I have no doubt this guy is an impressive lego builder. His portfolio speaks for itself. However from Eric's website:
I had been pondering on how to make a LEGO clock for some time, but my first obstacle was not actually knowing how pendulum clocks worked. Of course, in this day and age, that's what the Web is for, so I went out on the Internet and learned.
Furthermore, a fellow in the Netherlands already had some web documentation on a LEGO clock he had built. While I ended up using different pieces for my escapement gear and such, his pages were invaluable, and credit should be given.
Personally, I found the above link a lot more interesting since it goes into far more depth as how to build a working lego clock.
I know it's pretty far-fetched, but can anyone tell me why the possibility of moving the telescope close to the ISS hasn't been brought up? If you're going to intercept the craft anyway (by man or machine), why not vector it so future ISS astonauts can get the job done now? For that matter, future repairs would be greatly simplified.
As much as I would like to see the same thing in such an interface, its really a matter of KISS engineering.
You only need a minimum of 5 inputs to move a mouse: up, down, left, right, button. The other concepts you describe are far more abstract, so you'd need to somehow decode more impulses from the brainwaves.
Even if you were to treat such a thing like a binary interface, you'd only have 3,4 or 5 bits to work with. This could be an improvement, provided that the user's brain can be trained to project impulses in combination like that.
Once they get into the workforce, there is a prevailing myth among the plebes that spelling and grammar don't matter, as long as the message is right. However, this ignores the fact that bad spelling and grammar can severely impact the coherency of any message, as well as hurting the credibilty of the author.
This whole thing brings to mind that AOL commercial with hordes of people outside the office... only this time, it's these folks asking for their jobs back.
With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
Not to be too cynical, but take it from this native of Northern Virginia:
It's "slim pickin's" around here for anyone without a security clearance of some kind. This goes especially for anyone who relocated to the West-end of the Dulles Corridor (all the job ops are East of you, so look forward to a hellish commute). I wish everyone affected by this disaster the best of luck.
A 24 second wait is a throwback to game design 20 years ago. So what gives?
Sony wants you to throw more money at the problem. Let me explain.
When you format a Memory Stick with the PSP itself, you'll not only find it empty afterwards, there are some interesting directories on it. The existence of a games directory strongly suggests that Sony plans to enable users playing games directly off the Memory Stick.
So it would appear that the memory stick will be used for caching content, so the disk drive won't be needed as much. This makes sense since the PSP doesn't seem to have much RAM for a game system that can play with a more than a GB of data on a disk.
- UMD Transfer rate (read): 11Mbps - Memory Stick Pro Transfer rate (read/write): up to 80 Mbps
So this will work? Yep, if you have a 512MB (or larger) memory stick on hand. Seeing as how you (and developers) would like to cache as much of a game as possible, the prices on memory sticks are less than encouraging.
Combine that with an external battery pack, and you have a solid and expensive solution to making this thing usable.:(
At first glance I simply thought the editor had grossly mispelled shiitake. After all, they're pretty damn rubbery in the hot-and-sour-soup from the local chinese place.
Apparently, the chichitake mushroom is a completely different fungus. Also called the "Tawny Milkcap mushroom", as it produces "a white 'milk', or sticky latex, seeps out and turns brown when the gills are cut".
So to all you PII fans out there, keep on partying like it's 1999!
W00t. I'm right there with ya.
I use a P2 400Mhz running Win2kPro at home. I use it for web development, Firefox, C/C++/D/Java programing, and of course photoshop. I upgraded the video from a broken FireGL1000 (ick!) to a Radeon 9000 that I picked up for cheap at Staples. 320MB of RAM certainly does help to keep up with the latest software (within reason of course).
Seems to me that as old system lines retire, the definition of 'old' slides into 'antique' past a certain point. I suppose it wouldn't be such a bad thing if used PC hardware had the relibility of, say, a Nintendo; one can buy 20 year old carts that work like new at yard sales. But old PCs seem to get scrapped rather than kept for parts. My old C64 and Amiga in the closet can attest to this trend.
So, good luck keeping your P2's in working order in the years to come. I know once I replace this machine, it'll be reincarnated as a linux server of some kind.:)
I could easily see a future where, a wall of blade-style servers has bad units culled by robotic arm. This would be somewhat like a large tape-data silo does only with server nodes instead of tapes. Just keep technicians working on keeping enough fresh nodes at one end of the pipeline and refurbishing the broken ones on the other and the rote portions of the work (finding the broken machines and replacing them) are done for you.
This also brings IBM's eFuse technology for self-repairing chips to mind.
