Well, as I understand it, string theory is incomplete and does not yet necessarily replace relativity, even though it aims to do that, since it's still untested/the math hasn't been worked out/something like that. So the device probably isn't antiquated. Yet, anyway.
Tourist: Ah! America! I'm here at last! This is great!
Customs official: Ah. Welcome to the United States, terrorist--I mean, guest. Yeah. Guest.
Tourist: Why, hello there! This is my first time visiting America, and I must say that--
Customs official: Please be quiet. I need to take your photograph then get your fingerprints. This is essential. It is a matter of national security. You must comply or you'll be on the next plane back to whatever country you came from.
Tourist: What? My photograph? My fingerprints? I'm not a terrorist! I'm just a tourist! I'm just here to take in the sights and see what it's like in yank-land!
Customs official: I'm sorry, you're going to have to comply if you want entry into the United States of America. We are not going to use this information we've gathered about you for any nefarious purpose, anyway.
Tourist: You're not? Then why are you collecting it?
Customs official: That's classified.
Tourist: It is? Well, classified be damned! What do you need this information for? I demand my rants! I'm not from some rogue, anti-American nation! I'll have you know I'm a French citizen!
Customs official:...Exactly.
Tourist: What? You have something against France?
Customs official: Calm down. Here. I have something for you to eat. They're freedom--I mean, French, fries. Yeah. French fries. Have one. They're really delicious.
Tourist: Why, thank you...hm, they taste kind of...
Customs official: Look, okay, why don't you just let me get your mugshot. I mean, photograph. Yeah. Because the word "mugshot" has negative connotations. And that's obviously not what I'm doing. I'm not doing anything negative.
Tourist: Um, okay...
Customs official: Nothing at all. Of the kind. This data I'm collecting probably--I mean, this data won't be used against you in any way, shape or form. It's just to protect civil liberties.
Tourist: Okay.
Customs official: It's for your privacy.
Tourist: It's for my privacy? You're collecting information about me for my privacy?
Customs official: Yes. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Tourist: These aren't the droids I'm looking for?
Customs official: No, they aren't. Come here, let me take your photograph and fingerprint you, you dear Frenchman.
Tourist: I will comply. I have no mind of my own--my own. I will--have my photograph taken.
Customs official (thinks): The drugging worked like a charm, I'll be damned. I'm sure it'll work out perfectly next week when we put these fries into the national food supply and drug them all. Then we'll have control. Ahahahaha!
I'd heard a while ago that "they," where they is some random Japanese corporation, was going to or was at least considering making a live-action version of Akira, a la the live-action Eva that's supposedly coming out some time. Did anyone else hear this? Is it true? That would be freaking cool...and they'd even be able to get the motorcycles right, with this.
I'm sorry if this sounds incredibly naive, I'm not
an engineer. But how is that even possible?
Always on? Constantly recording everything?
Wouldn't you need an insane amount of battery
power for that? My digital camera, which, granted
is a couple of years old, runs out of juice in
about an hour. And then, recording everything?
Wouldn't you need an equally massive storage
medium? How much would a camera like this cost?!
I use XP. Well, I dual-boot it with Linux on one of my machines. It kind of is pretty sucky. It is more stable than is Win 95/98/Me, but it still suffers from the major Windows flaws, nameley:
The system gets slower and slower as time passes; cruft builds up in the registry and there's no way to get rid of it.
The system IS more stable than other versions of Windows but still crashes for no reason; things break when they're not supposed to. For example, for the last month I have been unable to change my desktop background. Why? I have no freaking idea.
It's still significantly slower than Linux. I find myself waiting on explorer to open a directory a lot longer than I should.
So XP, while calling it a joke might be slightly too harsh, is still, basically, crap.
Microsoft may in fact always have a niche in the OS / office application industry. Many people still find *NIX too hard to understand (yeah, I know it's easy to figure out, but there are some extremely computer-illiterate people out there). Windows is crummy compared to Unix in my opinion, but for the general user, Windows is probably better. You can plug peripherals in and they Just Work. You can do mundane, everyday office things with Windows and it Works pretty well. Granted, try to do anything complex with a Windows box and it falls over, but for basic computing needs for those who are computer illiterate, it's probably the best solution. Some people will always want a basic OS that comes preloaded on their computer that does the basic stuff they're used to. You know, the type of person who uses their computer twice a week to check their e-mail or write letters or whatever. That's why MS will continue to be profitable; their main user base isn't going anywhere.
Some people are freaked out by the notion that Linux's source code is "open", and, as such, don't understand how it could possibly be a secure platform if all of its workings can be easily seen. Yeah, I know, it's wrong, but that's what a lot of people think. A lot of people think something freely available like Linux can't possibly be secure.
