off. They make NiMH electric conversions in the neighborhood of 20lbs. That's only ten pounds heavier than his "petite" 2 stroke. No gas or oil to mess with, no noise, no fumes, and nothing to have to tune up, just plug the thing in and go. I would also like to know where he rides where there is no electricity? Does he plan on using his bike for the two-hour commute into LA on the 405 during rush hour? Who would be willing to ride on a mountain bike for reasons other than sport far enough to actually run out of juice in the batteries, much less gas for his version. So range isn't really an issue since you could plug the thing in just about anywhere. This is another example of another fine product to "revolutionize" the world, as we know it. What this inventor has yet to figure out is those that are already willing to ride a bicycle to work are already doing so and that within a short period of time get in good enough shape to pedal it their damn selves, and don't need the extra weight and cost to get them up to the top of those theoretical "hills" these inventors always ramble on about as being the big determining factor as to why people don't ride bicycles. Here is a little clue for him, people who are too lazy to even pedal ten miles on a bike are certainly not going to want to even ride the same distance on a powered one. There's no heat & no AC for one, no protection from the elements, no comfortable bucket seat to park their fat ass in, no cd player, and where the hell are they going to plug in their cell phone and where are they going to put their McDonalds value meal #2 at along with all their junk they drag around with them? On top of that he hasn't even figured out the idea has already been done a thousand times, and that no one wants it. Don't take my word for it just look in the back of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine you find half a dozen conversion kits "that if you order now you'll get free shipping". Aside from having no clue I do give this guy bonus points for finally containing everything in the hub instead of the ridiculous bolt on contraptions some people have come up with electric or gas.
Past Projects:
Seti@home 4400cpu-hours
Presently:
United Devices 5400cpu-hours
Anthrax - completed
Cancer & Small Pox - running
Considering up till Seti@home came along, ask anyone what distributed computing was and they'd scratch their head and say "I donno" "Worthwhile" endevors cannot begin until somebody completes the ground work and research. I think the Seti@home program is brilliant, even though I support UD cancer project now. They created a simple piece of software and for the cost of a few servers and bandwidth they ended up with one of the most powerful computers on the planet. Doesn't exactly sound like a waste of time to me. Once individuals, schools, research orginizations, and companies saw the potential of such a system and what kind of support it could receive, a great deal has been invested in projects that are "worthwhile". So don't knock the inovators they opened the door for everyone else to step through.
Screw the mile high club, how about the 200 mile high club. Fooling around in an elevator defintely wouldn't be a quicky anymore. ....floor 26,153 lady's lingerie
Also what about those bratty kids that hit every button and then jump off the elevator. If you got caught in one of those you'd starve to death before reaching orbit.
Got the nail right on the head. I personally like the concept put forward in the Star Ship Troopers book, not the movie(the movie was pretty far off from the book, but who wouldn't like co-ed basic training). Pretty much two kinds of people civilians and citizens. Civilians where the type that are willing to roll over and submit to what ever is needed to "protect them" as a consequence they could not hold public office or vote. Shy of opinion polls he had no say in what the government did. On the other hand the citizen could, but the catch was that he had to earn it. The next generation (it doesn't matter which, it's always the next one) doesn't apprietiate the sacrifices of the previous (Wars, monetary, time, and effort). Well instead of handing them their freedom and the rights on a silver platter for them to squander, they had to earn it through public service. Public service could be anything from being a cop or a fireman to serving in the Mobile Infantry. Basically it had to be any form of duty that was for the benefit of society, but at personal risk to the individual. In the end, in theory, it would at least put people in the government that cared more about the whole of society than themselves. In this system the sheep could go on being sheep, and hopefully it would create shepards of greater moral character than the typical "public servants" we have in office these days.
Great now I'm going to have to carry a microwave around in my pants if I want to shoplift! They've talked about using a microwave for small clothes driers for years. I'm sure anyone whose seen Uncle Buck has tried it at least once. Works fine on cottons. Just make sure you don't have any change or anything metal in your pockets.
The author of the comparison forgets little things like the ammounts of RAM, bus speed and the harddrive have a drastic impact on simple data crunching operations. He goes for what the typical computer ignorant consumer always goes for, processor speed. I agree with the above poster I would have like to seen the machines put through their paces with special effects applications and adjustments which can really bog down a machine. I also can't find any referance in his test to what his settings in Photoshop are. Important ones like scratch disk settings or maxium ram ussage. While I don't doubt the latests PC's could smoke a Mac in many of the applications, I would have like to seen it. Rather than some half-assed test that has too many disparities to be usefull or prove anything.