I dont' know if eFuse is in the same vein, but I think that we'll see more FPGA-style chips in space since they might be able to be recoded to work around bad portions of its own silicon; not to mention damaged/broken portions of a spacecraft or robot.
I don't think that any human being, as we understand ourselves now, can withstand living past 120 or so years without undergoing some pretty hefty consequences.
Cancer. How much radiation will you absorb over 1000 years? How many parts-per-billion of the innumerable carcinogens, heavy metals and free-radicals will your body come in contact and absorb over that much time? The sheer volume of damage to cells and DNA by these factors, as well as the simple (and natural) mishandling of our DNA by basic cell division, puts one at a tremendous risk for developing cancer. Any kind of longevity thereapy would have to be aggressive and continuous to stave off these problems.
Insanity and or lossing the capability to change healthily. How much can the human mind hold, safely? You might very well live to be 1000, but would you still remember the first 500 years of your life? Even if you remain active, and fight off senility and alzhimers to the end, you only have so many neurons that are available for use. Even assuming that you learn to use the so called unused 85% of your brain, would your consciousness, your very psyche, be able to withstand so much knowledge without loosing your sanity? How about just keeping up with current events?
Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program.
(Score:-5, MPAA Lawsuit Lightning Rod)
All joking aside, I'm curious to see which audience's problems it will solve. Will it suit the MPAA's goals of control by eliminating competing networks/protocols (less to monitor) or will it suit the pirate's needs for anonymity and valid content (non-faked-files)?
Hollywood has always wanted to be a video game. Unfortunately they don't know how. [...] They simply market and re-market sequels and clones, sequels and clones. Oh, and they make people work 100 hour weeks until they are exhausted.
So basically, the closest they've come is turning into one of those monster generators from Gauntlet?
Let me preface this by saying that I am not a chemist, chemical engineer or even a biologist.
Dragline silk is made primarily of two proteins, called ADF-3 and ADF-4. These are produced in a gland in the spider's abdomen, using the same amino acids that your body uses to produce skin and hair. ADF-4 allows for the rapid production of fiber, and ADF-3 regulates this production. Each protein is made by a specific gene.
Gat's team put these genes into a genetically engineered virus, then let the virus infect the cultured caterpillar cells. The cells produced silk proteins, and then spider fibers formed spontaneously in the petri dish.
Looks like the stuff might be easy to spin into silk, since it does it on a molecular level on its own. Maybe all you need is these silk protiens stored in a solvent that evaporates rapidly, stored under pressure; who knows. I suppose the result wouldn't be too unlike a can of crazy string or spider-man's wrist-mounted launching device.
Combine that with some gecko-tape gloves and shoes and you'll be fighting crime in no time.
Readable is of course in the eye of the beholder... and I am a C and Java programmer with a sizable fetish for D. So while I don't find the syntax all that pleasing to me in terms of my own work, it certainly changes things for reading python code.
I was also stunned to learn how flexible decorators were in the previous version of python. It's refreshing to be see functions treated as objects... unless I'm mistaken about the concept.
However its a huge shame that the new decorator syntax isn't supported for classes in 2.4. Seems like that's going to become a wart on a rather consistent language syntax, IMO.
Go ahead and 'X' out Washington DC on your map, for being a demo-scene-free-zone. There are sceners here and there, but not enough to get anything going... even back in 1993.
At this rate, I'll probably sooner see Second Reality displayed at the Smithsonian than at the convention center.:(
*sigh*.. Sometimes I feel like I am in a culture less vacuum.
I tried to live in the Athens/Coolesville area for all of 9 weeks. Sadly, some parts of your beautiful state seem to be vaccuum for, well, everything.:(
Slashdot Mirror
Well here's an original idea:
;)
I call it, THE TERMINIZER. It's an erotic thriller about a killer robot driving instructor who travels back in time for some reason.
It'll make millions.
... calories count you!
I have no doubt this guy is an impressive lego builder. His portfolio speaks for itself. However from Eric's website:
I had been pondering on how to make a LEGO clock for some time, but my first obstacle was not actually knowing how pendulum clocks worked. Of course, in this day and age, that's what the Web is for, so I went out on the Internet and learned.
Furthermore, a fellow in the Netherlands already had some web documentation on a LEGO clock he had built. While I ended up using different pieces for my escapement gear and such, his pages were invaluable, and credit should be given.
Personally, I found the above link a lot more interesting since it goes into far more depth as how to build a working lego clock.
Having some vague memories of this myself, I went hunting. Here's the trivia:
- Photos of one for sale
- The Sub Dragon's Lair gameplay was actually courtesy of Dragon's Lair's creator (Rick Dyer). Go figure.
