If you look at some of the more complicated special packs, there's only small number of ways to put certain things together. The special blocks would quite often lock you into a certain configuration. I've watched kids play with these, and have seen it first hand.
A leg shaped block can really only be a leg. A block shaped block can be whatever you want.
My god. This may be the first pragmatic post I've read on Slashdot in months.
I've been called pragmatic to a fault. My pragmatism once broke up a relationship. No big loss in the end. She was too, well, impractical.
I have no problem with a hobbyist messing about with PC based PVRs. It's their hobby. They like it. Fine.
But I get tired of the attitude that if you're not interested in rolling your own solution, oh, well, you're some un-tech-savvy Aunt Matilda. Please...
It's true of any special interest group though. Many members (in this case computer geeks) forget that there is this vast sea of humanity that has no interest in messing about with the innards of PCs. That sea includes brain surgeons, particle physicists, authors, artists and many other bright and intelligent people.
I used to like messing around with the innards of PC, but I got bored with it. At a fundamental level, it really hasn't changed all that much since the first IBM PC. Motherboard. Plug stuff in. Install OS during full moon after goat sacrifice... no, wait. I think you sacrifice the goat first, yes?
Also, I'm deep in an engineering career now, so I really don't want to deal with electronics when I get home. I'm actually moving into wordworking and clock making as hobbies now. With computers, I'm trying to invent new types of computer art.
I'm about as tech savvy as you can get. I've built designed and built motherboards from scratch. My job involves hardware designs with a dozen multimillion gate FPGA designs where I design the board AND write the VHDL for the FPGAs. I've done digital designs over 10 GHz. On the software side, I've been programming since the Apple II. I'm there, OK?
Yet I still bought a DirecTivo. I also have one of the first ReplayTV units. Why make more work for myself? Why go through the bother? The box was $149. Monthly fee? Who cares? I make a lot of money, and can deal with $5 a month. If it buys me a noccasional software upgrade and semi-well managed guide information, then fine. And season passes ARE a big whoop. They are very convenient.
Also, the DirecTivo records the original digital stream from the satellite and has dual tuners and a very nice interface. I just can't see the point to reinventing the wheel. I could probably build my own mountain bike. I have the tools. I know how to weld. But why? I'd rather do something no one has done before.
At work, if I need an amplifier in a design, I buy a prepackaged component. My job performance would be seriously questioned if I spent $4000 in man hours designing an RF amplifer when one with identical specs can be bought off the shelf for $20.
My time is worth something to me. If I have to spend more than 1 hour a month dicking around with a PC based DVR, then I've "spent" more than $5 for that month. If it took me more than 24 hours of plugging things together and debugging, well, my time spent already covers the typical lifetime of one of these gadgets before the next one with new features and more integration comes along.
And you seem to be forgetting that 98% of the population is NOT as savvy as a typical/. user. There is an enormous market for these things, as large as the VCR market. I think the integrated products like DirecTivo and now Tivo DVD recorders are going to be what really starts to light a fire.
I bet you only jack off to the plastic girls of PLAYBOY instead of the more realistic looking girls of SWANK.
Bah. I'm far beyond those amateur rags. I'm deep into fetish territory at this point. The only place I have left to go is, I dunno, Satan worship or heroin addiction or something.
Now, you shall be silent, fool mortal, and worship at the altar of RPN.
Still keeping my HP28S (the one that fold up) running here. I may get one of the 48/49/whatever because it's getting hard to keep the battery door on the 28S on.
Physical screens will never cut it. Too small, and the lighting is never right.
What's needed is a wireless link to a pair of goggles (no larger or bulkier than typical sunglasses) where you see a virtual screen the size of a movie theater image.
Until then I'll stick to watching things properly in my home theater. I'll also maintain my attention span health so I'm not constantly craving electronic stimulation everywhere I go like a three year old.
So all we need is alien crack
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
if you were an upper-middle-class space-faring advanced lifeform, would you really want to take a cruise to such a violent and polluted place?
If they want their drugs, they would.
So all we need to do is coax just a few here with some sort of alien crack, get them hooked, and the rest will be easy.
