I remember that back in the 1980's it was said that the United States was planning to have a moon base by the year 2000.
Look where that ended up.
So, as for the Japan's plan for a moon base, I'll have to see the thing actually under construction before I believe it. I find the robotic probe plan to be much more realistic. I think they have a pretty good chance of succeeding there.
Informative Article
on
NYT on Warhammer
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I thought that article was fairly informative and objective. Most of the articles one reads about this type of activity tends to regard the participants as weird dorks who are socially inept, or it condemns such activities as being bad for children.
It was refreshing to read an article that treats it like a normal hobby.
The hardware isn't the problem. There's plenty of processing power to do something like that. The problem is that nobody has figured out how to make a programming environment that is both powerful and flexible like modern programming languages, yet extremely simple like legos.
I suppose one could produce a graphical version of a current programming language, but that would be very complicated and slow to use.
If you can figure out how to write something like this that creates large applications like Firefox, Word, or Visual Studio, you'd stand to make a fortune.
Since the space shuttle was designed to bring back satellites from orbit, I don't think a few extra people would make a difference. Satellites tend to be a lot heavier than people.
Not to mention that the shuttle is so heavy that a few extra people would hardly make a difference in the overall weight.
So I take it that the Jedi want to find some magic crystal that will bring galactic peace and happiness. This plot sounds more like it originated in some New Age hippy commune out in the desert in New Mexico.
"Yeah man, let's use the power of the crystals and we'll live in peace and harmony with our galactic brothers! Let's celebrate with some weed!"
It's no wonder the Jedi were exterminated if they had digressed to the point of finding magical crystals to solve their problems.
I've always wanted to be able to teach Clippy what was annoying by slapping him around with the mouse cursor, just like those animals in Black & White.
Just buy another hard drive to put them on: that's what I use to backup all my files.
I got a USB/Firewire hard drive enclosure, bought a hard drive, and combined the two. It's pretty cheap storage, and it's nice because you can buy slower hard drives with less cache. It's just being used for backup, so speed isn't as important.
The enclosures are nice because you can switch hard drives when the current one becomes too small.
I'm willing to point out that the exploration by the Europeans of previously unknown areas had a much lower barrier for entry than space exploration.
Sure, we're much more technologically advanced and wealthier, but all you needed back then were a ship, some sailors, a navigator, some supplies, and off you went. It didn't cost the large amounts of money (even accounting for inflation and so forth) that it takes to fund a space program.
The European explorers didn't need to take oxygen with them, and they needed to make stops to find fresh food and water. They didn't usually carry everything they would need for the whole voyage. Also, it didn't take seven years to get to their destination (without resupply) like it takes us to get to Saturn. They were also able to set up colonies in places that had the things they needed to survive.
I certainly agree with you that one shouldn't be overly risk-averse in exploring space: people will die exploring. There have been a number of unnecessary wimp-outs every time something bad happens (NASA, I'm looking at you). I think the Chinese will do pretty well in this area, as they have shown themselves willing to accept losses if it leads to a national goal. However, I think risk-aversion is more of a secondary factor in our lack of progress.
The primary factor is that relatively few can play the exploration game when it comes to space. Only a few governments have gotten involved, whereas back in the 1500's and 1600's, there were a lot of smaller private ventures, hoping to gain profits off of gold, spices, and other trade.
I think that once private companies are able to reach space and find something profitable, then space exploration will do much better. It will still be a while, I think. The main problem is the huge amounts of money it takes, and the need to find profit in order to pay for it all. I don't expect any colonies on other planets in my lifetime (and I'm in my 20's).
This software allows you to do nifty things like weed out certain unwanted directories, provides compression, makes differential backups, and breaks backups into chunks if your backup medium is smaller than the data.
The main reason I would want backup software is so that I don't have to think about doing a backup: it just happens. I have a hard drive I use for backups, but I find that I don't end up dragging and dropping as much as I should. People tend to get lazy and not do backups if they aren't automated.
Also, dragging and dropping mean you have to go find all the directories to drag and drop, which may mean some hunting and forgetting of certain directories. It's easy enough if your data is limited to your home directory, but if you also want data from various directories throughout the system (without backing up the entire system), backup software is handy for that.
So in simple cases with a diligent person, the backup can be done through drag-and-drop, but unfortunately it's not always simple, and people tend to be lazy.
I'm looking into getting a book so that I can learn more about Linux configuration and system administration. Does most of the knowledge in this book applies to distros other than Red Hat?