- Rather wordy essay about the game. Grainy gameplay pictures included.
- Original Arcade Flyer for the machine. (Translation not included)
- Editorial on Rick Dyer, Don Bluth and the history of Laser-Disc-Based Games. Time Traveler is mentioned under an avalanche of other obscure releases. The bottom line: $18M in sales. Now, I wonder if the arcade ops made anything on it.
I know it's pretty far-fetched, but can anyone tell me why the possibility of moving the telescope close to the ISS hasn't been brought up? If you're going to intercept the craft anyway (by man or machine), why not vector it so future ISS astonauts can get the job done now? For that matter, future repairs would be greatly simplified.
One question: why not have your software expect the vocal equivalent of a command prompt, like saying "Computer!" ala Star Trek?
Seems to me that would eliminate a lot of the trouble.
As much as I would like to see the same thing in such an interface, its really a matter of KISS engineering.
You only need a minimum of 5 inputs to move a mouse: up, down, left, right, button. The other concepts you describe are far more abstract, so you'd need to somehow decode more impulses from the brainwaves.
Even if you were to treat such a thing like a binary interface, you'd only have 3,4 or 5 bits to work with. This could be an improvement, provided that the user's brain can be trained to project impulses in combination like that.
Bollocks - we is professionals.
You must install the InterActual DVD Viewer for Internet Explorer before you can view this Easter Egg.
I use Firefox you insensitive clod!
This whole thing brings to mind that AOL commercial with hordes of people outside the office... only this time, it's these folks asking for their jobs back.
With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?
Not to be too cynical, but take it from this native of Northern Virginia:
It's "slim pickin's" around here for anyone without a security clearance of some kind. This goes especially for anyone who relocated to the West-end of the Dulles Corridor (all the job ops are East of you, so look forward to a hellish commute). I wish everyone affected by this disaster the best of luck.
A 24 second wait is a throwback to game design 20 years ago . So what gives?
:(
Sony wants you to throw more money at the problem. Let me explain.
When you format a Memory Stick with the PSP itself, you'll not only find it empty afterwards, there are some interesting directories on it. The existence of a games directory strongly suggests that Sony plans to enable users playing games directly off the Memory Stick.
So it would appear that the memory stick will be used for caching content, so the disk drive won't be needed as much. This makes sense since the PSP doesn't seem to have much RAM for a game system that can play with a more than a GB of data on a disk.
- UMD Transfer rate (read): 11Mbps
- Memory Stick Pro Transfer rate (read/write): up to 80 Mbps
So this will work? Yep, if you have a 512MB (or larger) memory stick on hand.
Seeing as how you (and developers) would like to cache as much of a game as possible, the prices on memory sticks are less than encouraging.
Combine that with an external battery pack, and you have a solid and expensive solution to making this thing usable.
It all makes perfect sense when you look at Sony's PSP/PS3 Launch Business Plan
1. Annoy the Crap out of Nintendo.
2. ?
3. Profit.
4. For great justice!!
At first glance I simply thought the editor had grossly mispelled shiitake. After all, they're pretty damn rubbery in the hot-and-sour-soup from the local chinese place.
Apparently, the chichitake mushroom is a completely different fungus. Also called the "Tawny Milkcap mushroom", as it produces "a white 'milk', or sticky latex, seeps out and turns brown when the gills are cut".
So to all you PII fans out there, keep on partying like it's 1999!
:)
W00t. I'm right there with ya.
I use a P2 400Mhz running Win2kPro at home. I use it for web development, Firefox, C/C++/D/Java programing, and of course photoshop. I upgraded the video from a broken FireGL1000 (ick!) to a Radeon 9000 that I picked up for cheap at Staples. 320MB of RAM certainly does help to keep up with the latest software (within reason of course).
Seems to me that as old system lines retire, the definition of 'old' slides into 'antique' past a certain point. I suppose it wouldn't be such a bad thing if used PC hardware had the relibility of, say, a Nintendo; one can buy 20 year old carts that work like new at yard sales. But old PCs seem to get scrapped rather than kept for parts. My old C64 and Amiga in the closet can attest to this trend.
So, good luck keeping your P2's in working order in the years to come. I know once I replace this machine, it'll be reincarnated as a linux server of some kind.
We should keep in mind, that while they are indeed smart, they are only "super intellegent" as far as monkeys go.
I hear the vast majority of them broke loose from NASA HQ and got jobs on capital hill.
