I've always been rather intrigued by the AlphaSmart Dana (where do they come up with these names...). 25 hour battery, full sized keyboard, decent sized touch screen (looks like 640x200), wireless, USB, some mysterious expansion slots (can't figure out what kind), and above all it runs PalmOS. Which means you can use your own applications on it.
TB scares the hell out of me. We talk about AIDS being a huge killer in the world, well imagine a disease that is deadly, and spreads by coughing instead of by sex and blood. We should have wiped TB out by the 1980s, but we've been too casual.
I am a firm believer in that all species have their appropriate ecological niche somewhere. In the case of diseases like TB and smallpox, that niche is in a small glass vial deep in a highly secure underground bunker.
OTOH, if you want to see a really scary disease some time, take a look at rabies. It may not be cool, but it's still a disease that drives you insane and kills you in extreme pain, and once you know you've got it it's too late to do anything about it... luckily, though, there are signs that a workable treatment may be in development.
Here's an excellent picture of some orbs I took in a cave in Greece. What it actually is? Falling drops of water from the cave ceiling lit up by the flash.
Somewhere --- unfortunately, I seem to have lost it --- I also have a photo with a ghost on it. What it actually is? A strand of my own hair straying in front of the camera lens and being illuminated by the flash. It forms a vague bright blur overlayed over the image that could quite possibly be interpreted as a human figure. I must try and duplicate it intentionally some time.
Oh, yes, and for good measure, here's a picture of a UFO I took once. (Actually a flaw in the film. But an impressive one, nevertheless.)
What is with the PDF allergy exhibited by a number of slashdotters?
Because they're really annoying to read, that's why. Trying to read a document that's formatted to be printed on paper on a screen that's a different shape is an exercise in frustration --- you get the choice of seeing the entire page (with the text too small to read) or seeing only part of a page (which means you lose out on all the benefits of using a page-centric format).
Seeing as the readers are small and lightweight, PDF is a better choice for final documents than ODF.
That is correct. But we're not talking about them in the perspective of final documents; we're talking about online documents, and they're extremely bad at that.
BTW, I have never tried Dexpot, but VirtuaWin is good enough (for me). I couldn't live without it. Yes, it is just a shadow of Gnome/KDE/Xfce/tvwm/...
I tried VirtuaWin. When in use, Visual Studio (may it be cast back into the accursed offal pits from whence it was spawned) would crash approximately five or six times a day. When not using it, it wouldn't. *shrug*
These days I run Ubuntu Linux in a VirtuaBox session, so that the only time I actually have to use Windows is when I need to fire up Visual Studio (which, luckily, isn't that often). Alas, reinstalling my work machine is not an option.
I'm happy XP finally brought real multiple-display support (something the Mac has had since System 7 at the latest), but who knows when robust multiple-virtual-display support will come along.
I don't think it will. I've been hunting for a decent virtual desktop manager for Windows for ages now, and they all have horrible issues. The best one I've seen so far is Dexpot, but even it is annoying to use.
As far as I can make out, the problem is this: Windows doesn't have a window manager in the traditional X sense. Applications handle their own resize, show and hide events. This means that for the desktop manager to switch desktops, it has to send the appropriate show and hide events to the applications... and the applications can take their own sweet time dealing with them. If the application's busy, the window won't change state. One desktop manager I tried to use (briefly) would actually wait for all the applications to process the events, which meant that if you tried to change desktops with an unresponsive application visible, the desktop manager would hang. Not great on a developer machine.
It gets worse: Desktop managers don't appear to get the opportunity to mediate when an application tries to show or hide itself. Certainly, it was all too common in Dexpot for an application to make itself visible when it was already visible on another desktop, with the result that Dexpot would get confused and think that the window was visible on two desktops simultaneously. I tend to run Thunderbird in #1 and Firefox in #2. Clicking on a link in Thunderbird would cause Firefox to become visible in #1 and #2, which isn't really what I wanted.
I eventually gave up and now when I have to use Windows I don't use a desktop manager. The irritation of having to deal with all my windows on one desktop is actually less than the irritation of having to deal with a broken desktop manager.
...SQLite i beleive (which I never used, so don't quote me, but I beleive that is a less server-centric open source DB?).
It's a non-server public domain database library. Yes, really public domain. Its databases live in files and there's no server component whatsoever; it's intended for use by a single application (although it supports file locking so that multiple processes can access the same database).
