I haven't gotten in a good meta-discussion in a while, so here goes...
I've read the.sigs that say "all troll/offtopic mods are M2'd 'unfair'". But my M2 experience is that there are very few negative mods... I'd say I average 2 negative mods per session of 10, rarely 3 or 4, more often 1 or none.
I've only had a few opportunities to M2 mods of troll posts, and all were Fairly modded as Offtopic or Troll.
It would take a lot for me to M2 a positive mod as "unfair", but up-modding the GNAA post would definitely get a big thumbs-down.
Other than the obvious trolls, though, I've only found one time in M1 that I needed to mod a post down. This post was a cut-and-paste duplicate of an earlier post -- the fool even copied the original poster's.sig! The original poster saw what was going on and posted a reply that tipped me off, so the "+5, Informative" post got a -1 Redundant from me.
I got M2'd "unfair". Crap. But I'm vindicated by the post's current score: "0, Redundant".
Woo hoo! My TRS-80 isn't listed... my wife will *love* the closet space that will free up.
Oh, shoot, the page goes on to say "nothing mass-produced unless it has a low serial number" -- and they're talking about low as in less-than-or-equal-to 000030 or so. I'll have to take a look...
On the other hand, even if they would take my TRS-80, I don't think I could part with it. Even though my brilliant assembly-language terminal program (for my 300-baud modem with toggle switch for "answer-off-originate") has likely turned into just so much oxide on a decaying cassette tape.
On a side note... I was surfing the site when all of a sudden, it stopped responding. Sure enough, the Slashdot story had gone live.
Slashdot subscription: five bucks Being able to visit a feature site before it's Slashdotted to death: Priceless
Fry's has gadgets galore, and it is indeed a geek's paradise... but that's at the expense of all the "normal" people out there. Great place to buy a computer if you know exactly what you want, but don't even bother asking the sales people any questions.
True story: we're moving to a new place and needed a refrigerator. Salesman "A" said yeah, we can put things in "will call" so that you can pick it up later. I was suspicious, so I talked to Salesman "C". It took about 5 minutes before he realized I was talking about a refrigerator and not a CD or DVD... then, he pointed out that "will call" is actually the big cage in the checkout area, and that they weren't likely to put a refrigerator in the cage. Where was salesman "B"? He literally turned and ran when he saw me approaching -- I'd heard about it, but had never seen it firsthand.
The punch line is that we bought the fridge there anyway... it was $100 or so less than anywhere else. Maybe the sales staff are all volunteers, or something? That would explain a lot.
It should also be pointed out that Fry's has a full selection of snacks, multiple pop machines, and a shampoo aisle. Go figure.
Since this is way offtopic by now, I'll give myself a -1 right off the bat.
You noted: Then, what would you do if we added Natalie Portman to your island?? (hot grits included) Yea, that's what I thought.
Oddly enough, that's just what the dissenter quoted in the article said:
"There are differences in behavior between mice raised in standard versus enriched housing, but which are 'better' or 'normal' cannot be straightforwardly answered. Mus musculus, the house mouse, has been raised in 'barren' laboratory cages for hundreds of generations, where most breed quite well, and it should at least be considered that this caging condition is, in some sense, their natural habitat."
Following that line of reasoning, the "natural habitat" for the average Slashdotter would be just as you suggested: a 10x10 meter island with a coconut tree, hot grits, and Natalie Portman.
But the most interesting feature of the Wrist PDA has nothing to do with the Palm functionality. In watch mode, when the thing is just telling time, you can scroll through and select from a wide variety of different watch-face designs. This is the first watch I know of that lets you pick the way its face looks and change that look as often as you like.
Well, duh! It's a Palm, so of course you can make the watch have whatever face you want!
My Palm III (all of $11 on eBay) has multiple clock faces, too -- Analog, Big Digital Clock with world time and weekday-only alarms, another Analog version, and my favorite, the Hell Clock with built-in countdown to Halloween. "Hell Clock" is the one that I like to beam to the cell phones at the Verizon store, to give them more "visual interest".
I'd have dozens more, but I lost interest after four. And I didn't pay one red cent for any of 'em (all were freeware at the time).
Dictionary attack now way too easy!
on
Inkblot Passwords
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· Score: 2, Funny
We ask you to look at the inkblot, see whatever you see in the inkblot, and type a short abbreviation of what you see. The first and last letter works well.
Sounds to me like this is tailor-made for dictionary attacks. The only letters you'll need to break into any/.er's computer would be P[]Y, T[]S, A[]S...
(Oh, crap, I'd better post AC or else I'll lose my squeaky-clean image!)
An example he gives: adding a record to the hospital database for a guy named "John F. Kennedy". It doesn't correspond to a real person, so no one has any business looking at the file.
Of course, there are some places where "John F. Kennedy" is a perfectly valid database entry. Actually, it's a database entry for which a lot of people make it their business to look at the file.
Which, I suppose, shows exactly why the Honeytoken concept makes sense...