I think having rreely available scientific journals should make more knowledge available to a wider cross-section of people. People would be able to look up accurate technical information online, and students would probably benefit too: it would be easier for them to do research. Making this kind of information more freely available will lead us to a more enlightened, informed, knowledgeable society.
I'm pretty sure on Dell's gaming laptops you can "sort of" upgrade them, meaning that you call them and pay them to send a technician to your house and install an upgrade for you; you can't actually buy parts yourself and upgrade (that I'm aware of.) I believe, however, that Alienware gives you this option. Still, though, you'd need proprietary parts, so they're not really universally upgradable like desktops are, but at least they're better than most laptops.
As for easy PC upgrades, USB is halfway there. You can't upgrade the CPU with a USB peripheral, obviously, but you can get USB sound cards and hard drives. I know a few people who bought USB hard drives simply because they are uncomfortable with the idea of opening up their PC case (and are uncomfortable with the idea of paying someone $$$ to do it.)
No, I mean, seriously. I'm not trying to troll, I'm just wondering. I'm a gamer, and I play games on my desktop machine at home, and enjoy doing that. When I'm out travelling, I have a laptop, and I want that laptop to be thin, light, and have long battery life. These gaming laptops are none of these things. Are gamers really going to lug twenty pound monstrosities (Yes, I am exaggerating) around so that they can play NWN for 20 minutes until the battery runs out? That would be cumbersome.
And I think I remember reading (in an AP story a while ago) that a Dell rep was asked the same question (what's the point of a gaming laptop) a while ago, and he said something like, "Well, these machines are mostly going to be left at home." Well, if they are, why not just buy a desktop? I just don't really see the point. If you can't carry a laptop around with you, what's the reason to have one?
"Playing Dungeons & Dragons by yourself?"
on
Dating Design Patterns
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
How many times, when playing Dungeons and Dragons by yourself...
I dunno...I'm a big D&D fan, to be sure, and I like playing Dungeons and Dragons. But...by myself? Are you serious? Is it even possible to play D&D by yourself, barring playing a D&D based computer game which doesn't really count? If so, how? I'd be interested to know. It'd give me a lot (okay, one) more option on what to do on a Saturday night. And one is still a lot--it'd be a one hundred percent increase over my options otherwise.
Usenet giraffes. It's obviously the next logical step, isn't it? Once you've got text, audio, pr0n, and so on, the next thing to do is clearly to find a way to quickly and efficiently transfer giraffes via usenet. Once that technology's available, then we shall truly be in giraffe nirvana, and there shall be free giraffes available for everyone, and all shall be happy.
Or worse. Consider:
Due consideration should also be given to people - your primary enemy, and also your main source of clump fodder in later levels.
Can you imagine the social problems this would cause? We'd have kids trying to roll over people and crush them into massive blobs, then ignite them into stars! Ye gods!
Do not actually attempt to roll around and collect things as is done in the MPEG, no matter how fun it looks. Not only will attempting this likely be painful, it might get you in trouble with the law and would also probably be very, very embarassing.
We are obviously on the verge of a revolution in communications and networking! Clearly, if it turns out that Internet can be cheaply had via pigeon, the price of broadband will drop, and millions of homes all across America will soon be wired (or "flown" or "pigeon-linked" or whatever it'll eventually be called) into our glorious information superhighway! Millions will be able to enjoy the Internet and will be able to use it productively, to improve the quality of their lives, and download tons of free porn! The world shall become a more enlightened, happier civilization! And it'll all be thanks to the pigeons! God bless them!
Here's something sort of similar; it's an interesting way of looking at search results from Google "visually." Kind of a similar concept to the history idea, I suppose. It's a java applet that basically shows your search results in a clustered "map," showing related web sites linked together. It's sort of gimmicky but is actually quite interesting to play around with. At first I was skeptical but it's quite usable. Maybe Apple's history idea might turn out to be pretty cool.
I personally don't really compile much from source, mostly because I don't have the time. My own P4 desktop machine runs stock Debian, which is compiled, as far as I know, for a 386. I compiled my own kernel, though, but everything else is basically unoptimized for my hardware. Regardless, my system seems pretty speedy; my box is decent, 2.6 ghz, 512 megs of ram.
But would I see a significant advantage if I were to compile everything from source? Does it dramatically increase speed, or is the difference mostly imperceptible? I haven't used Gentoo (but am interested in maybe trying it), so is there an advantage to speed for using it?
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft is concentrating first on a security-focused update (SP2) to Windows XP. I think this shows that at least MS is trying to work out outstanding problems in their existing OS before rushing Longhorn and forcing people to upgrade to that to improve their security. It looks like---or at least I hope, that MS is paying more attention now to making their products more secure, . I wonder if this has anything to do with the deluge of viruses hitting Win computers in the past few several months (like Blaster). Probably.
