I'm sure this is an unpopular sentiment, and that many will disagree with me (I might even earn the so called 'troll' ranking), but this is a 'good thing' and microsoft are being downright decent about this.
Seriously- it woudlen't be that hard for them to break the upgrade cycle for those who have hacked there product, doing so would surely convince at least a few of the freeloaders to go off and buy the real version, it's costing them bandwith to provide it, but it's making the internet a safter place.
I can't find fault, and I'd like to find fault- microsoft often makes a lot of very ethically interesting decisions that I cannot support, and they are a favorate company to pick on (cause it's easy), but in this particular scenario, they are doing the 'right thing'- maby it's a hopeful glimpse of the company microsoft is growing into?
Seriously, if these people have mannaged to make it this far without using SP1 update, then there allready prey for all the nastyness going around with windows XP unpatched (code red will still get them for goodness sakes! Let alone MSBlast)
If they knew enough to manually find and download the non-windows update fixes, then they can do it for Sasser.
If they knew enough to install SP1 update (with a fake corp CD-key, or some other techno-wizardry I'm unaware of) then windows update still works perfectly well for them and it's a non-issue.
So to summarize
1-Unpatched lamers are remaining unpathced lamres (and plagues upon the internet who should be shot! or at least disconnected)
2-Sneaky lamers grab there patches from security bullitins and don't need windows update
3-'1337 hax0rs' have SP1 installed and windows update is working fine for them
I cannot specifically refute your comments, however many of the things you outline do not apply to a 'grey goo' scenario (a scenario where a bunch of self-replicating nanomachines go haywire dissasembling and self-replicating out of control until they reduce the entire planet into 'grey goo')
they'll probably be made out of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. composites of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are normally rather suseptible to heat (I won't say that no structure consisting of hydrocarbons is not immune to heat- but I can't think of one; then again, I'm not a chemist)
As for "diamonds" being brittle, not at the scale we're talking about. The type of sound waves needed to break carbon bonds at a microscopic level would destroy just about anything else as well. What do you do if a person gets affected? Shooting at them with a beam of something that breaks all carbon bonds is _not_ a good solution. While I admit that sound waves powerful enough to fry diamond nanomachines would likely make a mess of a human (unless something very specific with frequencies is done), but given the option of messing up a few humans who are allready screaming in agony as all there raw materials are processed to make new nanomachines and saving the world against just watching them scream in agony and spread the plague to others; I think even the humans screaming in agony would agree that it's a good idea to turn the sonic guns on them, the most important part about a sonic weapon is that it won't 'scatter' a few survivors like an explosive would, rapidly allowing them to rebuild over a larger area then before
What makes you think they'll have computer circuits that could be affected by an EMP? They could just as easily be using rod-logic or something similar. Well EMP is just one option for eletrically conductive nanomachines (if there rod logic but conductive then the small scale electric arcs that an EMP causes inside them will likely destroy them as well), UV for hydrocarbon/optical based ones, maby some form of rod movement inhibitor for rod-logic (I admit I've no idea how that would be done)
Why would moderate temperature changes cause them to break? You can get large structures to break by changing the temperature repeatedly, but that takes a long time, and it's because of the aggregate expansion of all the molecules inside. Small structures, such as the cells of our body for instance, don't fall apart from the stress of small temperature changes. You can denature proteins and set stuff on fire if you make things hot enough, but that's because of chemical changes, not expansion/contraction. It only takes a difference of 6 degreess (celcius) to reach an opperating temprature in a human body that will not support life for long (though you may argue that any nanomachines we create for the real world will have far better 'room temprature' constraints then the internals of a human body, and I woulden't complain). More of a problem would be difference of temprature along monomolecular manipulators (as I understand it a nessessity for the nano-machines to manipulate the atoms required to put together copies of themselves), since the manipulators will come to a 'point' which is only one molecule or perhapse one atom in size anything that makes the 'tip' of the blade break free (like being energized by an impact with a high energy particle- also known as 'heating up suddenly') will set it free 'chipping' the blade, it won't (in my mind) take many chips for the manipulator to become ineffectual. And by 'small change' in temprature, I'm talking about the sort of change that a microwave gun, or flamethrower would be able to introduce to them (a rapid change in the tens to hundreds of degrees celcius)
Now I fully admit that I MAY be wrong, my background is engineering and computers (and I'm still a student), not chemistry; so I'm relying on high school chemistry, biology, and a littel bit of personal interest research for a bit of this- any chemists or people who know more then me about chemistry are free to disagree, and I'll acceep a logically grounded opinion that outmanuvers mine.