Maybe they can run with the Buffalo?
on
Cloning Mammoths
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· Score: 1
Yeah, that's the ticket. Once a genetically diverse herd of Wooly Mammoths has been developed, we can allow them to roam freely over their former territory. This may cause some slight inconvenience for commuters in Saskatchewan.
Meanwhile, we can open up the gates of Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and allow the buffalo to run free across the vast North American prairie. Note that the cities of Bartlesville, Tulsa, and Wichita will be the first scheduled for "redevelopment" as prairie, with their residents relocated to a biodome in the Gulf of Mexico.
The concept of showing off the latest technology with a dazzling display of its power has been done before, though I'm sure we can all hope that it doesn't have the same unexpected results as the famous Crash At Crush. From the Handbook of Texas:
CRASH AT CRUSH. A plaque fifteen miles north of Waco in McLennan County marks the site of the "Crash at Crush." On September 15, 1896, more than 40,000 people flocked to this spot to witness one of the most spectacular publicity stunts of the nineteenth century-a planned train wreck. The man behind this unusual event was William George Crush, passenger agent for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. In 1895 Crush proposed to Katy officials that the company stage a train wreck as an attraction; he planned to advertise the event months in advance, sell tickets to transport spectators to and from the site on Katy trains, and then run two old locomotives head-on into each other.
I don't know if Murphy's Law had been established in 1895, but its results were in clear evidence: despite assurances that it couldn't happen, one of the train's boilers exploded upon the collision. The result (as sung by Texas songwriter Brian Burns):
The engines met in a thunderous crash and climbed each other toward the sky,
the impact rattled the earth for miles around, and the twisted wreckage did fly. In a moment more the boilers exploded, and the steam blocked out the sun, some lost their lives while others lie bleeding, and the rest of them could only run.
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, wheels a-rumblin' on the railroad track, once they go they can't turn back, once they go they can't turn back.
In a cotton field near Waco, Texas between two peaceful hills a sign reminds us to hold respect for the power of the beasts we build, and you and I in our lifetimes will never get to feel such a rush as the people who saw and lived to tell of the awesome crash at Crush.
Frankly, I can't see any way to stage an "X-Prize Cup", with multiple competitors simultaneously trying for the biggest spectacle, without chancing a repeat of the Crash At Crush. That said, I'd buy a ticket... but I'd leave the kids at home.
It's not two lemons and a piece of copper wire. If he's talking about creating a fruit-based battery, he needs:
* One lemon (or any compatible citrus fruit)
* A chunk of copper
* A chunk of zinc
If I remember my daughter's 4th grade science experiment correctly, I'll need about a half dozen in series to run my Palm III.
Of course, I wondered how the lemon (and the orange, and the potato) would *taste* after the electrical potential had been depleted... and what would happen if I tried to recharge the "battery"?
By the way, she came in 2nd place, mostly because Dad didn't print up fancy titles for her project board like he was supposed to. Bad Dad!
The comment ends with a deep comment that took me by surprise:
MMORPGS are a sort of entertainment and therapy that perhaps most of you don't understand. I see nothing but positives with MMORPGS for the future. I see military training possibilities, I see Prisoner rehabilitation, advanced learning, and a whole new economy that is just in it's infant stage.
I wasn't looking for depth today, just mind candy, but this is a nice tidbit. But it's a bit simplistic to call these "nothing but positives," don't you think? Advanced learning and an RPG workplace are great, but what about...
Military Training: There's a whole thread's worth of discussion on whether that would be a Good Thing. Actually, didn't the Army already use something similar as a recruitment tool? (too lazy to look for links, sorry)
Prisoner Rehabilitation: Talk about the law of unintended consequences. I remember the hubbub when it was discovered that prisons were contracting out services for processing credit cards, or some such private data. I like the idea of using the MMORPG concept to help educate those who are willing to learn, but don't forget that there are Bad Guys in prison, too. Imagine interacting with a virtual Charles Manson? Without knowing it?
On the other hand, I just this week finally watched The Matrix (the first one!). The Agent was right about humanity -- something in us rejects the notion of a perfect world. We *need* complexity and ambiguity in our lives to make them "real". I still can't decide if I'd go for Red or Blue, myself.
I've been using Opera (in "free with banner-ad" mode) for maybe a couple hundred years now -- don't know how long for real, because I cringe at the thought of using Explorer. I used to have to switch to IE for some work-required sites, but the new version (7.11, aka the "Slurpee" version) has whittled my IE requirements down to just one boneheaded site.
But the best test came when my mother sat down to do a job search using IE. She was immediately assailed by popups, so I helpfully pointed out that you don't get popups with Opera unless you want them. I showed her where to click... and she's hooked. Score one more for the Norwegians!
On the other hand, my wife and 12-year-old daughter don't like Opera. In both cases, I think it's because Opera doesn't have enough security holes, and it interferes with their game downloads. I shudder to think what I might find if I were to install ZoneAlarm...
