I ran a PCBoard BBS for almost 15 years, mid-80's to late 90's. Wrote a door game called Imperium and made a few thousand dollars from it. Used to have a folks running online-RPG's in the forums... I think that was why my board lasted as long as it did, the GM's and players just kept calling in and playing their games after most all of the door gamers had moved onto live-network games.
So they create an "anonymous, unique identifier" when you register on their website. Anonymous for who? They obviously have a link between you, the registration on the website, and this unique identifier. Where does the anonymous bit come in?
I stand corrected. I was taking my original comments on the bends from an article on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (The Makers of Things) it was not clear in that article that the caissons used to set the bridge towers were pressurized, so my assumption was simply that they were they were watertight and very very heavy.
You also take a long time driving from Denver to Death Valley... and it's the time of ascent and descent that makes all the difference with .
It doesn't matter what causes the pressure difference... the gases in your blood don't know or care what the external pressure difference is caused by.
I'll probably regret responding to this but it's a slow Monday...
* Building "tall" buildings underground costs a whole lot more than building up above ground. There are also issues with depth and air pressure, especially when you start talking about 40+ story buildings going down. All of a sudden getting the bends becomes an issue when it's time to go home (or God forbid evacuate the building).
* Required mandatory high altitudes for all planes... how were you imagining that they'd land? Most major cities have airports right close by.
* Normal parachutes don't always deploy effectively for drops of less than 500 feet, so that eliminates a lot of buildings. Also parachutes don't work so well when the wind blows you into the side of building you just jumped out of... or the one across the street.
Maybe we should work on helping these people get over their panic-first think-later reactions? It'll be long term less expensive and ultimately more effective.
You know, I really thought it would go the other way. The Pirate Bay is really in a much more favorable position vis-a-vis liquidity and interesting content than Warner Brothers. Be interesting to see how the deal plays out and what members of the Pirate Bay end up on Warner's board of directors.
The ISS is in a low earth orbit (about 325km up) vs a geo-synchronous orbit which would be over a 1000 times higher (around 35800 km above the earth). Since the space shuttle can only get up to 1000km (with minimal cargo), there'd be no way to service the ISS if it was up that high. Plus the radiation environment would be considerably worse (geo-synch orbit being dead in the middle of the outer Van Allen radiation belt) than where it is now which is about 300km below the inner Van Allen belt.
The big problem with the ISS being in low orbit is that solar max is coming and if something isn't done to boost it up and maintain it at a higher orbit, the atmospheric drag is going to bring it down in a very messy way.
The problem isn't that you can't do a powered descent. It's that you have to bring along a boatload more fuel in order to manage it. If I remember from the article, the author mentions that you'd need something like six times the mass of the lander in fuel in order to manage a fully powered descent. Bringing along all that extra mass just makes everything more complicated and expensive.
How lame is that... if the medical billing software requires all caps, then why doesn't the _software_ convert all letter keypresses to ALL CAPS? Good grief
Friends and I have done this on numerous occasions when our one or more of the folks in our group have been out of town during a game session. We set up a webcam on a 30sec refresh and then have the missing folks Skype in.
Works out really well.
My company (a large aerospace firm with many many thousands of employees) keeps the amount of mail you can leave on the server pretty low, around 28MB or so with a max of 15MB for attachments. Most people who have a need to keep long-term email records archive the mail they need/want on their local machines.
By glancing down a list of award winning games over the last nine years and eyeballing the ones I thought were (a) innovative and (b) come from indie developers. There's no question that innovative games have come from large companies as well, but then that wasn't the point of the article was it?
Because some indie game developers don't innovate, nobody does? What a bizarre notion... historically most innovation has come from the little guys who've been in turn bought out by (or turned into) some larger company.
Who do we believe? The physician or the author? I don't think either are adequately qualified to make the call.
Well, Lovelock is a respected expert in biology and climate, whereas Chrichton is an expert in writing.