I don't understand how so many slashdotters can be convinced that we will experence global armegeddon at the hands of nanomachines that will reduce us to 'grey goo'.
I hope what I type here might help dispel some of this parasitic meeme!
In the event that we mannage to make 'room temprature' nanmachines that are not instantly destroyed by a slight breeze, can break down even terminally simple matter for use in replication, and somehow get released into the world with a malicious intent (or through a glitch)- they will not be too much of a threat!
Ultimately unless some methoed of making semi-conductors and computer circurtry that dose not involve electricity at all comes along, each and every single active nanomachine will be vunerable to a simple EMP, and EMPs can be easily generated by sending massive voltage through a coil- hence even a 'barnyard warrior' fighting a nanomachine threat could rig up his disel truck to take out the microscopic buggers (that might make a good movie though!). In the event that we do find a way to making non-electric computer circutry it would have to be immue to dosens of other things that can mess with computer circuts (for instance a theoretically 100% optical computer could be fried by massive ammounts of UV radiation)
And lets not forget the technical overhead required to overcome those first few problems! Any nanomachine made of metal will be victim to rust, small bits of object rust much faster then large ones- hence a swarm of iron nanomachines could be killed with a simple spray of salt-water! Diamond ones would be extremely brittel (diamond is strong, but shatteres rather then bending) so sound waves would be an effective weapon (True for any crystaline structure; and a crystaline structure is required for optical transmission!)
Next is the ability to reprduce using simple matter, I mean, a lab is a very different enviornment then the real world, we'll probablly see self-replicating nano-machines that work in specifically temperature controled vats long before we see ones that can do it in the real world: Why, even if you can get a machine so sofisticated that it can tear apart simple carbon atoms, and whatever else it needs (and figure out what's carbon and what's not) and build a copy of itself, it's likely to loose it's tiny manipulators with every major temprature change, as the particles grow and contract while it tries to move them along!
Next someone will have to be able to get a hold of these things, and reprogram them to do somethign bad (that may actually be the easiest part: as all you have to do is REMOVE code that will be telling them to do other things besides replicate), but it will still require a multi-billion dollar lab to access there tiny circutry and reprogram them on such a basic level (the equivalent to taking out chips in a modern computer, but requireing a nano-manipulator!), so this is not something a 'backyard terrorist' is going to do, and if a government dose it, they will put a reasonable 'off' time in them, which will probabally put them into the same catagory as other WMDs. But even if they did not, it would still be vunerable to the same fighting techniques I outlined above
Please note, this is the same essay on grey goo I used before- but it still applies!
Quite a few of the books I read are avalible in PDF form, and I'd like to read those while abroad as well- are there any good PDF reading devices with many of the same stats as above?
To my knoledge, these programs are mostly for scanning e-mail and your hard disk for WINDOWS virii rather then actually being there to stop LINUX virii, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
do you add jet dry to your dishwasher? How did you know to add jet dry if so. If you don't add jet dry, don you complain that your dishes are spotty when they come out of the dishwasher.
Do you know how to use all the funcitons in your VCR, or just the functions you take for granted? If you've never read your manual you may be completely unaware of functions that your VCR has (I recently found out my 5 year old VCR has comcercial skip that woks ok; by reading the manual!)