I use it in one of my apps. It's awesome. It's tiny (about 300kB), it's simple (no messing about with starting servers), it's blazing fast (for some tasks, it's up to an order of magnitude faster than PostgreSQL or MySQL --- for others, it's slower, though: benchmarks). More and more programs are starting to use it simply as a document store. It's great.
If you find yourself wanting to use SQL in a situation where only a small number of apps at a time are going to want access, or even if you just want to teach yourself SQL (it's got an excellent command line shell), do check it out.
So, what precautions do they have on hand in the event one of them grows to enormous size and goes on a rampage?
Adam will whip up something out of a chainsaw, some mysterious plumbing he found at the junk jard, and a large tank of napthalene that he happened to have out back. The result will have a major design flaw but will spew flaming death anyway. The result will be bolted onto Jamie's customised vending machine robot. With the addition of about twelve wireless video cameras, the result will go out and kick ass. Adam will get overexcited.
Actually, I believe that the 'Wisdom of Crowds' actually voted for Al Gore (didn't he get a majority of the overall vote?). It's just that the way the US presidential elections are set up, you don't vote for a particular president; you vote for a representative, and then the representative to vote for the president. Which means that the whole system is highly susceptible as to the distribution of representatives. (Also, on trusting them to vote for the president you wanted...)
They want to know what you watch and when you watch it.
Not with DVB-T, they don't. It's a broadcast signal with no return path.
They want to be able to cut off your signal when they feel like it.
...hardly different from analogue.
They want to prevent you from recording what you watch.
DVB-T digital recorders are ubiquitous here. Alternatively, buy a cheapo DVB card for you PC, and you can capture an entire multiplex in real time --- record thirty-odd channels at once. If your hard disc is hard enough.
They want you to buy new TVs.
Or you could just buy one of the incredibly cheap set-top-boxes that plug into your existing analogue TV, for practically no money, that have been advertised here intensively by everyone including the BBC, for years.
A couple weeks ago I wanted to watch a DVD. And I became slightly enraged at how I couldn't skip those damn publisher logo and copyright crap. It's all because of the digital age.
That is correct. However, they only have that control over you because you're buying into the whole idea that they have control over you --- you're a willing participant to make it work. If your DVD player won't skip the unskippable stuff, get another DVD player. Practically all decent (i.e. non-name-brand) players will start playing the movie immediately, bypassing all the menus, if you insert the disk into the drive, start it playing, and then press STOP, STOP, PLAY. It's a similar 'hack' to the ubiquitous macrovision disables and region code bypasses. The people who make the DVD players know their customers, and they know who pays them. Alternatively, just plonk the thing in your PC and do whatever the hell you feel like with the digital stream.
Don't get enraged. Get smart. Digital data gives the content providers lots of control, true. But it also gives you exactly the same amount of control. All you have to do is decide to use it.
Last, I checked plants don't need oxygen but CO2 and they are mostly interested in the Carbon and release the oxygen part as a by product.
Plants do breathe oxygen --- the photosynthesis happens as a separate process that happens in parallel. Admittedly, they don't use much of it (they don't get about much), but if you put them in a pure CO2 atmosphere, they'll die.
Insert standard disclaimer about plants with weird freaky biochemistry here. There's always something that behaves oddly and breaks the rules.
How could life, as we know it, exist in an atmosphere dominated by methane?
It wouldn't, of course. But there could be life as we don't know it. There's nothing magic about oxygen: it's merely a good oxidiser and we have lots of it. In some exotic environments on Earth, there's life that doesn't respire oxygen; and how did you think it got there, in the first place? Photosynthesising plants made it all. What do you think they breathed?
Complex organic chemistry + lots of energy + a rich environment =...well, we don't know, really. But it's bound to be interesting.
I really did look at their website, honest. They seem to be so comprehensively political that the website is pretty-much content free. Who are these people anyway?
I saw _Star Wars_ (the first time it got rereleased...) in a cinema, and had only ever seen it on television before. There's a film that works really well on the big screen. That first scene where the Star Destroyer flies over is mindblowing --- it's just so big...
These days, unfortunately, I don't go to the cinema much; too expensive, too many commercials, too annoying. I just wait and buy the DVD budget release instead. It's usually cheaper than a cinema ticket would be.
Just checked that as I had a save not long after. It took just over a minute to get from the Save Point to the door to Flaahgra's room while playing on hard mode (which I think doubles the hitpoints of everything).
Right --- but you're better than I am (or you wouldn't have been playing on hard mode!). For me, it was a tedious slog. I don't play games for tedious.
The environment is your real enemy. Ignore the creatures unless they're preventing you from getting where you're trying to go.