Well, as I understand it, string theory is incomplete and does not yet necessarily replace relativity, even though it aims to do that, since it's still untested/the math hasn't been worked out/something like that. So the device probably isn't antiquated. Yet, anyway.
Tourist: Ah! America! I'm here at last! This is great!
...Exactly.
Customs official: Ah. Welcome to the United States, terrorist--I mean, guest. Yeah. Guest.
Tourist: Why, hello there! This is my first time visiting America, and I must say that--
Customs official: Please be quiet. I need to take your photograph then get your fingerprints. This is essential. It is a matter of national security. You must comply or you'll be on the next plane back to whatever country you came from.
Tourist: What? My photograph? My fingerprints? I'm not a terrorist! I'm just a tourist! I'm just here to take in the sights and see what it's like in yank-land!
Customs official: I'm sorry, you're going to have to comply if you want entry into the United States of America. We are not going to use this information we've gathered about you for any nefarious purpose, anyway.
Tourist: You're not? Then why are you collecting it?
Customs official: That's classified.
Tourist: It is? Well, classified be damned! What do you need this information for? I demand my rants! I'm not from some rogue, anti-American nation! I'll have you know I'm a French citizen!
Customs official:
Tourist: What? You have something against France?
Customs official: Calm down. Here. I have something for you to eat. They're freedom--I mean, French, fries. Yeah. French fries. Have one. They're really delicious.
Tourist: Why, thank you...hm, they taste kind of...
Customs official: Look, okay, why don't you just let me get your mugshot. I mean, photograph. Yeah. Because the word "mugshot" has negative connotations. And that's obviously not what I'm doing. I'm not doing anything negative.
Tourist: Um, okay...
Customs official: Nothing at all. Of the kind. This data I'm collecting probably--I mean, this data won't be used against you in any way, shape or form. It's just to protect civil liberties.
Tourist: Okay.
Customs official: It's for your privacy.
Tourist: It's for my privacy? You're collecting information about me for my privacy?
Customs official: Yes. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Tourist: These aren't the droids I'm looking for?
Customs official: No, they aren't. Come here, let me take your photograph and fingerprint you, you dear Frenchman.
Tourist: I will comply. I have no mind of my own--my own. I will--have my photograph taken.
Customs official (thinks): The drugging worked like a charm, I'll be damned. I'm sure it'll work out perfectly next week when we put these fries into the national food supply and drug them all. Then we'll have control. Ahahahaha!
I'd heard a while ago that "they," where they is some random Japanese corporation, was going to or was at least considering making a live-action version of Akira, a la the live-action Eva that's supposedly coming out some time. Did anyone else hear this? Is it true? That would be freaking cool...and they'd even be able to get the motorcycles right, with this.
I'm sorry if this sounds incredibly naive, I'm not an engineer. But how is that even possible? Always on? Constantly recording everything? Wouldn't you need an insane amount of battery power for that? My digital camera, which, granted is a couple of years old, runs out of juice in about an hour. And then, recording everything? Wouldn't you need an equally massive storage medium? How much would a camera like this cost?!
I use XP. Well, I dual-boot it with Linux on one of my machines. It kind of is pretty sucky. It is more stable than is Win 95/98/Me, but it still suffers from the major Windows flaws, nameley:
The system gets slower and slower as time passes; cruft builds up in the registry and there's no way to get rid of it.
The system IS more stable than other versions of Windows but still crashes for no reason; things break when they're not supposed to. For example, for the last month I have been unable to change my desktop background. Why? I have no freaking idea.
It's still significantly slower than Linux. I find myself waiting on explorer to open a directory a lot longer than I should.
So XP, while calling it a joke might be slightly too harsh, is still, basically, crap.
Microsoft may in fact always have a niche in the OS / office application industry. Many people still find *NIX too hard to understand (yeah, I know it's easy to figure out, but there are some extremely computer-illiterate people out there). Windows is crummy compared to Unix in my opinion, but for the general user, Windows is probably better. You can plug peripherals in and they Just Work. You can do mundane, everyday office things with Windows and it Works pretty well. Granted, try to do anything complex with a Windows box and it falls over, but for basic computing needs for those who are computer illiterate, it's probably the best solution. Some people will always want a basic OS that comes preloaded on their computer that does the basic stuff they're used to. You know, the type of person who uses their computer twice a week to check their e-mail or write letters or whatever. That's why MS will continue to be profitable; their main user base isn't going anywhere.
They're Microsoft! What, were you expecting them to play nice?
Some people are freaked out by the notion that Linux's source code is "open", and, as such, don't understand how it could possibly be a secure platform if all of its workings can be easily seen. Yeah, I know, it's wrong, but that's what a lot of people think. A lot of people think something freely available like Linux can't possibly be secure.