The most basic parts of the interface become easier, but the more complex parts, by nature of being more compex are still hard to access; example- your on a satalte feed in another time zone for TV, your VCR picks up it's time from simply being plugged in; how do you reset the time zone for your VCR so that it matches your TV-guide if you don't know how to set the time on the VCR, or disable the auto-time update?
I actually think you've missed a bit of the point.
A completely automated robot miner will probabally be a huge inhuman device with littel or no real inteligence, just a base drive to dig and retrieve materials- it will not question it's goals, it will not think about what it's doing, just dig, dig, dig.
the domestic robot may be the thing providing health care for humans-I don't know if you've ever been seriously ill or hospitalized, but let me tell you nothing is more terrifying then being 'cared for' by someone who behaved in a cold emotionless manner; even if it's the best thing for you, someone that is cold and distant to your care makes you feel uncomfortable
My point is- if a robot is going to becomes a perminant caregiver for an elderly individual it's going to have to be able to keep up smalltalk, explain what it's doing, and generally be friendly and chipper, those 'skill's' will be unique for each and every individual (How friendly should it be, should it ignore bladder problems when they happen and clean them up or comment about it, how should it prepare meals for diabetics, should it remind them of there condition when they ask for shugary foods, or just flatly say no) so programming won't cut it- the robot will have to 'learn' how to be sociable with it's charge while at the same time obeying it's programming on how to care for them
Not suprisingly- we'll have completely autonomus miner robots long before we have home care robots.
And thats when the robot psycologist has to come in; because now that the toaster and the fridge thing that bagels are evil and must be destroyed- but there owner likes bagels; if something isin't done to aliviate the situation the toaster and fridge may come to the conclusion that there owner means them harm, or maby the owner can just order them to accept bagles and stop there silly uprising and it'll happen- that'll be the job for someone on the other side of a tech support hotline.
but anyone can get GUI-frontend everything by simply installing Webmin (which is a throughly useful program that should come installed with every distro and enabled for local access for root only by default) and going to 127.0.0.1:10000
I think what a lot of people are doing is there assuming 'biggest and best' with respect to the laptops that will be issued- but I think that's false; these are going to be a special run of ruggidized laptops that are not going to be top notch (and will probbally be overpriced for the components within them).
Consider:
Standard monitor 13.5", but replaceable
no HDD, instead a 2gb flash card (1.5gb for windows XP), or a 5gb HDD with extera padding
slide out CD-rom (where all books will actually be)
Spillproof keybaord
Shockproff the whole thing
Low end processor (maby 500mhz celleron)
$700 each
Now that's far more expensive then those components are worth, but at the same time, how else is a school board going to be able to get thousands if not tens of thousands of these things created exactly the same. As well since all the individual components are cheap, removable, and build with the intention of ocassionally being replaced the cost to the student for abuse is more minimal then the cost of having abused a textbook (With the exception of the screen I can't see a single component in that thing exceding $80; then again, loosing the whole laptop wouldne't be fun)
There suing the literal tool instead of the figurative one. They should really be chasing down the competitors who bought up advertisements for there name. Consider the following simmilar real life scenario.
The fictional company uggle rents billboard space along the most populated highway in the world, the fictional insurance company PAX is a well known and respected french insuance company, a competitor to PAX rents a billboard right before the offramp to get to PAX insuance, and posts a copyright infringing sign attempting to get people to go to the next offramp where there insurance company is.
Who has commited a crime here; uggle, PAX (For having a copyright that has enough scope to stop others from advertising simmilar products and mentioneing them), or it's competitor
I think the fault lies with the competitor buying up advertising space and breaking copyright to use PAX's name....
Bhuddists are told to 'walk the middel path' that means ocassionally having to do things you siad you would not do before in order to maintain your 'balance' on the middel path.
