It's always sad when a great scientific mind dies. And I recall, just recently, someone was joking about using the simplex method to find the best seat in a theater to see Star Wars.
Thanks a lot! That's very interesting info. Especially the overall estimated energy of the event, 10^40 watts... plain ridiculous!
I wonder though... when they talk about a comparable magnitude to the Moon, do they mean raw number of photons, or is it adjusted for the fact that X-rays are more energetic?
I haven't found the answer in any articles yet so I'm wondering if anyone here knows - how bright was the burst? Magnitude or photon flux and wavelength is fine - I'm just wondering how bright this thing was to be seen 2.2 billion lt-yr away!
Does anyone think this amount of RAM is ridiculously low, especially for a high-end system? RAM ain't that expensive these days, especially for 2x512MB... *sigh*.
I've already downloaded a HD movie in 1280x720 resolution, and it was awesome. Yeah, it's a very large file (700MB for 40 minutes), but the quality is amazing. All of the other stuff I download is typically a max of 720 wide - most are below that. I would love to watch BSG on my nice 1600x1200 monitor and actually have the video source be more than half of my screen BEFORE I maximize it.
Acronym Nazi - An individual who engages in Karma Whoring by pointing out in a nauseatingly supercillious or irritating manner that a well-known acronymn (e.g, FAA, NASA, TSA, OSHA, etc.) has not been explained in the article when a simple Google search would suffice to find the answer to his or her lack of generally-known knowledge. It is currently unknown as to how these individuals' posts become modded up, but it is speculated that some form of Karmic Leakage is in play because a post bitching about not being spoon fed acronym meanings would not normally be seen as either insightful, interesting, or (in any way) funny.
Nice troll. Here's why you're wrong: on real new sources, such as CNN, they aren't going to throw acronyms at you without explaining them. Most of the general public does not know what TSA stands for, and most of the Slashdot readers probably don't either. Of the "well-known" acronyms you've given: FAA, NASA, TSA, OSHA, I only knew one until this article... well now I know two. Well maybe two and a half, as I suspect that the OS in OSHA stands for Open Source, but I don't know about the HA. And as for engaging in Karma Whoring - far from it! I don't care at all about my karma. I think it's maxed. I wasn't going for karma, I was attempting to give Slashdot feedback on how to improve the quality of their news. You can't throw acronyms out there and expect everyone to know them. Real news services know this.
Someone needs to make a netsafe browser for even the most clueless user. It would disable any sort of downloading, JavaScript, or anything else remotely unsafe. Yes, it would break the functionality of lots of websites... but it's better than giving up the Internet entirely.
Don't be turned off by the fact that this material is from a creationist propaganda site, (most sites are propaganda sites at their hidden core)
Dude, that's fucking hilarious. "Don't be turned off by the fact that my proof that the Holocaust didn't happen is on a Neo-Nazi propaganda site, as most sites are propaganda sites at their hidden core."
But there is a large difference in degree and likelihood of danger depending on where you live. Just because a natural disaster could conceivably hit anywhere doesn't mean that's equally likely everywhere; on the contrary, the opposite is true.
In my opinion, 9/11 was worse because it WAS preventable. Things that aren't preventable are inevitable... there's no use in crying over spilt milk that was destined to be spilled. Nature is a mean mother and every so often she does something bad that punishes people who foolishly live in areas that are susceptible (this goes to any hicks who live in Tornado Alley or anyone who lives on the side of an active volcano, too).
On the other hand, 9/11 was perpetrated by humans and was entirely preventable. That, in my opinion, makes it much worse.
Of course, if you look at it from an economic perspective... 9/11 just took out a few office buildings. This tsunami has destroyed millions of homes. In the long run the effect of the tsunami will probably be worse than that of 9/11.
Giving you a shovel and sending you in there to rebuild is a misuse of resources. Lets say that it takes one week to rebuild an Indian seashore house. You could go over for a week and do itself, or continue going to your normal job and donate a week's worth of money, which will pay ten cheap laborers in India to rebuild a house. You are an American... our society has put lots of energy into your education to get you the skills you have today. You can do a lot better for the affected people by using your talents to earn money which can be spent on laborers who can't do anything more productive since they don't have the education. It's like telling a quantum physicist he has to mop up his lab... that simply doesn't happen, because his time is much more valuable than that of the janitor the lab inevitably employs.