I think the mechanism here isn't the oversimplified, neo-Freudian "competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women." That would imply that only men lose their creative edge when their priorities shift.
A broader look at the subject would show a parallel with a more modern topic: anti-depression medications. There are plenty of examples of highly creative people -- geniuses in their fields -- whose creativity would likely have been quashed if they'd had access to a good Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Poet Emily Dickinson and artist Vincent Van Gogh come to mind, but I'm sure there are many others.
The problem, as I see it, isn't that having a family takes something away from a would-be genius... any more than an appropriate dosage of Prozac does. What both do, ideally, is give the person a sense of contentment, a feeling that things are the way they should be.
Creativity, in the end, often requires adversity to bring it out. Remove the adversity, and the creativity (or "genius") may seem to be extinguished. But as the examples in this discussion show -- Bach, Hawking, et al -- it is possible to achieve both genius and happiness. It just doesn't happen very often.
One of the choice quotes from the National Grocer's Association: "You do give up a bit of privacy but the benefit could be that you live"
Wow. That's just about the most amazing one-line FUD I've ever read! That's even better than the usual "extended warranty" scam... you know, "buy this utterly reliable product, then buy the extended warranty because you never know when it will break."
In other words, the spokesman for the National Grocers Association is telling us that we are at risk of death every time we enter a grocery store. Thanks for the warning! I guess I'd better go back to raising my own meat rabbits.
Just for irony's sake, check out the NGA's Competing Against Supercenters page, which features "8 Ways to Beat Wal-Mart". Which, of course, is the company that started this whole topic.
On the plus side, I want that AP Photo of the ant among the chips for my desktop!
I have never been any good at poker... in high school, playing nickel-ante poker, I lost about $25 to just one of my friends. Typically, after about 15 minutes of play, everyone was playing with "my" money.
But recently, I spent some quality time with a hand-held poker game, and played the "hundreds or thousands" of games as described in the article. Not enough to become an expert, but I did come up with a technique to make my 100 credits last longer.
I hacked away as much complexity as I could. The heart of my method is to forget about the effect of getting two cards you need. The chances of getting two specific cards is something like 1/52 * 1/52 = 1/2704 -- too small to care about. So the entire method is about the next card.
Of course, I put it online: How To Lose Less At Video Poker. At the risk of slashdotting my own server, I'm curious if anyone can find any obvious flaws in the method.
I found this Java-based tutorial that purports to generate the "optimum payout" -- it often disagrees with me, presumably because it's trying for big payouts. My method doesn't promise profit, only smaller losses.
An important disclaimer: I've never used my method with any non-trivial amount of actual cash. Here in Texas, there are video poker machines in every Quickie Mart, but I just don't see the appeal. Now, if they would put in a Pac-Man machine...
Get some on who can talk on your level to tell you about relativity and then maybee youll understand why we dont send manned missions to jupiter.
I'll confess right away that my knowledge of Einstein's physics is extremely limited. I've allocated those brain cells to the Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling and Capitalization Department.:) But what would it be about Relativity that would preclude a manned mission to Jupiter?
Yes, the speed of light would cause a huge latency in communications -- anywhere from 35 to 51 minutes according to these calculations. But that's hardly a restriction. The communications lag between Europe and the Americas was measured in months, and that didn't prevent exploration and migration (though it sure made it tough). On the other hand, it does make it hard to teleoperate a robotic craft... an awful lot can go wrong in an hour. Is "meltdown" even an appropriate term when there is no "down"?
The only other effect of relativity I can think of would be the part where the faster you go, the slower time is. That's a huge over simplification, I know! But I believe this effect is negligible over non-relativistic speeds -- and we're not looking at anything approaching the speed of light for a trip to Jupiter.
Besides, while the proposal bounced around in the article and discussion is about a Jupiter mission, there's no reason the first nuclear-powered space flight must be (or even should be) to a far-away destination. Just fly around the moon a few times, or something.:)
Or did you mean the kind of "relativity" that happens around the table at Thanksgiving?
Thinking that there could be no better recommendation for GreenCine than that of Slashdot, I signed up. I figured it would be worth trying out, if only to see how slow the shipping would be from Cali to Dallas.
Then, I started putting movies in the queue. What appealed to me was the huge selection of Anime that's not available at Netflix. So I started putting them in the bucket.
Cardcaptor Sakura #3: Long Wait Chobits #1: Long Wait Fruits Basket #3: Available! Mahoromatic #2: Long Wait Love Hina #1: Long Wait
Out of 16 anime movies I put in the queue, only three were available -- and one of those was almost a gimme (Panda! Go Panda!, an early Miyazaki film, available on Netflix anyway).
With a 3/16 ratio of available-to-long-wait, I decided it wasn't going to be worth it. I cancelled before they shipped anything, so hopefully I at least saved GreenCine a couple bucks in shipping costs.