Taoists are told to 'do what is most natural' 'enjoy life' or 'do what feels right'; if that means breaking your word to a faceless organization, or even a loved one- then it it what you should do (In taoist theroy if you allwase follow what feels most 'right' you will never have regrets later)
Rasputin's special form of christianity relied on the concept that in order to understand gods will you should be as evil and wrong as you can be in life, ask for forgiveness on your deathbed, and the come one step closer to understanding gods unlimited love, because he will forgive you
Regular christianinity states that you should worship no god other then the one god, and that worship of a false god is a crime, if your dedication to certain media players because of there ability to play your DRMed information starts bordering on what others might call worship- it would be most safe to avoid those players; and hence remove the DRM so that your songs can be used in other ones
Many sects of judaisim have very strict notes on what constitutes 'work' on the sabbath- including the number of keytypes on a keyboard; if playing your music constitutes as work then you need to either go without music or convert them to something that will not constitute work (on a day which is not saturday though)
There are, I am sure many more examples; but these are the most glaring ones that poped into my mind.
I have to agree with the others in this thread, this simple comic provides a LOT of different points of view leading to the downfall of it's subject 'pop singer', only one of which was illegal downloading (Though they did mention it twice; however I think that that was to set up that he has to explain the exact same situation to every individual he meets)
It's a comic so several factors are being blown out of proportion to point out what's stoping true artists from producing music in this day and age.
1- People download there crap; when your a tiny flash in the pan that only has the POTENITAL to make it big, this could be a major problem (in the comic this is blown out of proportion to say that EVERYONE downloaded his CD and he diden't sell a single copy)
2- The producers rob you blind in order to 'promote' your music (This is blown out of proportion because he made no money off CDs so the producer stole all his existing money; though artists are often forced to pay exuberant bills for there productions in advance in the hope that they sell well)
3- There is saturdation in the market making it so that live performers don't gather the audiences they could; since there lost in a sea of a 'cookie-cutter' musicians (blown out of proportion to say that he could NEVER perform live due to lack of venue)
4- Often real life stops artists who can't live off there music from producing music (Blown out of proportion to say that he had to burn his gutar to keep warm)
Spare set of measuring/viewing equipment that will let me use cet telescope without blinding myself while pointing it at the sun and looking through the 300x magnifying lense; no!
I think I'll leave this to the people who either don't value there eyesight, or have very good tinted googles.
except that were dealing with a theoretical situation where laser equiped bombers are attaching targets; if the stealth planes are virtually invisible at night and that invisibility provides there only defence against the 'awe inspiring invincible laser', then they lauch the bombing run duing the day and the stealth jet stands out like a black cat on a field of cement
Of course, this laser system, while it might be that effect, dose not yet strike me as being able to handle that sort of thing (needs programmign that specifically targets pilots or fule tanks in aircraft rather then the pressuized comparments in missiles)
Also if big lasers become the new standard in bombers, it won't be long until even BIGGER longer ranged lasers (or rail guns, or even just a more advanced version of a flak gun) become the standard in ground defence, then the laser bomber will only be effective for bulling smaller countries that have no big long ranged ground defence lasers (which coincedentally will make it a faviorate weapon of the americans in there 'war against (insert wag the dog scenario here)'
water purification? I think you have electrolysis confused with another process; electrolysis is aided by salt, because the conductivity of the water is increased, hence you invest in salt and a littel stirrer on the bottom for electrolosis; and the salt keeps anything from growing in the water, as well as not needing to replaced much.
As well, the fule cell/compressor while more expensive have more 'shelf life' then the equivalent in batteries , so while they may be more expensive initially, the lower maintainanance on them theoretically makes them a better buy.
you take the 'ultra-dummy mode' for the linux, but not for the mac, allow me to fill in the mac bit with equal 'ultra-dummyness'
click Safari:
-What's safari, where is that? (opens several instances of EVERY other thing on there menu bar, eventually mannages to figure out which one looks like a compass)
http://www.mozilla.org:
-Where do I type that, into google, which link do I want (eventually navigates google to mozilla's homepage)
Download FireFox
(FireFox-0.9.dmg downloads, auto-mounts, and opens the folder)
-should be simple enough, as long as they haven't turned off automount, since were assuming an idiot user, they haven't
Double-click on "FireFox"
-Which one do I doubleclick on, no, no, no, no, ahh there (by now has every single file into the DMG open!)