I personally prefer Mandrake, but I want to acquire knowledge that applies to more than one distro.
I know they're in a rush to claim the North Pole and all, but it's just a bunch of ice floating in the ocean. That's hardly valuable to me. All the minerals would probably be found on the arctic islands, which are already claimed mostly by Russia and Canada.
I'm sure if someone other that the U.S., good ol' G.W. will "melt their hopes" with lasers from his newfangled missile defense system that he's planning.
Either that or the current tendancy of the U.S. government to ignore things like greenhouse gasses and global warning will do the job without having to fire a single laser.
Anyone find it ironic that the New Zealand Herald is reporting on this? That's about as far as you can get from a country with arctic interests.
My girlfriend was raised by a lesbian pair. She turned out just fine.
Her relationship with her mother's partner just like that with a parent. It didn't matter what gender her parents were: the important part was that they raised her well. Growing up with two female parents was perfectly normal to her, and she had the same type of childhood experiences any other child might.
There are those, mainly in homophobic states like Texas, that claim such parents want to raise homosexuals. That's a bunch of nonsense. They respect her sexuality just as much as she respects theirs. I guess because some homophobes are constantly pressuring people to be heterosexual, they expect the same things from homosexuals. The world outside of Jesusland doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.
Actually, I don't think he used the word correctly. One can't be gay for something. They can be crazy for something, but not gay for something.
You can say things like "It's gay, cheerful day" or "I feel so gay using this program!", but not what he said.
Unfortunately, the word gay has become associated so much with homosexuality rather than with its original meaning, one can't use it anymore (unless you're talking with old people) without being thought of as wierd.
Occasionally I'll read some old book where they use the word, and it'll sound strange at first. Within a generation, the original use of the word "gay" will no doubt be considered archaic.
I like the joke, and I would like to point out one thing that I thought about after laughing at it.
Since the plant was in Alabama, I can't imagine there were many other job opportunities available. So even thought they undoubtedly saw it coming, it was probably way better than working at Walmart or subsistence agriculture, which may be what they will have to resort to now.
An athlete? Oh please! I have no doubt that he's very talented and skilled at Halo, but sitting and moving your fingers on a controller does not make you an athlete.
If playing Halo is athletics, then kids get plenty of physical exercise, and we no longer need to worry about them getting fat because they're playing Halo all day. In fact, we should just considered chess and go games to be athletic events as well. They actually have to pick up the pieces and move them by hand.
If Halo players are athletes, then I don't see what's preventing an Olympic Halo event. We'll have Olympic Counterstrike, Enemy Territory, and UT 2004 events as well, so that all deserving athletes can complete!
Not those turn-based stategy gamers though: they aren't athletes. They spend too long thinking and don't twitch their fingers often enough to make them athletes.
The atmosphere does provide some protection, but many meteors still hit Earth anyways. We just don't see as much pockmarking, because the Earth's surface has lots of water (75% of the surface) and the ground is not just hard rock. Not only that, but meteor craters don't last as long because weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics.
It could have taken billions of years for that moon to accumulate all the pockmarking. Such craters on Earth generally disappear without a trace in less than a million years.
Actually, parents won't be taking responsibility if their children still get their hands on video games. They'll just call for stricter enforcement, stricter laws, and more crackdowns in general. Then nobody will be able to get their hands on them except the teenagers who download them off the Internet anyways.
Before there were video games, parents blamed other things. Earlier it was athiests, then communists, jazz, then rock and roll music. (Yes, Jazz used to be considered to be degrading moral-values and causing youngsters to behave in scandalous ways. Now many consider it to be old-people music)
Einstein actually helped Physics along by doing that.
By constantly hammering at a theory and trying to poke holes in it, you will either show it to be wrong or make it that much more solid. Either result is a benefit to science: we find out that we're wrong or we become more sure that we're right.
From what I understand, the day that the week begins depends on what country you're in. I know that in the United States the week begins on Sunday.
In a lot of European countries, a week begins on a Monday. The calendars in the United States have Sunday at the beginning, and I've seen Spanish and German calendars with Monday at the beginning.
So I don't think the definition of a week is as well-defined as you might think.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember that back in the 1980's it was said that the United States was planning to have a moon base by the year 2000.
Look where that ended up.
So, as for the Japan's plan for a moon base, I'll have to see the thing actually under construction before I believe it. I find the robotic probe plan to be much more realistic. I think they have a pretty good chance of succeeding there.