Alien money will pour into the Earth, and we'll be able to buy and sell all sorts of galactic bling-bling in no time.
I bet you could get 1000 of them to volunteer for a manned Mars mission in 2006 in a heartbeat.
Will they bring their own money to pay for this mission? People who made record setting flights generally obtained their own funding, and didn't have to deal with gravity wells and hostile environments that make Antarctica look like a pleasant day at the beach.
We need to do what should have been done in the 1960's. Slow, logical, well planned steps into space instead of grandiose PR efforts like Apollo. Populate Earth orbit with stations and factories, then establish a permanent presence on the Moon and maybe a beginner colony at a LaGrange point. From there you can think about men on Mars.
When we figure satellite link budgets at my work, power is a primary factor, and can affect the targeted data capacity. More power gives you lower error rates at higher link capacities.
I asked for the complete Far Side collection and got it, but, geez, this box set weighs about 700 pounds. I didn't realize it was so big and solid.
That makes it all the more cooler, but, wow, I can just about bench press this thing. I'm going to have to reinforce a shelf on one of my bookcases for this.
Why is there always calls for class action suits? The leech lawyers get all the cash and the consumer gets a coupon for $20 off any product from the company they had the complaint against.
I know a couple senior scientists at my work who, although they tend to lean Left, *cancelled* their Scientific American subscriptions after that magazine ran their hatchet piece against Lomborg.
Go dig up that issue of Scientific American and read it. It's a blithering pile of character assassination, ad hominem attacks, and about a dozen other logical fallacies. It's disgusting to see in a supposedly respected journal.
Every rational review of Lomborg's work has wound up either defending it, or taking his critics to task.
It's all ideology. Ideology, not fear, is the mind killer.
So what you have basically established is that all "Martians" will be stereotypes of British nations and colonies when in actual fact a fairly substantial amount of these people don't drink tea and think that cricket is the most boring game ever.
Precisely.:-)
You see, the Martians are very adaptable, like the aliens in Alien Nation.
And another thing- wait.. is it me, or we arguing over a slur against a nonexistent species?
"Dr. Ganesha has detected a negative karmic dispensation in your system. This state of digital being was unexpected, and most likely the work of Narada, the mischief-maker. Please, under the graces of Krishna, restart your computer to restore balance."
Oh, and Narada, the mischief-maker is not to be confused with Mentos, the fresh-maker.
Slashdot Mirror
A leg shaped block can really only be a leg. A block shaped block can be whatever you want.
Doy, indeed.
Mr. Techno Testicles
And don't you forget, padiwan. ;-)
I've been called pragmatic to a fault. My pragmatism once broke up a relationship. No big loss in the end. She was too, well, impractical.
I have no problem with a hobbyist messing about with PC based PVRs. It's their hobby. They like it. Fine.
But I get tired of the attitude that if you're not interested in rolling your own solution, oh, well, you're some un-tech-savvy Aunt Matilda. Please...
It's true of any special interest group though. Many members (in this case computer geeks) forget that there is this vast sea of humanity that has no interest in messing about with the innards of PCs. That sea includes brain surgeons, particle physicists, authors, artists and many other bright and intelligent people.
I used to like messing around with the innards of PC, but I got bored with it. At a fundamental level, it really hasn't changed all that much since the first IBM PC. Motherboard. Plug stuff in. Install OS during full moon after goat sacrifice... no, wait. I think you sacrifice the goat first, yes?
Also, I'm deep in an engineering career now, so I really don't want to deal with electronics when I get home. I'm actually moving into wordworking and clock making as hobbies now. With computers, I'm trying to invent new types of computer art.
Yet I still bought a DirecTivo. I also have one of the first ReplayTV units. Why make more work for myself? Why go through the bother? The box was $149. Monthly fee? Who cares? I make a lot of money, and can deal with $5 a month. If it buys me a noccasional software upgrade and semi-well managed guide information, then fine. And season passes ARE a big whoop. They are very convenient.
Also, the DirecTivo records the original digital stream from the satellite and has dual tuners and a very nice interface. I just can't see the point to reinventing the wheel. I could probably build my own mountain bike. I have the tools. I know how to weld. But why? I'd rather do something no one has done before.