Hey! This is a great application! I think I'll keep it!
Drags FireFox icon to Applications
-Where is applciations? No I don't see it, what do you mean put my finder into collum mode, what, where, the three collums, ok now I see it, scrollbars? (After much instruction finally locates there application folder and drags the contents of mozilla there)
Two days later:
-I can't find mozilla! (user has never bothered copying to there menu bar, and dosen't know how to locate applications again!)
Note: I have worked in technical support for macs, this is EXACTLY the type of call we end up fielding (except for HP printer drivers!)
That was part of the writer's point; in real life, a D&D GM can fudge rules to make it make a bit more sence. However in the game, the rules are the rules- and the 40 meter long dragon that's been chained to the ground is every bit as difficult to hit as the 2cm^2 will-o-the-wisp (counting that they both have DEX 20)
Perhaps a good first step to making more 'fun' CRPGS (taking fun to mean; you actually 'fall into' your role) would be to either build them more like morrowind (I loved that game!), or to use a more sensible system like GURPS (Which incidently bethsheda softworks said was a major influence on there developing engine for daggerfall, morrowinds predicesor)
Yes/No; the author's comments focuse a lot on 'game balance', as well as storyline, and charecter interaction, and many of those issues are still present in KotOR;
1-Game balance; A STRONG jedi equiping a light saber is better then virtually every other class/weapon combo in the game; this is fine because your main charecter inevitabally becomes a jedi; however a balanced game would allow some more choices, that also make for a good charecter (Also strength is core to lightsaber weilding in the game, which somehow seems wrong to me; but strength is used in all meele to hit, and dammage rolls, even when your using a paperweight lightsaber who's dammage should be a set value based on what it is rather then the strength of it's weilder)
2- Storyline; Star wards D20, much like any pen and paper RPG is designed around a slowly gaining charecter, who will very slowly gain in power with a massive epic storyline outlining his/her rise to power- Unfortunately, spending 3/4 of the game on level 6 dose not appeal to many, so the experience for killing monsters goes way up, and your charecter reaches level 20 while working though a storyline which while containing several rather extreme scenarios, is not exactly long and epic... As well the storyline only follows two possible alignment pathes; whereas a real pen and paper game would have dozens of grey area nuances.
3- Ultimately charecter interaction becomes a 'are your stats high enough' (If you have a high enough charisma you can get certain dialog options) and 'follow the dialog tree'- which can get really annoying at times (IE: the big bad guy is taunting you; if you had Chr:14 you could deliver a retort, which would be nice- but what you'd really like to do is shoot him in the face)
The anti-atomic mouth frothers are going to have a screeching feacies throwing field day attacking you for posting that stuff, no matter how true it is!
While your statments on the creation of hydrogen for fule cells are quite valid, and will most likely continue to be so for some time- you seem to be force lumping Hydrogen fule cells in with all fule cells.
While all fule cells go to the trouble of combining hydrogen and oxygen to create energy, it dose not require presurized hydrogen gas to do so (and it has been largely argued that fule cells will never be able to work on the large scale with presuized hydrogen gas due to leaks and safty issues; I believe them)- many experemental fule cells use ethanol, methanol, and one ambitius design uses hydrogen fixed detergent particles; if one of those concepts catches on fule cells could be a drop in replacement for gasoline (gas pumps switch from gas to ethanol), and it might make the home still catch on again (If your car can power off of ethanol, you might just be tempted to have a still to save on travel costs!)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure this is an unpopular sentiment, and that many will disagree with me (I might even earn the so called 'troll' ranking), but this is a 'good thing' and microsoft are being downright decent about this.
Seriously- it woudlen't be that hard for them to break the upgrade cycle for those who have hacked there product, doing so would surely convince at least a few of the freeloaders to go off and buy the real version, it's costing them bandwith to provide it, but it's making the internet a safter place.