The point where I finally gave up was a particular hub room inside the Magmoor Caverns that was full of automated turrets. In order to get anywhere you had to cross this room. It was sufficiently large and complex that in order to get my bearings, I would have to take out all the turrets, and they were fairly tough. At about the fifth time I had to pass through, I'd finally had enough and quit.
This is the exact opposite of what happens. The parties in a two party system move together towards the "median voter." Eventually both parties become the same, not opposites.
Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. The US Republican and Democrat parties are now so similar that to anybody outside the country they're indistinguishable. They only seem to be different, because the only issues being debated are the stupid marginal things that nobody really cares about.
Uh, yeah. I wouldn't be too concerned about the NSA using higher mathematics to open gates to the underworld or fraggle rock or whatever.
If you're keen on wikipedia, try this article. I suspect it may be a new concept to you (and to a number of other people. Did I really get modded 'troll'? Get a grip, guys).
Nope. Here's a map. Look up Varia Suit, which you get after defeating Flaahgra, the first real boss. It's in the middle of the Chozo Ruins. The nearest save point, the black dot in the yellow circle, is two rooms away, southeast. The room immediately to the north of the save point is full of stuff you need to shoot to get past; the room immedately south of Flaahgra is a puzzle room which requires you to do stuff in the right order, shoot things, and climb up a series of annoying platforms.
And you have to do this every time you want to get there.
Actually, that was only one of the reasons I gave up. The other reason was that every time you left a room, it would respawn. Which meant that travelling required you to shoot the same monsters again, and again, and again, and... it was just dull. It's a shame, because Metroid Prime would be exactly the sort of game I'd like otherwise. Take away the respawning and allow you to save anywhere, and I'd actually enjoy it.
I've played several games where I am at a difficult section where I need to try over and over again. However, between the difficult spot and the last available save spot would be some cutscene.
Bloody Metroid bloody Prime.
Oh, look, here's a boss. I've just met it for the first time and it's killed me. Fair enough, that's what bosses do. Okay, back up to the save point and let's try again. Uh... the closest save point to the boss is five minutes' walk away. On the other side of a puzzle room. And a room-full of low level monsters I have to fight through. Every time.
Screw that. I gave up at the second boss. I simply couldn't stand having to replay long, tedious, uninteresting chunks of the game simply to catch up to where I was before I died. This is particularly evil with boss fights, because you're expected to die lots of times fighting them.
No. Evil. If you have bosses, put a save point right outside the room.
You know, I never realised it until I played Tie Fighter, but Tie Fighters really are designed to fly screaming onto the screen and get blown away by the heroes. No shields, no armour, pathetic weapons, a top speed barely above walking pace, and they were still huge fun to fly. Getting all the way through a mission in one of those flying targets really felt like an accomplishment. And then, of course, eventually you got given the Tie Advanced and Tie Interceptor. Now, those were real ships...
Incidentally, Freespace and Freespace 2 are unashamed Tie Fighter ripoffs with better graphics and controls. (And they support force-feedback joysticks. Woo.)
My parents live in a little village in Scotland called Lochcarron. A few years ago, there was a flourishing salmon farming industry (now collapsed, alas). There were hatcheries in the lochs in the mountains, and fully fledged farms in the sea lochs.
When the hatchlings in the mountain lochs got large enough, they got ferried down to the sea lochs. This happened by helicopter, presumably for speed. So, at the appropriate time of year, they'd hire in a helicopter and pilot who would spend a week or so flying around moving the young salmon.
Where did the pilot live while doing this? In the Lochcarron Hotel, of course. Where did they leave the helicopter? In the hotel car park, of course.
In a parking bay.
The helicopter was small enough that it would park very neatly in a double bay. It would always be parked in the one in the corner, and the helicopter landing skids would always be exactly 20cm from the curb in both directions. There'd usually be some cars lined up next to it, too, with the rotors hanging over them. It would leave in the morning, and come back in the afternoon. I don't know where it got refueled --- I doubt you can get Jet A1 from the local garage.
I'm not saying a 3, 4, or 10 party system wouldn't be better, but I doubt it would cause any really meaningful change.
The thing about a two party system is that it encourages polarisation. The parties end up defining themselves by being different from the other party. If one party is for X, then the other party loudly proclaims that it's against it.