At work, if I need an amplifier in a design, I buy a prepackaged component. My job performance would be seriously questioned if I spent $4000 in man hours designing an RF amplifer when one with identical specs can be bought off the shelf for $20.
My time is worth something to me. If I have to spend more than 1 hour a month dicking around with a PC based DVR, then I've "spent" more than $5 for that month. If it took me more than 24 hours of plugging things together and debugging, well, my time spent already covers the typical lifetime of one of these gadgets before the next one with new features and more integration comes along.
And you seem to be forgetting that 98% of the population is NOT as savvy as a typical /. user. There is an enormous market for these things, as large as the VCR market. I think the integrated products like DirecTivo and now Tivo DVD recorders are going to be what really starts to light a fire.
The Apocalypse couldn't come too soon.
Wow. I never realized my typing was that loud.
I bet you only jack off to the plastic girls of PLAYBOY instead of the more realistic looking girls of SWANK.
Bah. I'm far beyond those amateur rags. I'm deep into fetish territory at this point. The only place I have left to go is, I dunno, Satan worship or heroin addiction or something.
Now, you shall be silent, fool mortal, and worship at the altar of RPN.
Still keeping my HP28S (the one that fold up) running here. I may get one of the 48/49/whatever because it's getting hard to keep the battery door on the 28S on.
Trifle me not with these kiddie machines.
Don't tell! :-)
Bzzzt! Nice, but I have work to do RIGHT NOW.
...that Best Buy's web site is currently inaccessible?
What's needed is a wireless link to a pair of goggles (no larger or bulkier than typical sunglasses) where you see a virtual screen the size of a movie theater image.
Until then I'll stick to watching things properly in my home theater. I'll also maintain my attention span health so I'm not constantly craving electronic stimulation everywhere I go like a three year old.
If they want their drugs, they would.
So all we need to do is coax just a few here with some sort of alien crack, get them hooked, and the rest will be easy.
Alien money will pour into the Earth, and we'll be able to buy and sell all sorts of galactic bling-bling in no time.
Will they bring their own money to pay for this mission? People who made record setting flights generally obtained their own funding, and didn't have to deal with gravity wells and hostile environments that make Antarctica look like a pleasant day at the beach.
We need to do what should have been done in the 1960's. Slow, logical, well planned steps into space instead of grandiose PR efforts like Apollo. Populate Earth orbit with stations and factories, then establish a permanent presence on the Moon and maybe a beginner colony at a LaGrange point. From there you can think about men on Mars.
When we figure satellite link budgets at my work, power is a primary factor, and can affect the targeted data capacity. More power gives you lower error rates at higher link capacities.
More like Interplanetary rather than Interstellar.
At least you didn't use Intergalactic. :-)
That makes it all the more cooler, but, wow, I can just about bench press this thing. I'm going to have to reinforce a shelf on one of my bookcases for this.
Why is there always calls for class action suits? The leech lawyers get all the cash and the consumer gets a coupon for $20 off any product from the company they had the complaint against.
I know a couple senior scientists at my work who, although they tend to lean Left, *cancelled* their Scientific American subscriptions after that magazine ran their hatchet piece against Lomborg.
Go dig up that issue of Scientific American and read it. It's a blithering pile of character assassination, ad hominem attacks, and about a dozen other logical fallacies. It's disgusting to see in a supposedly respected journal.
Every rational review of Lomborg's work has wound up either defending it, or taking his critics to task.
It's all ideology. Ideology, not fear, is the mind killer.
I actually understand dark energy now (or at least as far as a layperson can), and why recent news talked about the Universe being "open".
Precisely. :-)
You see, the Martians are very adaptable, like the aliens in Alien Nation.
And another thing- wait.. is it me, or we arguing over a slur against a nonexistent species?
:-) Anyway, I expect the Martian colonies to revolt against Britian in or about 2050 starting with the Cydonia Tea Party.
A Google search will settle this.
liter = 2,980,000 hits
litre = 1,050,000 hits
Ha!
Oh, and Narada, the mischief-maker is not to be confused with Mentos, the fresh-maker.
Hey, I tease! :-)