I think having rreely available scientific journals should make more knowledge available to a wider cross-section of people. People would be able to look up accurate technical information online, and students would probably benefit too: it would be easier for them to do research. Making this kind of information more freely available will lead us to a more enlightened, informed, knowledgeable society.
I'm pretty sure on Dell's gaming laptops you can "sort of" upgrade them, meaning that you call them and pay them to send a technician to your house and install an upgrade for you; you can't actually buy parts yourself and upgrade (that I'm aware of.) I believe, however, that Alienware gives you this option. Still, though, you'd need proprietary parts, so they're not really universally upgradable like desktops are, but at least they're better than most laptops. As for easy PC upgrades, USB is halfway there. You can't upgrade the CPU with a USB peripheral, obviously, but you can get USB sound cards and hard drives. I know a few people who bought USB hard drives simply because they are uncomfortable with the idea of opening up their PC case (and are uncomfortable with the idea of paying someone $$$ to do it.)
No, I mean, seriously. I'm not trying to troll, I'm just wondering. I'm a gamer, and I play games on my desktop machine at home, and enjoy doing that. When I'm out travelling, I have a laptop, and I want that laptop to be thin, light, and have long battery life. These gaming laptops are none of these things. Are gamers really going to lug twenty pound monstrosities (Yes, I am exaggerating) around so that they can play NWN for 20 minutes until the battery runs out? That would be cumbersome. And I think I remember reading (in an AP story a while ago) that a Dell rep was asked the same question (what's the point of a gaming laptop) a while ago, and he said something like, "Well, these machines are mostly going to be left at home." Well, if they are, why not just buy a desktop? I just don't really see the point. If you can't carry a laptop around with you, what's the reason to have one?
How many times, when playing Dungeons and Dragons by yourself... I dunno...I'm a big D&D fan, to be sure, and I like playing Dungeons and Dragons. But...by myself? Are you serious? Is it even possible to play D&D by yourself, barring playing a D&D based computer game which doesn't really count? If so, how? I'd be interested to know. It'd give me a lot (okay, one) more option on what to do on a Saturday night. And one is still a lot--it'd be a one hundred percent increase over my options otherwise.
...but does it run Linux?
What do you achieve with OpenBSD on your game boy? Absolutely nothing! That's the whole point, isn't it? :)
Usenet giraffes. It's obviously the next logical step, isn't it? Once you've got text, audio, pr0n, and so on, the next thing to do is clearly to find a way to quickly and efficiently transfer giraffes via usenet. Once that technology's available, then we shall truly be in giraffe nirvana, and there shall be free giraffes available for everyone, and all shall be happy.
Or worse. Consider: Due consideration should also be given to people - your primary enemy, and also your main source of clump fodder in later levels. Can you imagine the social problems this would cause? We'd have kids trying to roll over people and crush them into massive blobs, then ignite them into stars! Ye gods!
Do not actually attempt to roll around and collect things as is done in the MPEG, no matter how fun it looks. Not only will attempting this likely be painful, it might get you in trouble with the law and would also probably be very, very embarassing.
We are obviously on the verge of a revolution in communications and networking! Clearly, if it turns out that Internet can be cheaply had via pigeon, the price of broadband will drop, and millions of homes all across America will soon be wired (or "flown" or "pigeon-linked" or whatever it'll eventually be called) into our glorious information superhighway! Millions will be able to enjoy the Internet and will be able to use it productively, to improve the quality of their lives, and download tons of free porn! The world shall become a more enlightened, happier civilization! And it'll all be thanks to the pigeons! God bless them!
It's branding. Sun is probably best-known as "the creator of Java." So they brand other products, even unreleated ones, with that name.
Here's something sort of similar; it's an interesting way of looking at search results from Google "visually." Kind of a similar concept to the history idea, I suppose. It's a java applet that basically shows your search results in a clustered "map," showing related web sites linked together. It's sort of gimmicky but is actually quite interesting to play around with. At first I was skeptical but it's quite usable. Maybe Apple's history idea might turn out to be pretty cool.
No.
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
My biggest grievance against packages is the dependacy fiasco. That's why you use apt or yum.
I personally don't really compile much from source, mostly because I don't have the time. My own P4 desktop machine runs stock Debian, which is compiled, as far as I know, for a 386. I compiled my own kernel, though, but everything else is basically unoptimized for my hardware. Regardless, my system seems pretty speedy; my box is decent, 2.6 ghz, 512 megs of ram. But would I see a significant advantage if I were to compile everything from source? Does it dramatically increase speed, or is the difference mostly imperceptible? I haven't used Gentoo (but am interested in maybe trying it), so is there an advantage to speed for using it?