I like the GreenCine "community" concept, and I think they've got a great chance. But they've got to mature a bit before I move my 400+ Netflix queue over to them. I haven't had any trouble with Netflix in my entire six months... I'm just glad I'm not on the New York area!
The early explorations of the Americas, IIRC, were intended to 1) find a shorter route from point A to point B, 2) exploit the resources, and 3) establish settlements. Unfortunately, none of these lead directly to getting more manned missions:
1) Space, like the American continents, isn't a shortcut to anywhere (although communicaions satellites do provide a "shortcut" for information -- but not people).
2) It's still cheaper to rape Earth-bound resources than it is to mine an asteroid (unless it's made of solid gold, of course).
3) In the countries that currently have the ability to launch manned rockets, life just isn't miserable enough to leave -- at least, not on a rocket.
I'm very encouraged by the development of manned rocketry by countries like China and India -- where there *are* conditions miserable enough for people to make a Mayflower-like pilgrimage to the stars in search of a better life. I don't see boatloads of US citizens lining up to launch into space to avoid road rage.
And did the presence of humans help with Columbia or Challenger?
As cool as the shuttle program is, I'm afraid it's turned out to be another example of overengineering: so heavily dependent on supposedly failsafe systems that a single failure (O-ring, foam strike) destroys the entire system.
Contrast with the comparatively simple Soyuz launch system. It may seem primitive, but by golly, the thing usually works. And when it doesn't, you can still survive (though "15-17 Gs" doesn't sound like a picnic in the Russian countryside).
And the reference to Cook's terrestrial explorations has another parallel with space exploration: sailors on his ships (or any ship of the time) had no guarantee that they'd make it back home. They don't call it a "widow's walk" for nothing. I'm not sure we can get anywhere on the "new frontier" until we're able to accept the sort of losses that were common on the "old frontier".
Of course, this is easy to say, sitting in a comfy chair in an air-conditioned office, listening for the boss' footsteps so I can minimize my browser when she walks by...
Unless you buy into the notion that all the Mars probe failures were due to xenophobic Martians, we've recently witnessed several examples of unmanned, robotic craft turning into expensive piles of junk for reasons ranging from the sublime (legs bounced harder than expected) to the ridiculous (meters? feet? what's the difference?).
Contrast those catastrophic failures with events on human-occupied craft. Fires and collisions on Mir, and of course Apollo 13 for those who get their science from the local multiplex -- yet the craft kept flying, due to human involvement and ingenuity. The conclusion is clear: the more complex the system, the more likely you need a non-silicon-based intelligence to keep it from self-destructing.
To address the issue at hand: NASA wants to send a nuclear-powered spaceship to Jupiter? Cool, but you'd darned well better include a crew compartment, unless you *want* to see what happens during a space-based meltdown.
The bottom line is that there is no way to predict everything that can go wrong with any complex system. That's why we need more manned missions. Spend less money on absolutely "perfect" systems, and more on systems to support a human presence to fix it when it breaks.
After all, Captain Cook explored the south Pacific with nothing more than boats of wood, and men of iron. He also had a whip, and generous quantities of very strong beer...
I'm not trying to troll... I just want to make sure he did something worthy.
Jesse Jordan wrote a search engine, registered a cool domain name, then used the site to clearly document his fight. To top it all off, he cut off donations when he made back the $12k, and implores us to send our donations to...
The other guy, Daniel Peng. His website is just a single page -- tiny by comparison. But he comes highly recommended, by Slashdot and the afore-mentioned Jordan.
Other than that, can y'all remind me why I should support Peng?
By the way, I'd ask Paypal folks to please contribute more than a buck. Paypal fees (30c + 2.9%) will turn your $1 contribution into a 67c contribution, but he'll get about $4.55 if you give $5.
From the article: ACPF: Finally, for the peace of mind of the gaming community, how is life treating you at the moment?
Wow, these are some mighty depressing quotes:
Jeff:...I work mostly to satisfy myself and am easily pleased. I like trying my hand at a variety of tasks...
Translation: He has no life, to speak of.
Warren:...Iâ(TM)m working on a prototype of a new game at the moment. I recently directed a short film, and I continue to work as an actor on stage and occasionally on screen.
Why didn't he just say he's working on the Great American Novel? As in, he's bought the typewriter and blank paper...
David:...My new challenge it to prove to potential employers that I have something to offer as my last game audio is older than the many of the companies that I am applying to.
The most damning eventuality of all: the expert buggy-whip maker returns to the business, only to find that the Model T has been invented. Myself, I used to be a pretty good "C" programmer... and got sidetracked into the Visual Basic world just as something called "C Plus Plus" was being developed...
Overall, it's not good news for the generation that was *there* when Pac Man and Space Invaders were new. As much as we'd like to think "everything old is new again", it's more like "they put a car park on the piece of land..."
Since this news article has been added to the index, this one is the first in the array...
