90 Lawnmower, loud home stereo 87 My computer with its noisy fans
85 Jackhammer at 15 meters (50 feet)
80 Moderate home stereo, ringing telephone
75 Average City Street
70 Freeway traffic, TV audio
60 Normal Conversation
Books are dying. They were popular when they were a novelty, but now everyone has read books and the novelty has worn off. I predict that in 2005 people will stop buying books.
All the stories have already been printed in books, and any new books just have minor variations of the same stories. Books are just a waste of time that could be spent doing other things. People will soon realize this, and the book fad will pass.
I was not at all impressed with their web site. It has to be one of the most annoying sites I've viewed recently. It was bad enough waiting for all their stupid flash animation crap to load, and then you had to wait for all the animation to finish up.
I can't imagine they get that much business from that horrid website.
I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes
Details? It takes quite a bit of effort and expense to produce a good, fast, modern gaming console that is as good as currently existing ones. I'm rather skeptical that a cable box company will follow through on such a plan.
I can see them making a gaming box that plays simpler less resource-intense games, like solitaire and tetris, but a console to match the current top consoles? I doubt they'll get that far. With the lack of details, I'm pretty sure they haven't even reached the phase where they begin the actual engineering of the box. It's just an idea in the head of some executives right now
I wonder if this simulation includes budget cuts, cost overruns, failing equipment, space accidents, drunken space tourists, space programs failing to uphold their obligations, and copious undeserved drunk, incompetant, Russian cosmonaut jokes, which seem to be popular with American media.
On a related note, a freshly opened Galeon used 120M of RAM, while a freshly opened Firefox used 86M. I don't really know exactly what that means, but a lower RAM usage number is always a good thing to see.
Why on earth does a web browser like Firefox take up 86 MB of memory? That seems like an awful lot of memory for just a web browser. Is it GTK2 that is taking up all that space?
In our era and in our culture, the swastika is associated with Hitler and his Nazi party. However, the swastika did not originate with Hitler. It originated in India, and has been considered a mystic/spiritual symbol in Asia for thousands of years. So although it has very negative connotations in western cultures, it probably finds a lot of positive usage in eastern cultures. Swastikas are often publically displayed in India on temples and so forth.
Here's an interesting page discussing the origins of the swastika.
When you have an OS that is as insecure as Windows a few years ago, you can still "improve on the security front", yet still have a rather insecure OS. Windows has simply gone from "atrocious" security to "awful" security.
Seeing that this will be used in wartime, I'm wondering how often bugs in the software or data that isn't up-to-date will cause the vehicle to go places where it shouldn't.
If it doesn't have all the data on where the enemy is, it might just drive happily into a nasty situation, whereas a human driver could see trouble ahead. I'm sure a robot might recognize dangerous terrain, but I can't imagine it would recognize a dangerous combat-related situation. I sure hope they have a human who can take manual control if things should go wrong.
The contestants only had 2 hours to design and complete their works, so they wouldn't have been going all out, otherwise they wouldn't have finished it in time.
I imagine that the Han Solo in Carbonite took a *lot* longer than 2 hours to design and complete.
Don't worry about excessive processor speed! Windows Longhorn will come along and put all that processor time to good work, drawing fancy-schmancy graphical alpha-blended 3D animated animals that annoy the hell out of you!
Where I live in California they are starting to build some of those things in newer developments. I don't like them much. When there is a lot of traffic, it can be really difficult to get on a roundabout.
There's a very well-known beer in Germany, Kloster Andechs beer, that's made by Benedictine monks at a monastery in Bavaria.
The monks use their brewery and beer-making skills to support themselves and their monastery. It's become such huge business for them, that they now employ many non-monks from the surrounding area.
Here's their website: http://www.andechs.de/englisch/index_mai n.asp
MiniDiscs aren't widely available here in the U.S., but when I lived in Europe stores sold minidiscs fairly cheaply (less than 1 USD a disc if I recall correctly). There were the Sony brand ones, which were the most expensive, but there were competing brands as well, such as TDK.
Even though Sony came up with the MiniDisc, other manufacturers make them as well, which makes it quite a bit cheaper.
I find that women tend to be interested in different type of games. My girlfriend (over 25) is quite uninterested in most of the games I play, but she just loves puzzle and word games. I practically have to pry her away from Bookworm.
This means that we can track the location of any US warship that is within a few hundred meters of us, as it's only a 802.11x signal. Of course any warship within a few hundred meters can usually be tracked using your eyes.
A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines
Engineers tend not to be highly political, but they certainly are greedy. I think the likelyhood of engineers trying to exploit voting machines is a lot lower than engineers trying to exploit what are essentially money-dispensing machines.
It is true that engineers can be used as tools by those who are more interested in rigging elections, but that's also true with slot-machines. The engineer greed factor is still missing.
Slashdot Mirror
+1: Pedantic
Yeah, it should have been something like:
Priced at $733 for orders of 1,000 units...
90 Lawnmower, loud home stereo
87 My computer with its noisy fans
85 Jackhammer at 15 meters (50 feet)
80 Moderate home stereo, ringing telephone
75 Average City Street
70 Freeway traffic, TV audio
60 Normal Conversation
That movie was hilarious! It's a must-see.