I totally agree with you. It's not worth fighting against an HMO if your life is at stake. I'd be willing to contribute money to a donation fund too - if it was run by someone reputable (I wouldn't trust some random person to get the money to where it needs to go). Maybe/. could take up a collection?
Misguided article
on
Humor in Games?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I play games because they're fun, and not for any other reason. Recently I've been playing GTA:SA, and I can see why WCTR is window dressing - because it gets old. It only has so much content, and after that, it becomes stale and repetitive. To make a good game that is genuinely funny the whole way through would take a LOT of work - and frankly, I'm not even sure it would be possible. It's much easier to make a game fun by allowing you to run over pedestrians or what not - this stays fun for awhile. But once you've heard a joke once, it's pretty much used up.
If anyone missed the few minutes when the dupe was running rampant, then you probably won't know what the next 100 or so comments are referring to. So here's a screenshot.
Space isn't empty. There is stuff in space. And since wavelengths of light have different reflectance properties, in the long run, some wavelengths will travel faster than other. And no, light is NOT a radio wave.
I take it you've never seen Firefly? The concept of that show makes a lot more sense than you realize. If you're colonizing a new planet on limited resources, and you know that resupply ships aren't going to be coming by regularly, which would you want? A tractor (or a futuristic equivalent) that can break down and/or run out of fuel? Or two horses, which can heal if they "break down", and can even breed and make more horses?
The Amish are doing us a service. They are keeping "old" technology alive that might very well be useful when establishing a colony on a new planet. The Amish have the kept the line of really good draft horses not only alive, but thriving. They're a valuable resource to humanity.
I totally agree with you. I don't see why these people are getting "quietly arrested". The number of actual scam mail (which is clearly illegal, as opposed to spam mail, which is just annoying) I've been getting recently is alarming. I'm up to getting 1 to 2 a day of the various Citibank/PayPal/eBay scam phishing mail. I don't get caught with them because I very carefully check URLs (and I use Thunderbird and Firefox so I'm not vulnerable to URL masking attacks). But I can imagine the average Joe Schmoe very easily getting taken with these scams. Law enforcement needs to track down these criminals and give them hard time. Heck, it's not even that hard... all of the phishing scams have to rely on a faked site that is hosted somewhere on the net. Whenever I come across one of these, I check its whois data, and if it's located in the U.S., I send something off to the registrar telling them the domain is being used for something clearly illegal. Usually, within a day, the domain no longer works. Heck, about half of the phishing mail I get these days points to links that are already taken down!
Yeah, but if Java is the only language that tomorrow's programmers know (if it's the one they're most familiar with since that's what they learned on), they'll be programming in Java.
Actually, I played EverQuest for 5 years (from Day 1 until recently). Before EQ, I played many games, typically buying at least one $50 per month only to get tired of it and never play it again. With EQ, I payed a few times the $50 for expansions and took the longer subscription times for something like $13/month but I almost never bought any other games. While I played EQ, I actually spent less money on computer games than I did before I started playing EQ. So, in a sad way, I saved money by playing EQ rather than my pre-EQ buying patterns.
Wow, that experience sounds like something I'd be really interested in hearing more about. I played EverQuest a little bit but I'd really like to hear from someone who played the whole way through on what the changes in the community was, how the game changed over time, how many characters you got to level 50 or 60 or whatever the max is now, etc.
"Journey" type systems where the point of the game is having fun exploring a world are doomed to failure because of this mindset. Nethack is the best example of this type of game.
Are you saying that Nethack is doomed to failure because it is a "progress" type game? Min-maxing occurs in Nethack too, you know, what with playing an extinctionist, or trying to get a perfect set of +7 armor through pudding farming, etc. Your post has been forwarded to the proper Nethack authorities.
You make it sound so easy. If Microsoft, largest software company in the world, can have many, many overflow exploits, how in the heck is a single programmer supposed to avoid them?
Slashdot Mirror
It's always sad when a great scientific mind dies. And I recall, just recently, someone was joking about using the simplex method to find the best seat in a theater to see Star Wars.