But we can be almost assured that there will be another member (probably several) added to the array before portability is actually achieved. This will make things very complex indeed if new elements are added at index zero! Do we have access to This element number?
However, it would not take long before the open source community optmized the code to add new stories as elements at the *end* of the array. In that case, the previous articles are here(0) through here(4), and "This" article is the new here(5). So you're both right: the current article is part of the here() array, but it's probably here(5), so the indexes do need to be corrected.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't gotten in a good meta-discussion in a while, so here goes...
.sigs that say "all troll/offtopic mods are M2'd 'unfair'". But my M2 experience is that there are very few negative mods... I'd say I average 2 negative mods per session of 10, rarely 3 or 4, more often 1 or none.
.sig! The original poster saw what was going on and posted a reply that tipped me off, so the "+5, Informative" post got a -1 Redundant from me.
I've read the
I've only had a few opportunities to M2 mods of troll posts, and all were Fairly modded as Offtopic or Troll.
It would take a lot for me to M2 a positive mod as "unfair", but up-modding the GNAA post would definitely get a big thumbs-down.
Other than the obvious trolls, though, I've only found one time in M1 that I needed to mod a post down. This post was a cut-and-paste duplicate of an earlier post -- the fool even copied the original poster's
I got M2'd "unfair". Crap. But I'm vindicated by the post's current score: "0, Redundant".
That's my little story of M2. Now go to sleep.
Woo hoo! My TRS-80 isn't listed... my wife will *love* the closet space that will free up.
Oh, shoot, the page goes on to say "nothing mass-produced unless it has a low serial number" -- and they're talking about low as in less-than-or-equal-to 000030 or so. I'll have to take a look...
On the other hand, even if they would take my TRS-80, I don't think I could part with it. Even though my brilliant assembly-language terminal program (for my 300-baud modem with toggle switch for "answer-off-originate") has likely turned into just so much oxide on a decaying cassette tape.
On a side note... I was surfing the site when all of a sudden, it stopped responding. Sure enough, the Slashdot story had gone live.
Slashdot subscription: five bucks
Being able to visit a feature site before it's Slashdotted to death: Priceless
Fry's has gadgets galore, and it is indeed a geek's paradise... but that's at the expense of all the "normal" people out there. Great place to buy a computer if you know exactly what you want, but don't even bother asking the sales people any questions.
True story: we're moving to a new place and needed a refrigerator. Salesman "A" said yeah, we can put things in "will call" so that you can pick it up later. I was suspicious, so I talked to Salesman "C". It took about 5 minutes before he realized I was talking about a refrigerator and not a CD or DVD... then, he pointed out that "will call" is actually the big cage in the checkout area, and that they weren't likely to put a refrigerator in the cage. Where was salesman "B"? He literally turned and ran when he saw me approaching -- I'd heard about it, but had never seen it firsthand.
The punch line is that we bought the fridge there anyway... it was $100 or so less than anywhere else. Maybe the sales staff are all volunteers, or something? That would explain a lot.
It should also be pointed out that Fry's has a full selection of snacks, multiple pop machines, and a shampoo aisle. Go figure.
Since this is way offtopic by now, I'll give myself a -1 right off the bat.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who saw this:
based on the 14443 standard
and read this:
based on the 31337 standard
You noted: Then, what would you do if we added Natalie Portman to your island?? (hot grits included) Yea, that's what I thought.
Oddly enough, that's just what the dissenter quoted in the article said:
"There are differences in behavior between mice raised in standard versus enriched housing, but which are 'better' or 'normal' cannot be straightforwardly answered. Mus musculus, the house mouse, has been raised in 'barren' laboratory cages for hundreds of generations, where most breed quite well, and it should at least be considered that this caging condition is, in some sense, their natural habitat."
Following that line of reasoning, the "natural habitat" for the average Slashdotter would be just as you suggested: a 10x10 meter island with a coconut tree, hot grits, and Natalie Portman.
So, where do we sign up?
This is one of the best articles I've read in a long time, and I'm sure I'll have an intelligent comment later. But for now, here's this summary:
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
mice mice mice mice mice
mouse
And at the bottom:
© Copyright 2003 The Walt Disney Company
From the article:
But the most interesting feature of the Wrist PDA has nothing to do with the Palm functionality. In watch mode, when the thing is just telling time, you can scroll through and select from a wide variety of different watch-face designs. This is the first watch I know of that lets you pick the way its face looks and change that look as often as you like.
Well, duh! It's a Palm, so of course you can make the watch have whatever face you want!
My Palm III (all of $11 on eBay) has multiple clock faces, too -- Analog, Big Digital Clock with world time and weekday-only alarms, another Analog version, and my favorite, the Hell Clock with built-in countdown to Halloween. "Hell Clock" is the one that I like to beam to the cell phones at the Verizon store, to give them more "visual interest".
I'd have dozens more, but I lost interest after four. And I didn't pay one red cent for any of 'em (all were freeware at the time).