I think Crichton is a bit more than an expert in writing. Here's a bio blurb from one of his books:
Michael Crichton was born to John Henderson Crichton and Zula Miller Crichton and raised in Roslyn, Long Island, USA. He attended Harvard University, where he graduated summa cum laude in anthropology. He went on to teach anthropology at Cambridge in England, later returning to Massachusetts to gain an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School.
Crichton then served (1969-70) as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, California, before taking up writing full time. Later, Crichton said of his decision: "To quit medicine to become a writer struck most people like quitting the Supreme Court to become a bail bondsman."
We're talking about a expert writer with an exceptional scientific background.
You were fortunate, I've had a 12" Powerbook for 10 months and I travel a similar amount.
My powerbook has been dropped 3 times, the first time it caught a good bounce on tile floor and bent the back corners so that CD's couldn't be inserted or ejected and the recharger plug wouldn't fit into its socket. I'd only had the laptop for about three weeks when that happened and found out that the AppleCare didn't cover accidents... fortunately American Express buyer protection does.
The second time, the laptop got dropped by a TSA operative going through the airport, the LCD panel stopped working properly and the recharger again wouldn't go into the socket. For that one, I had to pay out around $1300 to Apple for repairs and file a claim with the TSA for reimbursement (which came a couple months later).
The third time it got dropped (on the plug corner again) only the case corner bent and everything's still seeming to work alright despite the bent corner... if I want that fixed it'll be $1300 out of my pocket
The problem now is that if I have any future problems with it and want to bring it in for repairs the Genius's will likely take one look at the case and tell me it's a tier 3 repair not covered under the AppleCare agreement.
In general, I've been happy with the performance of the PowerBook and the battery life, I just wish Apple made a more ruggedized machine for road warriors.
Especially taken in the context of the DOD's latest technological push, Network Centric Operations.
From a seminar announcement I received not too long ago:
The Department of Defense is undergoing a significant shift in the way it is planning to conduct future operations, and this new operational mode is already taking shape in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Network Centric Operations (NCO) is new way of planning and executing war operations. NCO involves a computer-based communications network to tie together all of the operational elements currently used in modern warfare, including ground forces, airborne units, naval assets and space-based communications and sensors. All of the DoD components directly involved in warfighting operations, and additionally all of the support components, are undergoing significant change and transformation as a result of this shift to Network Centric Operations.
Google on "Network Centric Operations" or "Network Centric Warfare" for interesting reading.
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I ran a PCBoard BBS for almost 15 years, mid-80's to late 90's. Wrote a door game called Imperium and made a few thousand dollars from it. Used to have a folks running online-RPG's in the forums... I think that was why my board lasted as long as it did, the GM's and players just kept calling in and playing their games after most all of the door gamers had moved onto live-network games.
So they create an "anonymous, unique identifier" when you register on their website. Anonymous for who? They obviously have a link between you, the registration on the website, and this unique identifier. Where does the anonymous bit come in?
That's my solution, two monitors... one vertical and one horizontal.
I stand corrected. I was taking my original comments on the bends from an article on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge (The Makers of Things) it was not clear in that article that the caissons used to set the bridge towers were pressurized, so my assumption was simply that they were they were watertight and very very heavy.
You also take a long time driving from Denver to Death Valley... and it's the time of ascent and descent that makes all the difference with .
It doesn't matter what causes the pressure difference... the gases in your blood don't know or care what the external pressure difference is caused by.
Would really be unfortunate to jump out of the building and then have the winds from the fires suck you back up into it...
I'll probably regret responding to this but it's a slow Monday...
* Building "tall" buildings underground costs a whole lot more than building up above ground. There are also issues with depth and air pressure, especially when you start talking about 40+ story buildings going down. All of a sudden getting the bends becomes an issue when it's time to go home (or God forbid evacuate the building).
* Required mandatory high altitudes for all planes... how were you imagining that they'd land? Most major cities have airports right close by.
* Normal parachutes don't always deploy effectively for drops of less than 500 feet, so that eliminates a lot of buildings. Also parachutes don't work so well when the wind blows you into the side of building you just jumped out of... or the one across the street.