What makes this particularly nasty is that because the two parties must be very similar anyway simply in order to be fit to govern, X ends up being some stupid marginal issue that's unimportant. But because it's one of the defining issues that allows the voters to distinguish the two parties, it gets all the publicity and the air time. Any policies that the parties have in common get no publicity --- no matter how bad the policies may be. All the debate ends up being about trivialities, and all the real decisions get hidden.
Multiparty systems are a vast improvement because once you have three people in a debate, the X / not-X distinction is no longer sufficient. Party 1 is for X, party 2 is against X, and... party 3 starts asking awkward questions. Party 3 can play off parties 1 and 2 against each other. Soon, people are actually discussing X. This becomes a habit, and people end up discussing other things, including the issues that are actually important. Multi-party systems encourage debate and defuse party polarisation, which is always good.
Actually, Laika did come back, after 162 days in orbit, when Sputnik 2's orbit decayed and it reentered. Of course, she'd been dead for 161.5 days by then... (a launch problem cause the thermal control systems to fail; the temperature rose to 40C, and she died within five to seven hours.)
Info from Wikipedia, of course, although Zarya has some first-hand information.
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I've always been rather intrigued by the AlphaSmart Dana (where do they come up with these names...). 25 hour battery, full sized keyboard, decent sized touch screen (looks like 640x200), wireless, USB, some mysterious expansion slots (can't figure out what kind), and above all it runs PalmOS. Which means you can use your own applications on it.
Does anyone actually have one? Or has seen one?
I am a firm believer in that all species have their appropriate ecological niche somewhere. In the case of diseases like TB and smallpox, that niche is in a small glass vial deep in a highly secure underground bunker.
OTOH, if you want to see a really scary disease some time, take a look at rabies. It may not be cool, but it's still a disease that drives you insane and kills you in extreme pain, and once you know you've got it it's too late to do anything about it... luckily, though, there are signs that a workable treatment may be in development.
Here's an excellent picture of some orbs I took in a cave in Greece. What it actually is? Falling drops of water from the cave ceiling lit up by the flash.
Somewhere --- unfortunately, I seem to have lost it --- I also have a photo with a ghost on it. What it actually is? A strand of my own hair straying in front of the camera lens and being illuminated by the flash. It forms a vague bright blur overlayed over the image that could quite possibly be interpreted as a human figure. I must try and duplicate it intentionally some time.
Oh, yes, and for good measure, here's a picture of a UFO I took once. (Actually a flaw in the film. But an impressive one, nevertheless.)
Because they're really annoying to read, that's why. Trying to read a document that's formatted to be printed on paper on a screen that's a different shape is an exercise in frustration --- you get the choice of seeing the entire page (with the text too small to read) or seeing only part of a page (which means you lose out on all the benefits of using a page-centric format).
That is correct. But we're not talking about them in the perspective of final documents; we're talking about online documents, and they're extremely bad at that.
I tried VirtuaWin. When in use, Visual Studio (may it be cast back into the accursed offal pits from whence it was spawned) would crash approximately five or six times a day. When not using it, it wouldn't. *shrug*
These days I run Ubuntu Linux in a VirtuaBox session, so that the only time I actually have to use Windows is when I need to fire up Visual Studio (which, luckily, isn't that often). Alas, reinstalling my work machine is not an option.
I don't think it will. I've been hunting for a decent virtual desktop manager for Windows for ages now, and they all have horrible issues. The best one I've seen so far is Dexpot, but even it is annoying to use.
As far as I can make out, the problem is this: Windows doesn't have a window manager in the traditional X sense. Applications handle their own resize, show and hide events. This means that for the desktop manager to switch desktops, it has to send the appropriate show and hide events to the applications... and the applications can take their own sweet time dealing with them. If the application's busy, the window won't change state. One desktop manager I tried to use (briefly) would actually wait for all the applications to process the events, which meant that if you tried to change desktops with an unresponsive application visible, the desktop manager would hang. Not great on a developer machine.
It gets worse: Desktop managers don't appear to get the opportunity to mediate when an application tries to show or hide itself. Certainly, it was all too common in Dexpot for an application to make itself visible when it was already visible on another desktop, with the result that Dexpot would get confused and think that the window was visible on two desktops simultaneously. I tend to run Thunderbird in #1 and Firefox in #2. Clicking on a link in Thunderbird would cause Firefox to become visible in #1 and #2, which isn't really what I wanted.
I eventually gave up and now when I have to use Windows I don't use a desktop manager. The irritation of having to deal with all my windows on one desktop is actually less than the irritation of having to deal with a broken desktop manager.