Thanks a lot! That's very interesting info. Especially the overall estimated energy of the event, 10^40 watts ... plain ridiculous!
I wonder though ... when they talk about a comparable magnitude to the Moon, do they mean raw number of photons, or is it adjusted for the fact that X-rays are more energetic?
I haven't found the answer in any articles yet so I'm wondering if anyone here knows - how bright was the burst? Magnitude or photon flux and wavelength is fine - I'm just wondering how bright this thing was to be seen 2.2 billion lt-yr away!
Does anyone think this amount of RAM is ridiculously low, especially for a high-end system? RAM ain't that expensive these days, especially for 2x512MB ... *sigh*.
I've already downloaded a HD movie in 1280x720 resolution, and it was awesome. Yeah, it's a very large file (700MB for 40 minutes), but the quality is amazing. All of the other stuff I download is typically a max of 720 wide - most are below that. I would love to watch BSG on my nice 1600x1200 monitor and actually have the video source be more than half of my screen BEFORE I maximize it.
Acronym Nazi - An individual who engages in Karma Whoring by pointing out in a nauseatingly supercillious or irritating manner that a well-known acronymn (e.g, FAA, NASA, TSA, OSHA, etc.) has not been explained in the article when a simple Google search would suffice to find the answer to his or her lack of generally-known knowledge. It is currently unknown as to how these individuals' posts become modded up, but it is speculated that some form of Karmic Leakage is in play because a post bitching about not being spoon fed acronym meanings would not normally be seen as either insightful, interesting, or (in any way) funny.
... well now I know two. Well maybe two and a half, as I suspect that the OS in OSHA stands for Open Source, but I don't know about the HA. And as for engaging in Karma Whoring - far from it! I don't care at all about my karma. I think it's maxed. I wasn't going for karma, I was attempting to give Slashdot feedback on how to improve the quality of their news. You can't throw acronyms out there and expect everyone to know them. Real news services know this.
Nice troll. Here's why you're wrong: on real new sources, such as CNN, they aren't going to throw acronyms at you without explaining them. Most of the general public does not know what TSA stands for, and most of the Slashdot readers probably don't either. Of the "well-known" acronyms you've given: FAA, NASA, TSA, OSHA, I only knew one until this article
Pardon me for not knowing, but TSA is mentioned many times in the article write-up and isn't once explained.
Hell yeah! I know I voted for Barbara Mikulski for a reason.
Someone needs to make a netsafe browser for even the most clueless user. It would disable any sort of downloading, JavaScript, or anything else remotely unsafe. Yes, it would break the functionality of lots of websites ... but it's better than giving up the Internet entirely.
Don't be turned off by the fact that this material is from a creationist propaganda site, (most sites are propaganda sites at their hidden core)
Dude, that's fucking hilarious. "Don't be turned off by the fact that my proof that the Holocaust didn't happen is on a Neo-Nazi propaganda site, as most sites are propaganda sites at their hidden core."
But there is a large difference in degree and likelihood of danger depending on where you live. Just because a natural disaster could conceivably hit anywhere doesn't mean that's equally likely everywhere; on the contrary, the opposite is true.
In my opinion, 9/11 was worse because it WAS preventable. Things that aren't preventable are inevitable ... there's no use in crying over spilt milk that was destined to be spilled. Nature is a mean mother and every so often she does something bad that punishes people who foolishly live in areas that are susceptible (this goes to any hicks who live in Tornado Alley or anyone who lives on the side of an active volcano, too).
... 9/11 just took out a few office buildings. This tsunami has destroyed millions of homes. In the long run the effect of the tsunami will probably be worse than that of 9/11.
On the other hand, 9/11 was perpetrated by humans and was entirely preventable. That, in my opinion, makes it much worse.
Of course, if you look at it from an economic perspective
Giving you a shovel and sending you in there to rebuild is a misuse of resources. Lets say that it takes one week to rebuild an Indian seashore house. You could go over for a week and do itself, or continue going to your normal job and donate a week's worth of money, which will pay ten cheap laborers in India to rebuild a house. You are an American ... our society has put lots of energy into your education to get you the skills you have today. You can do a lot better for the affected people by using your talents to earn money which can be spent on laborers who can't do anything more productive since they don't have the education. It's like telling a quantum physicist he has to mop up his lab ... that simply doesn't happen, because his time is much more valuable than that of the janitor the lab inevitably employs.