I thought that article was fairly informative and objective. Most of the articles one reads about this type of activity tends to regard the participants as weird dorks who are socially inept, or it condemns such activities as being bad for children.
It was refreshing to read an article that treats it like a normal hobby.
Perfect for the geek who wants to be married to technology rather than another person.
Nothing says commitment to your true love technology like one of these rings.
The hardware isn't the problem. There's plenty of processing power to do something like that. The problem is that nobody has figured out how to make a programming environment that is both powerful and flexible like modern programming languages, yet extremely simple like legos.
I suppose one could produce a graphical version of a current programming language, but that would be very complicated and slow to use.
If you can figure out how to write something like this that creates large applications like Firefox, Word, or Visual Studio, you'd stand to make a fortune.
Since the space shuttle was designed to bring back satellites from orbit, I don't think a few extra people would make a difference. Satellites tend to be a lot heavier than people.
Not to mention that the shuttle is so heavy that a few extra people would hardly make a difference in the overall weight.
So I take it that the Jedi want to find some magic crystal that will bring galactic peace and happiness. This plot sounds more like it originated in some New Age hippy commune out in the desert in New Mexico.
"Yeah man, let's use the power of the crystals and we'll live in peace and harmony with our galactic brothers! Let's celebrate with some weed!"
It's no wonder the Jedi were exterminated if they had digressed to the point of finding magical crystals to solve their problems.
I've always wanted to be able to teach Clippy what was annoying by slapping him around with the mouse cursor, just like those animals in Black & White.
Clippy: "It looks like you're..."
Me: Slap, Slap! Bam!
Clippy: (Whimper)
And before you know it they're implanting cheap laser beams into the heads of those frickin' sharks!
Just buy another hard drive to put them on: that's what I use to backup all my files.
I got a USB/Firewire hard drive enclosure, bought a hard drive, and combined the two. It's pretty cheap storage, and it's nice because you can buy slower hard drives with less cache. It's just being used for backup, so speed isn't as important.
The enclosures are nice because you can switch hard drives when the current one becomes too small.
I'm willing to point out that the exploration by the Europeans of previously unknown areas had a much lower barrier for entry than space exploration.
Sure, we're much more technologically advanced and wealthier, but all you needed back then were a ship, some sailors, a navigator, some supplies, and off you went. It didn't cost the large amounts of money (even accounting for inflation and so forth) that it takes to fund a space program.
The European explorers didn't need to take oxygen with them, and they needed to make stops to find fresh food and water. They didn't usually carry everything they would need for the whole voyage. Also, it didn't take seven years to get to their destination (without resupply) like it takes us to get to Saturn. They were also able to set up colonies in places that had the things they needed to survive.
I certainly agree with you that one shouldn't be overly risk-averse in exploring space: people will die exploring. There have been a number of unnecessary wimp-outs every time something bad happens (NASA, I'm looking at you). I think the Chinese will do pretty well in this area, as they have shown themselves willing to accept losses if it leads to a national goal. However, I think risk-aversion is more of a secondary factor in our lack of progress.
The primary factor is that relatively few can play the exploration game when it comes to space. Only a few governments have gotten involved, whereas back in the 1500's and 1600's, there were a lot of smaller private ventures, hoping to gain profits off of gold, spices, and other trade.
I think that once private companies are able to reach space and find something profitable, then space exploration will do much better. It will still be a while, I think. The main problem is the huge amounts of money it takes, and the need to find profit in order to pay for it all. I don't expect any colonies on other planets in my lifetime (and I'm in my 20's).
Is that some kind of sense that allows you to pick out other KDE users in a crowd?
This software allows you to do nifty things like weed out certain unwanted directories, provides compression, makes differential backups, and breaks backups into chunks if your backup medium is smaller than the data.
The main reason I would want backup software is so that I don't have to think about doing a backup: it just happens. I have a hard drive I use for backups, but I find that I don't end up dragging and dropping as much as I should. People tend to get lazy and not do backups if they aren't automated.
Also, dragging and dropping mean you have to go find all the directories to drag and drop, which may mean some hunting and forgetting of certain directories. It's easy enough if your data is limited to your home directory, but if you also want data from various directories throughout the system (without backing up the entire system), backup software is handy for that.
So in simple cases with a diligent person, the backup can be done through drag-and-drop, but unfortunately it's not always simple, and people tend to be lazy.
A lot of good some puny laser warning system will do them when I start aiming my death ray at the cockpit.
Remember folks, death rays don't kill people: people kill people.