I can't find fault, and I'd like to find fault- microsoft often makes a lot of very ethically interesting decisions that I cannot support, and they are a favorate company to pick on (cause it's easy), but in this particular scenario, they are doing the 'right thing'- maby it's a hopeful glimpse of the company microsoft is growing into?
Maby not.
Seriously, if these people have mannaged to make it this far without using SP1 update, then there allready prey for all the nastyness going around with windows XP unpatched (code red will still get them for goodness sakes! Let alone MSBlast)
If they knew enough to manually find and download the non-windows update fixes, then they can do it for Sasser.
If they knew enough to install SP1 update (with a fake corp CD-key, or some other techno-wizardry I'm unaware of) then windows update still works perfectly well for them and it's a non-issue.
So to summarize
1-Unpatched lamers are remaining unpathced lamres (and plagues upon the internet who should be shot! or at least disconnected)
2-Sneaky lamers grab there patches from security bullitins and don't need windows update
3-'1337 hax0rs' have SP1 installed and windows update is working fine for them
Did I miss anyone?
I cannot specifically refute your comments, however many of the things you outline do not apply to a 'grey goo' scenario (a scenario where a bunch of self-replicating nanomachines go haywire dissasembling and self-replicating out of control until they reduce the entire planet into 'grey goo')
they'll probably be made out of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. composites of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are normally rather suseptible to heat (I won't say that no structure consisting of hydrocarbons is not immune to heat- but I can't think of one; then again, I'm not a chemist)
As for "diamonds" being brittle, not at the scale we're talking about. The type of sound waves needed to break carbon bonds at a microscopic level would destroy just about anything else as well. What do you do if a person gets affected? Shooting at them with a beam of something that breaks all carbon bonds is _not_ a good solution. While I admit that sound waves powerful enough to fry diamond nanomachines would likely make a mess of a human (unless something very specific with frequencies is done), but given the option of messing up a few humans who are allready screaming in agony as all there raw materials are processed to make new nanomachines and saving the world against just watching them scream in agony and spread the plague to others; I think even the humans screaming in agony would agree that it's a good idea to turn the sonic guns on them, the most important part about a sonic weapon is that it won't 'scatter' a few survivors like an explosive would, rapidly allowing them to rebuild over a larger area then before
What makes you think they'll have computer circuits that could be affected by an EMP? They could just as easily be using rod-logic or something similar. Well EMP is just one option for eletrically conductive nanomachines (if there rod logic but conductive then the small scale electric arcs that an EMP causes inside them will likely destroy them as well), UV for hydrocarbon/optical based ones, maby some form of rod movement inhibitor for rod-logic (I admit I've no idea how that would be done)
Why would moderate temperature changes cause them to break? You can get large structures to break by changing the temperature repeatedly, but that takes a long time, and it's because of the aggregate expansion of all the molecules inside. Small structures, such as the cells of our body for instance, don't fall apart from the stress of small temperature changes. You can denature proteins and set stuff on fire if you make things hot enough, but that's because of chemical changes, not expansion/contraction. It only takes a difference of 6 degreess (celcius) to reach an opperating temprature in a human body that will not support life for long (though you may argue that any nanomachines we create for the real world will have far better 'room temprature' constraints then the internals of a human body, and I woulden't complain). More of a problem would be difference of temprature along monomolecular manipulators (as I understand it a nessessity for the nano-machines to manipulate the atoms required to put together copies of themselves), since the manipulators will come to a 'point' which is only one molecule or perhapse one atom in size anything that makes the 'tip' of the blade break free (like being energized by an impact with a high energy particle- also known as 'heating up suddenly') will set it free 'chipping' the blade, it won't (in my mind) take many chips for the manipulator to become ineffectual. And by 'small change' in temprature, I'm talking about the sort of change that a microwave gun, or flamethrower would be able to introduce to them (a rapid change in the tens to hundreds of degrees celcius)
Now I fully admit that I MAY be wrong, my background is engineering and computers (and I'm still a student), not chemistry; so I'm relying on high school chemistry, biology, and a littel bit of personal interest research for a bit of this- any chemists or people who know more then me about chemistry are free to disagree, and I'll acceep a logically grounded opinion that outmanuvers mine.
except that people too stupid to not run unknown atachments will also, thoretically, be too stupid to login as root in the first place.