I could easily see a future where, a wall of blade-style servers has bad units culled by robotic arm. This would be somewhat like a large tape-data silo does only with server nodes instead of tapes. Just keep technicians working on keeping enough fresh nodes at one end of the pipeline and refurbishing the broken ones on the other and the rote portions of the work (finding the broken machines and replacing them) are done for you.
This also brings IBM's eFuse technology for self-repairing chips to mind.
I dont' know if eFuse is in the same vein, but I think that we'll see more FPGA-style chips in space since they might be able to be recoded to work around bad portions of its own silicon; not to mention damaged/broken portions of a spacecraft or robot.
I don't think that any human being, as we understand ourselves now, can withstand living past 120 or so years without undergoing some pretty hefty consequences.
Cancer. How much radiation will you absorb over 1000 years? How many parts-per-billion of the innumerable carcinogens, heavy metals and free-radicals will your body come in contact and absorb over that much time? The sheer volume of damage to cells and DNA by these factors, as well as the simple (and natural) mishandling of our DNA by basic cell division, puts one at a tremendous risk for developing cancer. Any kind of longevity thereapy would have to be aggressive and continuous to stave off these problems.
Insanity and or lossing the capability to change healthily. How much can the human mind hold, safely? You might very well live to be 1000, but would you still remember the first 500 years of your life? Even if you remain active, and fight off senility and alzhimers to the end, you only have so many neurons that are available for use. Even assuming that you learn to use the so called unused 85% of your brain, would your consciousness, your very psyche, be able to withstand so much knowledge without loosing your sanity? How about just keeping up with current events?
Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program.
(Score:-5, MPAA Lawsuit Lightning Rod)
All joking aside, I'm curious to see which audience's problems it will solve. Will it suit the MPAA's goals of control by eliminating competing networks/protocols (less to monitor) or will it suit the pirate's needs for anonymity and valid content (non-faked-files)?
Hollywood has always wanted to be a video game. Unfortunately they don't know how. [...] They simply market and re-market sequels and clones, sequels and clones. Oh, and they make people work 100 hour weeks until they are exhausted.
So basically, the closest they've come is turning into one of those monster generators from Gauntlet?
John Woo, your lifeforce is running low.
I wonder if you can get this in Japan? They're gonna need it.
Old Glory Robot Insurance
Let me preface this by saying that I am not a chemist, chemical engineer or even a biologist.
Dragline silk is made primarily of two proteins, called ADF-3 and ADF-4. These are produced in a gland in the spider's abdomen, using the same amino acids that your body uses to produce skin and hair. ADF-4 allows for the rapid production of fiber, and ADF-3 regulates this production. Each protein is made by a specific gene.
Gat's team put these genes into a genetically engineered virus, then let the virus infect the cultured caterpillar cells. The cells produced silk proteins, and then spider fibers formed spontaneously in the petri dish.
Looks like the stuff might be easy to spin into silk, since it does it on a molecular level on its own. Maybe all you need is these silk protiens stored in a solvent that evaporates rapidly, stored under pressure; who knows. I suppose the result wouldn't be too unlike a can of crazy string or spider-man's wrist-mounted launching device.
Combine that with some gecko-tape gloves and shoes and you'll be fighting crime in no time.
Use your excreta to enter the amazing world of the dung beetle.
This may not be obvious to those of us who are presently working on their monitor tan: do not attempt this indoors.
Thank you.
Function Decorator Proposal/Specification
Its nice to see a language evolve in favor of use without sacrificing readability and overall utility.
Before:After:Readable is of course in the eye of the beholder... and I am a C and Java programmer with a sizable fetish for D. So while I don't find the syntax all that pleasing to me in terms of my own work, it certainly changes things for reading python code.
I was also stunned to learn how flexible decorators were in the previous version of python. It's refreshing to be see functions treated as objects... unless I'm mistaken about the concept.
However its a huge shame that the new decorator syntax isn't supported for classes in 2.4. Seems like that's going to become a wart on a rather consistent language syntax, IMO.
Shouldn't this be a Fark photoshop contest instead?
[Photoshop] - Create these guys a new splash screen. Decent farking GUI to follow.
You're telling me.
:(
:(
Go ahead and 'X' out Washington DC on your map, for being a demo-scene-free-zone. There are sceners here and there, but not enough to get anything going... even back in 1993.
At this rate, I'll probably sooner see Second Reality displayed at the Smithsonian than at the convention center.
*sigh*.. Sometimes I feel like I am in a culture less vacuum.
I tried to live in the Athens/Coolesville area for all of 9 weeks. Sadly, some parts of your beautiful state seem to be vaccuum for, well, everything.
Now Oberlin U on the other hand...