It's a non-server public domain database library. Yes, really public domain. Its databases live in files and there's no server component whatsoever; it's intended for use by a single application (although it supports file locking so that multiple processes can access the same database).
I use it in one of my apps. It's awesome. It's tiny (about 300kB), it's simple (no messing about with starting servers), it's blazing fast (for some tasks, it's up to an order of magnitude faster than PostgreSQL or MySQL --- for others, it's slower, though: benchmarks). More and more programs are starting to use it simply as a document store. It's great.
If you find yourself wanting to use SQL in a situation where only a small number of apps at a time are going to want access, or even if you just want to teach yourself SQL (it's got an excellent command line shell), do check it out.
It's the noise someone makes as they drown in an ocean of bullshit.
Oh, those have been around for years. Just wear a Rangers shirt in the wrong area of Glasgow...
Adam will whip up something out of a chainsaw, some mysterious plumbing he found at the junk jard, and a large tank of napthalene that he happened to have out back. The result will have a major design flaw but will spew flaming death anyway. The result will be bolted onto Jamie's customised vending machine robot. With the addition of about twelve wireless video cameras, the result will go out and kick ass. Adam will get overexcited.
Does that answer your question?
Actually, I believe that the 'Wisdom of Crowds' actually voted for Al Gore (didn't he get a majority of the overall vote?). It's just that the way the US presidential elections are set up, you don't vote for a particular president; you vote for a representative, and then the representative to vote for the president. Which means that the whole system is highly susceptible as to the distribution of representatives. (Also, on trusting them to vote for the president you wanted...)
Not with DVB-T, they don't. It's a broadcast signal with no return path.
...hardly different from analogue.
DVB-T digital recorders are ubiquitous here. Alternatively, buy a cheapo DVB card for you PC, and you can capture an entire multiplex in real time --- record thirty-odd channels at once. If your hard disc is hard enough.
Or you could just buy one of the incredibly cheap set-top-boxes that plug into your existing analogue TV, for practically no money, that have been advertised here intensively by everyone including the BBC, for years.
That is correct. However, they only have that control over you because you're buying into the whole idea that they have control over you --- you're a willing participant to make it work. If your DVD player won't skip the unskippable stuff, get another DVD player. Practically all decent (i.e. non-name-brand) players will start playing the movie immediately, bypassing all the menus, if you insert the disk into the drive, start it playing, and then press STOP, STOP, PLAY. It's a similar 'hack' to the ubiquitous macrovision disables and region code bypasses. The people who make the DVD players know their customers, and they know who pays them. Alternatively, just plonk the thing in your PC and do whatever the hell you feel like with the digital stream.
Don't get enraged. Get smart. Digital data gives the content providers lots of control, true. But it also gives you exactly the same amount of control. All you have to do is decide to use it.
Plants do breathe oxygen --- the photosynthesis happens as a separate process that happens in parallel. Admittedly, they don't use much of it (they don't get about much), but if you put them in a pure CO2 atmosphere, they'll die.
Insert standard disclaimer about plants with weird freaky biochemistry here. There's always something that behaves oddly and breaks the rules.
It wouldn't, of course. But there could be life as we don't know it. There's nothing magic about oxygen: it's merely a good oxidiser and we have lots of it. In some exotic environments on Earth, there's life that doesn't respire oxygen; and how did you think it got there, in the first place? Photosynthesising plants made it all. What do you think they breathed?
Complex organic chemistry + lots of energy + a rich environment = ...well, we don't know, really. But it's bound to be interesting.
I really did look at their website, honest. They seem to be so comprehensively political that the website is pretty-much content free. Who are these people anyway?
I saw _Star Wars_ (the first time it got rereleased...) in a cinema, and had only ever seen it on television before. There's a film that works really well on the big screen. That first scene where the Star Destroyer flies over is mindblowing --- it's just so big...
These days, unfortunately, I don't go to the cinema much; too expensive, too many commercials, too annoying. I just wait and buy the DVD budget release instead. It's usually cheaper than a cinema ticket would be.
Right --- but you're better than I am (or you wouldn't have been playing on hard mode!). For me, it was a tedious slog. I don't play games for tedious.
The point where I finally gave up was a particular hub room inside the Magmoor Caverns that was full of automated turrets. In order to get anywhere you had to cross this room. It was sufficiently large and complex that in order to get my bearings, I would have to take out all the turrets, and they were fairly tough. At about the fifth time I had to pass through, I'd finally had enough and quit.
Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. The US Republican and Democrat parties are now so similar that to anybody outside the country they're indistinguishable. They only seem to be different, because the only issues being debated are the stupid marginal things that nobody really cares about.