We ask you to look at the inkblot, see whatever you see in the inkblot, and type a short abbreviation of what you see. The first and last letter works well.
/.er's computer would be P[]Y, T[]S, A[]S...
Sounds to me like this is tailor-made for dictionary attacks. The only letters you'll need to break into any
(Oh, crap, I'd better post AC or else I'll lose my squeaky-clean image!)
An example he gives: adding a record to the hospital database for a guy named "John F. Kennedy". It doesn't correspond to a real person, so no one has any business looking at the file.
Of course, there are some places where "John F. Kennedy" is a perfectly valid database entry. Actually, it's a database entry for which a lot of people make it their business to look at the file.
Which, I suppose, shows exactly why the Honeytoken concept makes sense...
Yeah, that's the ticket. Once a genetically diverse herd of Wooly Mammoths has been developed, we can allow them to roam freely over their former territory. This may cause some slight inconvenience for commuters in Saskatchewan.
Meanwhile, we can open up the gates of Oklahoma's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and allow the buffalo to run free across the vast North American prairie. Note that the cities of Bartlesville, Tulsa, and Wichita will be the first scheduled for "redevelopment" as prairie, with their residents relocated to a biodome in the Gulf of Mexico.
And yes, I know the North American "buffalo" is more properly termed a "bison", but when you're sitting by the campfire eating Braised Buffalo Tongue with Mushroom Sauce, who cares?
I don't know if Murphy's Law had been established in 1895, but its results were in clear evidence: despite assurances that it couldn't happen, one of the train's boilers exploded upon the collision. The result (as sung by Texas songwriter Brian Burns):
Frankly, I can't see any way to stage an "X-Prize Cup", with multiple competitors simultaneously trying for the biggest spectacle, without chancing a repeat of the Crash At Crush. That said, I'd buy a ticket... but I'd leave the kids at home.
It's not two lemons and a piece of copper wire. If he's talking about creating a fruit-based battery, he needs:
* One lemon (or any compatible citrus fruit)
* A chunk of copper
* A chunk of zinc
If I remember my daughter's 4th grade science experiment correctly, I'll need about a half dozen in series to run my Palm III.
Of course, I wondered how the lemon (and the orange, and the potato) would *taste* after the electrical potential had been depleted... and what would happen if I tried to recharge the "battery"?
By the way, she came in 2nd place, mostly because Dad didn't print up fancy titles for her project board like he was supposed to. Bad Dad!
The comment ends with a deep comment that took me by surprise:
MMORPGS are a sort of entertainment and therapy that perhaps most of you don't understand. I see nothing but positives with MMORPGS for the future. I see military training possibilities, I see Prisoner rehabilitation, advanced learning, and a whole new economy that is just in it's infant stage.
I wasn't looking for depth today, just mind candy, but this is a nice tidbit. But it's a bit simplistic to call these "nothing but positives," don't you think? Advanced learning and an RPG workplace are great, but what about...
Military Training: There's a whole thread's worth of discussion on whether that would be a Good Thing. Actually, didn't the Army already use something similar as a recruitment tool? (too lazy to look for links, sorry)
Prisoner Rehabilitation: Talk about the law of unintended consequences. I remember the hubbub when it was discovered that prisons were contracting out services for processing credit cards, or some such private data. I like the idea of using the MMORPG concept to help educate those who are willing to learn, but don't forget that there are Bad Guys in prison, too. Imagine interacting with a virtual Charles Manson? Without knowing it?
On the other hand, I just this week finally watched The Matrix (the first one!). The Agent was right about humanity -- something in us rejects the notion of a perfect world. We *need* complexity and ambiguity in our lives to make them "real". I still can't decide if I'd go for Red or Blue, myself.
I've been using Opera (in "free with banner-ad" mode) for maybe a couple hundred years now -- don't know how long for real, because I cringe at the thought of using Explorer. I used to have to switch to IE for some work-required sites, but the new version (7.11, aka the "Slurpee" version) has whittled my IE requirements down to just one boneheaded site.
But the best test came when my mother sat down to do a job search using IE. She was immediately assailed by popups, so I helpfully pointed out that you don't get popups with Opera unless you want them. I showed her where to click... and she's hooked. Score one more for the Norwegians!
On the other hand, my wife and 12-year-old daughter don't like Opera. In both cases, I think it's because Opera doesn't have enough security holes, and it interferes with their game downloads. I shudder to think what I might find if I were to install ZoneAlarm...
I think the mechanism here isn't the oversimplified, neo-Freudian "competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women." That would imply that only men lose their creative edge when their priorities shift.
A broader look at the subject would show a parallel with a more modern topic: anti-depression medications. There are plenty of examples of highly creative people -- geniuses in their fields -- whose creativity would likely have been quashed if they'd had access to a good Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Poet Emily Dickinson and artist Vincent Van Gogh come to mind, but I'm sure there are many others.