Damn that Aristotle! He lied!
I'm looking into getting a book so that I can learn more about Linux configuration and system administration. Does most of the knowledge in this book applies to distros other than Red Hat?
I personally prefer Mandrake, but I want to acquire knowledge that applies to more than one distro.
I know they're in a rush to claim the North Pole and all, but it's just a bunch of ice floating in the ocean. That's hardly valuable to me. All the minerals would probably be found on the arctic islands, which are already claimed mostly by Russia and Canada.
I'm sure if someone other that the U.S., good ol' G.W. will "melt their hopes" with lasers from his newfangled missile defense system that he's planning.
Either that or the current tendancy of the U.S. government to ignore things like greenhouse gasses and global warning will do the job without having to fire a single laser.
Anyone find it ironic that the New Zealand Herald is reporting on this? That's about as far as you can get from a country with arctic interests.
My girlfriend was raised by a lesbian pair. She turned out just fine.
Her relationship with her mother's partner just like that with a parent. It didn't matter what gender her parents were: the important part was that they raised her well. Growing up with two female parents was perfectly normal to her, and she had the same type of childhood experiences any other child might.
There are those, mainly in homophobic states like Texas, that claim such parents want to raise homosexuals. That's a bunch of nonsense. They respect her sexuality just as much as she respects theirs. I guess because some homophobes are constantly pressuring people to be heterosexual, they expect the same things from homosexuals. The world outside of Jesusland doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.
Actually, I don't think he used the word correctly. One can't be gay for something. They can be crazy for something, but not gay for something.
You can say things like "It's gay, cheerful day" or "I feel so gay using this program!", but not what he said.
Unfortunately, the word gay has become associated so much with homosexuality rather than with its original meaning, one can't use it anymore (unless you're talking with old people) without being thought of as wierd.
Occasionally I'll read some old book where they use the word, and it'll sound strange at first. Within a generation, the original use of the word "gay" will no doubt be considered archaic.
I like the joke, and I would like to point out one thing that I thought about after laughing at it.
Since the plant was in Alabama, I can't imagine there were many other job opportunities available. So even thought they undoubtedly saw it coming, it was probably way better than working at Walmart or subsistence agriculture, which may be what they will have to resort to now.
Now I *really* feel sorry for the poor people.
Oops. Thanks for the clarification. I thought the poster was referring to his Halo-playing abilities.
An athlete? Oh please! I have no doubt that he's very talented and skilled at Halo, but sitting and moving your fingers on a controller does not make you an athlete.
If playing Halo is athletics, then kids get plenty of physical exercise, and we no longer need to worry about them getting fat because they're playing Halo all day. In fact, we should just considered chess and go games to be athletic events as well. They actually have to pick up the pieces and move them by hand.
If Halo players are athletes, then I don't see what's preventing an Olympic Halo event. We'll have Olympic Counterstrike, Enemy Territory, and UT 2004 events as well, so that all deserving athletes can complete!
Not those turn-based stategy gamers though: they aren't athletes. They spend too long thinking and don't twitch their fingers often enough to make them athletes.
The atmosphere does provide some protection, but many meteors still hit Earth anyways. We just don't see as much pockmarking, because the Earth's surface has lots of water (75% of the surface) and the ground is not just hard rock. Not only that, but meteor craters don't last as long because weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics.
It could have taken billions of years for that moon to accumulate all the pockmarking. Such craters on Earth generally disappear without a trace in less than a million years.
Actually, parents won't be taking responsibility if their children still get their hands on video games. They'll just call for stricter enforcement, stricter laws, and more crackdowns in general. Then nobody will be able to get their hands on them except the teenagers who download them off the Internet anyways.
Before there were video games, parents blamed other things. Earlier it was athiests, then communists, jazz, then rock and roll music. (Yes, Jazz used to be considered to be degrading moral-values and causing youngsters to behave in scandalous ways. Now many consider it to be old-people music)
Einstein actually helped Physics along by doing that.
By constantly hammering at a theory and trying to poke holes in it, you will either show it to be wrong or make it that much more solid. Either result is a benefit to science: we find out that we're wrong or we become more sure that we're right.
From what I understand, the day that the week begins depends on what country you're in. I know that in the United States the week begins on Sunday.
In a lot of European countries, a week begins on a Monday. The calendars in the United States have Sunday at the beginning, and I've seen Spanish and German calendars with Monday at the beginning.
So I don't think the definition of a week is as well-defined as you might think.