Also in response to the FPS of a digital camera. Why would you need more than 3 seconds of sustained photo shooting, what are shooting, a movie? Besides go look at the digital Nikons if you want some more FPS. Cannon has been dragging ass with their digital cameras, and needs to play catch-up. (Funny it used to be that film looked better than digital, now it's just digital is slower.)
Yeh, he was an evil SOB. My only real point is that their isn't a country or group of people that aren't at least ankle deep in the blood of people they've sought to slaughter.
If they can put all the data they want into bactery then donwloading files could get pretty kinky. My question would be how would antivirus work (pill or harddrive?), and how would computer geeks ever get and new software?
She said she downloaded that MP3 from a safe place doc, but after I got the song from her it started burning when I pee.
The point is humans are not the only game in town. As far as better, I'll take a chimp or a dolphin over half of the people on this planet any day. It's not a question of will they be "equal" or "better", but rather than assuming that it's just a dumb animal (organic automation), and is repeatedly being proven that animals can think, learn, problem solve, count, have emotions, have language, play, and intentially kill over territory, group, race and species. To lift a quote from an animal research program (Love discovery/animal planet/history channel) "It's becoming apparent that intelligence whether animal or human is a question of degree rather than type." . Hope I didn't butcher that to badly. The above commenter seems to hold onto the human arrogance that we are the only ones that can do what we do. They also miss the fact that that the "Bar" does get moved, as it always has in the past, when ever something new comes along that might contradict long held beliefs in science, religion, or social norms.
Hey what a great idea. I could finally get those backyard topless sunbathing (insert name of actress here) that I've always wanted. Anyone got an extra space station ticket I could have?
Half of what is required learning in public schools on history is watered down, and the other half are the hold over myths such as old George's axe rampage.
Here's a few more myths to dispell since we are veering off topic.
In God We Trust. Not the motto our nation was founded on. Added during the cold war to make sure we appeared more rightious. Same goes for the "Under God" in the pledge. The US was not founded by your modern friendly, though annoying, Christians, but by criminals, religious fanatics, outcasts, and profiteers. The settling (stealing) of the US led to the deaths of 20+ million Native Americans (Not to mention the slave trade, but that is full of it's own myths too.) through disease, starvation, murder, and warfare. I might add that's more than Hitler managed to kill.
I would love to see little tid-bits like that in the history books. Would make History class easier to pay attention in.
You're compairing apples to oranges. A scooter is designed to operate on the road. They are looking to the Segway where only pedestrians are normally allowed. It's a different animal looking to fill a different nitch. SAM's used to put there employees, especially the cute girls in roller blades, to zip around the store doing errands and customer service. Same concept for the Segway. Zoo's, guided tours, security, messengers, you get the idea. Saw a ton of these things at Epcot Center in Florida. These guys were roving information booths and probably security to boot. It's a good concept and if it can be cut in half in size I can imagine quite a few people who have many miles everyday will look into them to be more productive. Personally I think they just need to close off a lot of the streets to cars and make everyone use shuttles or bikes, but then that's just me.
Have you played online lately? [Sarcasm]Little dirty mouthed brats are invading everything. They whine, the team kill, they cry, they yell and those are the one's in their twenties. The one's in their teens/preteens can be even worse![/Sarcasm] Can you tell I'm an old fart? Damn it where are my teeth? Reguardless I still love to game, and will be one of many in the years to come that will demand a pretty nurse and 100gbs transfer rate in my nursing home room. Back on topic forget trying to save everyone, we need to cut the population down anyway. I just want all the youngsters, the under 18 crowd and those that act it, off my favorite gaming servers. A little more control of the sale and policing(non-govt) of online games, if it results in better experience on line, sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Shoo, go home, the street lights are on, wash behind your ears and goto bed!
Cool idea, but it needs to be water proofed to (I like to scuba dive, but hate replacing flooded gear), and how about power? Not much good if you're batteries are always dead. Now if they could come up with a standard looking plastic book or pad that had solar collecting pages and cover (regular electricity isn't exactly enviro-friendly either), I'd be first in line, but reading books on a computer, laptop, or pda blows donkey balls.