The problem, as I see it, isn't that having a family takes something away from a would-be genius... any more than an appropriate dosage of Prozac does. What both do, ideally, is give the person a sense of contentment, a feeling that things are the way they should be.
Creativity, in the end, often requires adversity to bring it out. Remove the adversity, and the creativity (or "genius") may seem to be extinguished. But as the examples in this discussion show -- Bach, Hawking, et al -- it is possible to achieve both genius and happiness. It just doesn't happen very often.
One of the choice quotes from the National Grocer's Association:
"You do give up a bit of privacy but the benefit could be that you live"
Wow. That's just about the most amazing one-line FUD I've ever read! That's even better than the usual "extended warranty" scam... you know, "buy this utterly reliable product, then buy the extended warranty because you never know when it will break."
In other words, the spokesman for the National Grocers Association is telling us that we are at risk of death every time we enter a grocery store. Thanks for the warning! I guess I'd better go back to raising my own meat rabbits.
Just for irony's sake, check out the NGA's Competing Against Supercenters page, which features "8 Ways to Beat Wal-Mart". Which, of course, is the company that started this whole topic.
On the plus side, I want that AP Photo of the ant among the chips for my desktop!
I have never been any good at poker... in high school, playing nickel-ante poker, I lost about $25 to just one of my friends. Typically, after about 15 minutes of play, everyone was playing with "my" money.
But recently, I spent some quality time with a hand-held poker game, and played the "hundreds or thousands" of games as described in the article. Not enough to become an expert, but I did come up with a technique to make my 100 credits last longer.
I hacked away as much complexity as I could. The heart of my method is to forget about the effect of getting two cards you need. The chances of getting two specific cards is something like 1/52 * 1/52 = 1/2704 -- too small to care about. So the entire method is about the next card.
Of course, I put it online: How To Lose Less At Video Poker. At the risk of slashdotting my own server, I'm curious if anyone can find any obvious flaws in the method.
I found this Java-based tutorial that purports to generate the "optimum payout" -- it often disagrees with me, presumably because it's trying for big payouts. My method doesn't promise profit, only smaller losses.
An important disclaimer: I've never used my method with any non-trivial amount of actual cash. Here in Texas, there are video poker machines in every Quickie Mart, but I just don't see the appeal. Now, if they would put in a Pac-Man machine...
Parent may be Trolling, but I'll bite.
:) But what would it be about Relativity that would preclude a manned mission to Jupiter?
:)
Get some on who can talk on your level to tell you about relativity and then maybee youll understand why we dont send manned missions to jupiter.
I'll confess right away that my knowledge of Einstein's physics is extremely limited. I've allocated those brain cells to the Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling and Capitalization Department.
Yes, the speed of light would cause a huge latency in communications -- anywhere from 35 to 51 minutes according to these calculations. But that's hardly a restriction. The communications lag between Europe and the Americas was measured in months, and that didn't prevent exploration and migration (though it sure made it tough). On the other hand, it does make it hard to teleoperate a robotic craft... an awful lot can go wrong in an hour. Is "meltdown" even an appropriate term when there is no "down"?
The only other effect of relativity I can think of would be the part where the faster you go, the slower time is. That's a huge over simplification, I know! But I believe this effect is negligible over non-relativistic speeds -- and we're not looking at anything approaching the speed of light for a trip to Jupiter.
Besides, while the proposal bounced around in the article and discussion is about a Jupiter mission, there's no reason the first nuclear-powered space flight must be (or even should be) to a far-away destination. Just fly around the moon a few times, or something.
Or did you mean the kind of "relativity" that happens around the table at Thanksgiving?
Thinking that there could be no better recommendation for GreenCine than that of Slashdot, I signed up. I figured it would be worth trying out, if only to see how slow the shipping would be from Cali to Dallas.
Then, I started putting movies in the queue. What appealed to me was the huge selection of Anime that's not available at Netflix. So I started putting them in the bucket.
Cardcaptor Sakura #3: Long Wait
Chobits #1: Long Wait
Fruits Basket #3: Available!
Mahoromatic #2: Long Wait
Love Hina #1: Long Wait
Out of 16 anime movies I put in the queue, only three were available -- and one of those was almost a gimme (Panda! Go Panda!, an early Miyazaki film, available on Netflix anyway).
With a 3/16 ratio of available-to-long-wait, I decided it wasn't going to be worth it. I cancelled before they shipped anything, so hopefully I at least saved GreenCine a couple bucks in shipping costs.
I like the GreenCine "community" concept, and I think they've got a great chance. But they've got to mature a bit before I move my 400+ Netflix queue over to them. I haven't had any trouble with Netflix in my entire six months... I'm just glad I'm not on the New York area!
Your comment is accurate, but depressing.
The early explorations of the Americas, IIRC, were intended to 1) find a shorter route from point A to point B, 2) exploit the resources, and 3) establish settlements. Unfortunately, none of these lead directly to getting more manned missions:
1) Space, like the American continents, isn't a shortcut to anywhere (although communicaions satellites do provide a "shortcut" for information -- but not people).