I totally agree with you. It's not worth fighting against an HMO if your life is at stake. I'd be willing to contribute money to a donation fund too - if it was run by someone reputable (I wouldn't trust some random person to get the money to where it needs to go). Maybe /. could take up a collection?
I play games because they're fun, and not for any other reason. Recently I've been playing GTA:SA, and I can see why WCTR is window dressing - because it gets old. It only has so much content, and after that, it becomes stale and repetitive. To make a good game that is genuinely funny the whole way through would take a LOT of work - and frankly, I'm not even sure it would be possible. It's much easier to make a game fun by allowing you to run over pedestrians or what not - this stays fun for awhile. But once you've heard a joke once, it's pretty much used up.
If anyone missed the few minutes when the dupe was running rampant, then you probably won't know what the next 100 or so comments are referring to. So here's a screenshot.
I'll have to go with "None".
so that directors who actually use it well (like Peter Jackson in LOTR) don't get the recognition they deserve.
Umm, excuse me? Exactly HOW MANY Oscars did LotR win?!
Space isn't empty. There is stuff in space. And since wavelengths of light have different reflectance properties, in the long run, some wavelengths will travel faster than other. And no, light is NOT a radio wave.
I take it you've never seen Firefly? The concept of that show makes a lot more sense than you realize. If you're colonizing a new planet on limited resources, and you know that resupply ships aren't going to be coming by regularly, which would you want? A tractor (or a futuristic equivalent) that can break down and/or run out of fuel? Or two horses, which can heal if they "break down", and can even breed and make more horses?
The Amish are doing us a service. They are keeping "old" technology alive that might very well be useful when establishing a colony on a new planet. The Amish have the kept the line of really good draft horses not only alive, but thriving. They're a valuable resource to humanity.
I totally agree with you. I don't see why these people are getting "quietly arrested". The number of actual scam mail (which is clearly illegal, as opposed to spam mail, which is just annoying) I've been getting recently is alarming. I'm up to getting 1 to 2 a day of the various Citibank/PayPal/eBay scam phishing mail. I don't get caught with them because I very carefully check URLs (and I use Thunderbird and Firefox so I'm not vulnerable to URL masking attacks). But I can imagine the average Joe Schmoe very easily getting taken with these scams. Law enforcement needs to track down these criminals and give them hard time. Heck, it's not even that hard ... all of the phishing scams have to rely on a faked site that is hosted somewhere on the net. Whenever I come across one of these, I check its whois data, and if it's located in the U.S., I send something off to the registrar telling them the domain is being used for something clearly illegal. Usually, within a day, the domain no longer works. Heck, about half of the phishing mail I get these days points to links that are already taken down!
Yeah, but if Java is the only language that tomorrow's programmers know (if it's the one they're most familiar with since that's what they learned on), they'll be programming in Java.
Actually, I played EverQuest for 5 years (from Day 1 until recently). Before EQ, I played many games, typically buying at least one $50 per month only to get tired of it and never play it again. With EQ, I payed a few times the $50 for expansions and took the longer subscription times for something like $13/month but I almost never bought any other games. While I played EQ, I actually spent less money on computer games than I did before I started playing EQ. So, in a sad way, I saved money by playing EQ rather than my pre-EQ buying patterns.
Wow, that experience sounds like something I'd be really interested in hearing more about. I played EverQuest a little bit but I'd really like to hear from someone who played the whole way through on what the changes in the community was, how the game changed over time, how many characters you got to level 50 or 60 or whatever the max is now, etc.
"Journey" type systems where the point of the game is having fun exploring a world are doomed to failure because of this mindset. Nethack is the best example of this type of game. Are you saying that Nethack is doomed to failure because it is a "progress" type game? Min-maxing occurs in Nethack too, you know, what with playing an extinctionist, or trying to get a perfect set of +7 armor through pudding farming, etc. Your post has been forwarded to the proper Nethack authorities.
You make it sound so easy. If Microsoft, largest software company in the world, can have many, many overflow exploits, how in the heck is a single programmer supposed to avoid them?