If you're keen on wikipedia, try this article. I suspect it may be a new concept to you (and to a number of other people. Did I really get modded 'troll'? Get a grip, guys).
Nope. Here's a map. Look up Varia Suit, which you get after defeating Flaahgra, the first real boss. It's in the middle of the Chozo Ruins. The nearest save point, the black dot in the yellow circle, is two rooms away, southeast. The room immediately to the north of the save point is full of stuff you need to shoot to get past; the room immedately south of Flaahgra is a puzzle room which requires you to do stuff in the right order, shoot things, and climb up a series of annoying platforms.
And you have to do this every time you want to get there.
Actually, that was only one of the reasons I gave up. The other reason was that every time you left a room, it would respawn. Which meant that travelling required you to shoot the same monsters again, and again, and again, and... it was just dull. It's a shame, because Metroid Prime would be exactly the sort of game I'd like otherwise. Take away the respawning and allow you to save anywhere, and I'd actually enjoy it.
Bloody Metroid bloody Prime.
Oh, look, here's a boss. I've just met it for the first time and it's killed me. Fair enough, that's what bosses do. Okay, back up to the save point and let's try again. Uh... the closest save point to the boss is five minutes' walk away. On the other side of a puzzle room. And a room-full of low level monsters I have to fight through. Every time.
Screw that. I gave up at the second boss. I simply couldn't stand having to replay long, tedious, uninteresting chunks of the game simply to catch up to where I was before I died. This is particularly evil with boss fights, because you're expected to die lots of times fighting them.
No. Evil. If you have bosses, put a save point right outside the room.
You know, I never realised it until I played Tie Fighter, but Tie Fighters really are designed to fly screaming onto the screen and get blown away by the heroes. No shields, no armour, pathetic weapons, a top speed barely above walking pace, and they were still huge fun to fly. Getting all the way through a mission in one of those flying targets really felt like an accomplishment. And then, of course, eventually you got given the Tie Advanced and Tie Interceptor. Now, those were real ships...
Incidentally, Freespace and Freespace 2 are unashamed Tie Fighter ripoffs with better graphics and controls. (And they support force-feedback joysticks. Woo.)
My parents live in a little village in Scotland called Lochcarron. A few years ago, there was a flourishing salmon farming industry (now collapsed, alas). There were hatcheries in the lochs in the mountains, and fully fledged farms in the sea lochs.
When the hatchlings in the mountain lochs got large enough, they got ferried down to the sea lochs. This happened by helicopter, presumably for speed. So, at the appropriate time of year, they'd hire in a helicopter and pilot who would spend a week or so flying around moving the young salmon.
Where did the pilot live while doing this? In the Lochcarron Hotel, of course. Where did they leave the helicopter? In the hotel car park, of course.
In a parking bay.
The helicopter was small enough that it would park very neatly in a double bay. It would always be parked in the one in the corner, and the helicopter landing skids would always be exactly 20cm from the curb in both directions. There'd usually be some cars lined up next to it, too, with the rotors hanging over them. It would leave in the morning, and come back in the afternoon. I don't know where it got refueled --- I doubt you can get Jet A1 from the local garage.
The thing about a two party system is that it encourages polarisation. The parties end up defining themselves by being different from the other party. If one party is for X, then the other party loudly proclaims that it's against it.
What makes this particularly nasty is that because the two parties must be very similar anyway simply in order to be fit to govern, X ends up being some stupid marginal issue that's unimportant. But because it's one of the defining issues that allows the voters to distinguish the two parties, it gets all the publicity and the air time. Any policies that the parties have in common get no publicity --- no matter how bad the policies may be. All the debate ends up being about trivialities, and all the real decisions get hidden.
Multiparty systems are a vast improvement because once you have three people in a debate, the X / not-X distinction is no longer sufficient. Party 1 is for X, party 2 is against X, and... party 3 starts asking awkward questions. Party 3 can play off parties 1 and 2 against each other. Soon, people are actually discussing X. This becomes a habit, and people end up discussing other things, including the issues that are actually important. Multi-party systems encourage debate and defuse party polarisation, which is always good.
Actually, Laika did come back, after 162 days in orbit, when Sputnik 2's orbit decayed and it reentered. Of course, she'd been dead for 161.5 days by then... (a launch problem cause the thermal control systems to fail; the temperature rose to 40C, and she died within five to seven hours.)
Info from Wikipedia, of course, although Zarya has some first-hand information.