Maybe we should work on helping these people get over their panic-first think-later reactions? It'll be long term less expensive and ultimately more effective.
w00t! Pretentious Bastard FTW!
You know, I really thought it would go the other way. The Pirate Bay is really in a much more favorable position vis-a-vis liquidity and interesting content than Warner Brothers. Be interesting to see how the deal plays out and what members of the Pirate Bay end up on Warner's board of directors.
95% of statistics are made up on the spot.
This plan to upgrade router security is a plot? Are there some nefarious evil masterminds behind it?
Or maybe his ex-wife in retaliation for all the diapers he should have changed
And how has that worked out? Anyone in your gaming group moved out, learned to drive, or had sex yet?
The ISS is in a low earth orbit (about 325km up) vs a geo-synchronous orbit which would be over a 1000 times higher (around 35800 km above the earth). Since the space shuttle can only get up to 1000km (with minimal cargo), there'd be no way to service the ISS if it was up that high. Plus the radiation environment would be considerably worse (geo-synch orbit being dead in the middle of the outer Van Allen radiation belt) than where it is now which is about 300km below the inner Van Allen belt.
The big problem with the ISS being in low orbit is that solar max is coming and if something isn't done to boost it up and maintain it at a higher orbit, the atmospheric drag is going to bring it down in a very messy way.
The problem isn't that you can't do a powered descent. It's that you have to bring along a boatload more fuel in order to manage it. If I remember from the article, the author mentions that you'd need something like six times the mass of the lander in fuel in order to manage a fully powered descent. Bringing along all that extra mass just makes everything more complicated and expensive.
How lame is that... if the medical billing software requires all caps, then why doesn't the _software_ convert all letter keypresses to ALL CAPS? Good grief
Friends and I have done this on numerous occasions when our one or more of the folks in our group have been out of town during a game session. We set up a webcam on a 30sec refresh and then have the missing folks Skype in.
Works out really well.
My company (a large aerospace firm with many many thousands of employees) keeps the amount of mail you can leave on the server pretty low, around 28MB or so with a max of 15MB for attachments. Most people who have a need to keep long-term email records archive the mail they need/want on their local machines.
By glancing down a list of award winning games over the last nine years and eyeballing the ones I thought were (a) innovative and (b) come from indie developers. There's no question that innovative games have come from large companies as well, but then that wasn't the point of the article was it?
Because some indie game developers don't innovate, nobody does? What a bizarre notion... historically most innovation has come from the little guys who've been in turn bought out by (or turned into) some larger company.
Well, Lovelock is a respected expert in biology and climate, whereas Chrichton is an expert in writing.
I think Crichton is a bit more than an expert in writing. Here's a bio blurb from one of his books:
We're talking about a expert writer with an exceptional scientific background.My powerbook has been dropped 3 times, the first time it caught a good bounce on tile floor and bent the back corners so that CD's couldn't be inserted or ejected and the recharger plug wouldn't fit into its socket. I'd only had the laptop for about three weeks when that happened and found out that the AppleCare didn't cover accidents... fortunately American Express buyer protection does.
The second time, the laptop got dropped by a TSA operative going through the airport, the LCD panel stopped working properly and the recharger again wouldn't go into the socket. For that one, I had to pay out around $1300 to Apple for repairs and file a claim with the TSA for reimbursement (which came a couple months later).
The third time it got dropped (on the plug corner again) only the case corner bent and everything's still seeming to work alright despite the bent corner... if I want that fixed it'll be $1300 out of my pocket
The problem now is that if I have any future problems with it and want to bring it in for repairs the Genius's will likely take one look at the case and tell me it's a tier 3 repair not covered under the AppleCare agreement.
In general, I've been happy with the performance of the PowerBook and the battery life, I just wish Apple made a more ruggedized machine for road warriors.
Once you drink the kool-aid you can't go back.
He's saying that the last tsunami happened around the year 1700, not that it happened 1700 years ago.