Books are dying. They were popular when they were a novelty, but now everyone has read books and the novelty has worn off. I predict that in 2005 people will stop buying books.
All the stories have already been printed in books, and any new books just have minor variations of the same stories. Books are just a waste of time that could be spent doing other things. People will soon realize this, and the book fad will pass.
I was not at all impressed with their web site. It has to be one of the most annoying sites I've viewed recently. It was bad enough waiting for all their stupid flash animation crap to load, and then you had to wait for all the animation to finish up.
I can't imagine they get that much business from that horrid website.
I can give (game players) the same performance you get out of those game boxes
Details? It takes quite a bit of effort and expense to produce a good, fast, modern gaming console that is as good as currently existing ones. I'm rather skeptical that a cable box company will follow through on such a plan.
I can see them making a gaming box that plays simpler less resource-intense games, like solitaire and tetris, but a console to match the current top consoles? I doubt they'll get that far. With the lack of details, I'm pretty sure they haven't even reached the phase where they begin the actual engineering of the box. It's just an idea in the head of some executives right now
I predict vaporware
I wonder if this simulation includes budget cuts, cost overruns, failing equipment, space accidents, drunken space tourists, space programs failing to uphold their obligations, and copious undeserved drunk, incompetant, Russian cosmonaut jokes, which seem to be popular with American media.
It would sure make it more entertaining.
It had better be up to me what I do with my groyne.
So 100,000 people could complete a game like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 in an hour! :)
Wow!
On a related note, a freshly opened Galeon used 120M of RAM, while a freshly opened Firefox used 86M. I don't really know exactly what that means, but a lower RAM usage number is always a good thing to see.
Why on earth does a web browser like Firefox take up 86 MB of memory? That seems like an awful lot of memory for just a web browser. Is it GTK2 that is taking up all that space?
In our era and in our culture, the swastika is associated with Hitler and his Nazi party. However, the swastika did not originate with Hitler. It originated in India, and has been considered a mystic/spiritual symbol in Asia for thousands of years. So although it has very negative connotations in western cultures, it probably finds a lot of positive usage in eastern cultures. Swastikas are often publically displayed in India on temples and so forth.
Here's an interesting page discussing the origins of the swastika.
When you have an OS that is as insecure as Windows a few years ago, you can still "improve on the security front", yet still have a rather insecure OS. Windows has simply gone from "atrocious" security to "awful" security.
Sounds like an improvement to me!
Seeing that this will be used in wartime, I'm wondering how often bugs in the software or data that isn't up-to-date will cause the vehicle to go places where it shouldn't.
If it doesn't have all the data on where the enemy is, it might just drive happily into a nasty situation, whereas a human driver could see trouble ahead. I'm sure a robot might recognize dangerous terrain, but I can't imagine it would recognize a dangerous combat-related situation. I sure hope they have a human who can take manual control if things should go wrong.
The contestants only had 2 hours to design and complete their works, so they wouldn't have been going all out, otherwise they wouldn't have finished it in time.
I imagine that the Han Solo in Carbonite took a *lot* longer than 2 hours to design and complete.
Don't worry about excessive processor speed! Windows Longhorn will come along and put all that processor time to good work, drawing fancy-schmancy graphical alpha-blended 3D animated animals that annoy the hell out of you!
Where I live in California they are starting to build some of those things in newer developments. I don't like them much. When there is a lot of traffic, it can be really difficult to get on a roundabout.
That has to have been the worst joke I've heard in a while... yet, I still find it incredibly funny.
I'm easily amused, I guess
There's a very well-known beer in Germany, Kloster Andechs beer, that's made by Benedictine monks at a monastery in Bavaria.
i n.asp
The monks use their brewery and beer-making skills to support themselves and their monastery. It's become such huge business for them, that they now employ many non-monks from the surrounding area.
Here's their website:
http://www.andechs.de/englisch/index_ma
Heeeeeyyyy Lucy! I'm home!
(Grunt)
Aren't you glad to see me Lucy?
(Grunt)
Would you like Reecky to geeve you a banana, Lucy?
(Point)
MiniDiscs aren't widely available here in the U.S., but when I lived in Europe stores sold minidiscs fairly cheaply (less than 1 USD a disc if I recall correctly). There were the Sony brand ones, which were the most expensive, but there were competing brands as well, such as TDK.
Even though Sony came up with the MiniDisc, other manufacturers make them as well, which makes it quite a bit cheaper.
I find that women tend to be interested in different type of games. My girlfriend (over 25) is quite uninterested in most of the games I play, but she just loves puzzle and word games. I practically have to pry her away from Bookworm.
This means that we can track the location of any US warship that is within a few hundred meters of us, as it's only a 802.11x signal. Of course any warship within a few hundred meters can usually be tracked using your eyes.
A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines
Engineers tend not to be highly political, but they certainly are greedy. I think the likelyhood of engineers trying to exploit voting machines is a lot lower than engineers trying to exploit what are essentially money-dispensing machines.
It is true that engineers can be used as tools by those who are more interested in rigging elections, but that's also true with slot-machines. The engineer greed factor is still missing.
We're redirecting only if you come from /.
That's very clever! Smart cookies.
It certainly mitigates the awesome server-melting power of the slashdot effect