2) It's still cheaper to rape Earth-bound resources than it is to mine an asteroid (unless it's made of solid gold, of course).
3) In the countries that currently have the ability to launch manned rockets, life just isn't miserable enough to leave -- at least, not on a rocket.
I'm very encouraged by the development of manned rocketry by countries like China and India -- where there *are* conditions miserable enough for people to make a Mayflower-like pilgrimage to the stars in search of a better life. I don't see boatloads of US citizens lining up to launch into space to avoid road rage.
And did the presence of humans help with Columbia or Challenger?
As cool as the shuttle program is, I'm afraid it's turned out to be another example of overengineering: so heavily dependent on supposedly failsafe systems that a single failure (O-ring, foam strike) destroys the entire system.
Contrast with the comparatively simple Soyuz launch system. It may seem primitive, but by golly, the thing usually works. And when it doesn't, you can still survive (though "15-17 Gs" doesn't sound like a picnic in the Russian countryside).
And the reference to Cook's terrestrial explorations has another parallel with space exploration: sailors on his ships (or any ship of the time) had no guarantee that they'd make it back home. They don't call it a "widow's walk" for nothing. I'm not sure we can get anywhere on the "new frontier" until we're able to accept the sort of losses that were common on the "old frontier".
Of course, this is easy to say, sitting in a comfy chair in an air-conditioned office, listening for the boss' footsteps so I can minimize my browser when she walks by...
Unless you buy into the notion that all the Mars probe failures were due to xenophobic Martians, we've recently witnessed several examples of unmanned, robotic craft turning into expensive piles of junk for reasons ranging from the sublime (legs bounced harder than expected) to the ridiculous (meters? feet? what's the difference?).
Contrast those catastrophic failures with events on human-occupied craft. Fires and collisions on Mir, and of course Apollo 13 for those who get their science from the local multiplex -- yet the craft kept flying, due to human involvement and ingenuity. The conclusion is clear: the more complex the system, the more likely you need a non-silicon-based intelligence to keep it from self-destructing.
To address the issue at hand: NASA wants to send a nuclear-powered spaceship to Jupiter? Cool, but you'd darned well better include a crew compartment, unless you *want* to see what happens during a space-based meltdown.
The bottom line is that there is no way to predict everything that can go wrong with any complex system. That's why we need more manned missions. Spend less money on absolutely "perfect" systems, and more on systems to support a human presence to fix it when it breaks.
After all, Captain Cook explored the south Pacific with nothing more than boats of wood, and men of iron. He also had a whip, and generous quantities of very strong beer...
I'm not trying to troll... I just want to make sure he did something worthy.
Jesse Jordan wrote a search engine, registered a cool domain name, then used the site to clearly document his fight. To top it all off, he cut off donations when he made back the $12k, and implores us to send our donations to...
The other guy, Daniel Peng. His website is just a single page -- tiny by comparison. But he comes highly recommended, by Slashdot and the afore-mentioned Jordan.
Other than that, can y'all remind me why I should support Peng?
By the way, I'd ask Paypal folks to please contribute more than a buck. Paypal fees (30c + 2.9%) will turn your $1 contribution into a 67c contribution, but he'll get about $4.55 if you give $5.
From the article: ACPF: Finally, for the peace of mind of the gaming community, how is life treating you at the moment?
...I work mostly to satisfy myself and am easily pleased. I like trying my hand at a variety of tasks...
...Iâ(TM)m working on a prototype of a new game at the moment. I recently directed a short film, and I continue to work as an actor on stage and occasionally on screen.
...My new challenge it to prove to potential employers that I have something to offer as my last game audio is older than the many of the companies that I am applying to.
Wow, these are some mighty depressing quotes:
Jeff:
Translation: He has no life, to speak of.
Warren:
Why didn't he just say he's working on the Great American Novel? As in, he's bought the typewriter and blank paper...
David:
The most damning eventuality of all: the expert buggy-whip maker returns to the business, only to find that the Model T has been invented. Myself, I used to be a pretty good "C" programmer... and got sidetracked into the Visual Basic world just as something called "C Plus Plus" was being developed...
Overall, it's not good news for the generation that was *there* when Pac Man and Space Invaders were new. As much as we'd like to think "everything old is new again", it's more like "they put a car park on the piece of land..."
Since this news article has been added to the index, this one is the first in the array...
But we can be almost assured that there will be another member (probably several) added to the array before portability is actually achieved. This will make things very complex indeed if new elements are added at index zero! Do we have access to This element number?
If we do, then the stories are:
here(This + 1), here(This + 2), here(This + 3), here(This + 4), and here(This + 5).
However, it would not take long before the open source community optmized the code to add new stories as elements at the *end* of the array. In that case, the previous articles are here(0) through here(4), and "This" article is the new here(5). So you're both right: the current article is part of the here() array, but it's probably here(5), so the indexes do need to be corrected.