I don't understand how so many slashdotters can be convinced that we will experence global armegeddon at the hands of nanomachines that will reduce us to 'grey goo'.
I hope what I type here might help dispel some of this parasitic meeme!
In the event that we mannage to make 'room temprature' nanmachines that are not instantly destroyed by a slight breeze, can break down even terminally simple matter for use in replication, and somehow get released into the world with a malicious intent (or through a glitch)- they will not be too much of a threat!
Ultimately unless some methoed of making semi-conductors and computer circurtry that dose not involve electricity at all comes along, each and every single active nanomachine will be vunerable to a simple EMP, and EMPs can be easily generated by sending massive voltage through a coil- hence even a 'barnyard warrior' fighting a nanomachine threat could rig up his disel truck to take out the microscopic buggers (that might make a good movie though!). In the event that we do find a way to making non-electric computer circutry it would have to be immue to dosens of other things that can mess with computer circuts (for instance a theoretically 100% optical computer could be fried by massive ammounts of UV radiation)
And lets not forget the technical overhead required to overcome those first few problems! Any nanomachine made of metal will be victim to rust, small bits of object rust much faster then large ones- hence a swarm of iron nanomachines could be killed with a simple spray of salt-water! Diamond ones would be extremely brittel (diamond is strong, but shatteres rather then bending) so sound waves would be an effective weapon (True for any crystaline structure; and a crystaline structure is required for optical transmission!)
Next is the ability to reprduce using simple matter, I mean, a lab is a very different enviornment then the real world, we'll probablly see self-replicating nano-machines that work in specifically temperature controled vats long before we see ones that can do it in the real world: Why, even if you can get a machine so sofisticated that it can tear apart simple carbon atoms, and whatever else it needs (and figure out what's carbon and what's not) and build a copy of itself, it's likely to loose it's tiny manipulators with every major temprature change, as the particles grow and contract while it tries to move them along!
Next someone will have to be able to get a hold of these things, and reprogram them to do somethign bad (that may actually be the easiest part: as all you have to do is REMOVE code that will be telling them to do other things besides replicate), but it will still require a multi-billion dollar lab to access there tiny circutry and reprogram them on such a basic level (the equivalent to taking out chips in a modern computer, but requireing a nano-manipulator!), so this is not something a 'backyard terrorist' is going to do, and if a government dose it, they will put a reasonable 'off' time in them, which will probabally put them into the same catagory as other WMDs. But even if they did not, it would still be vunerable to the same fighting techniques I outlined above
Please note, this is the same essay on grey goo I used before- but it still applies!
Quite a few of the books I read are avalible in PDF form, and I'd like to read those while abroad as well- are there any good PDF reading devices with many of the same stats as above?
To my knoledge, these programs are mostly for scanning e-mail and your hard disk for WINDOWS virii rather then actually being there to stop LINUX virii, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
do you add jet dry to your dishwasher? How did you know to add jet dry if so. If you don't add jet dry, don you complain that your dishes are spotty when they come out of the dishwasher.
Do you know how to use all the funcitons in your VCR, or just the functions you take for granted? If you've never read your manual you may be completely unaware of functions that your VCR has (I recently found out my 5 year old VCR has comcercial skip that woks ok; by reading the manual!)
The most basic parts of the interface become easier, but the more complex parts, by nature of being more compex are still hard to access; example- your on a satalte feed in another time zone for TV, your VCR picks up it's time from simply being plugged in; how do you reset the time zone for your VCR so that it matches your TV-guide if you don't know how to set the time on the VCR, or disable the auto-time update?
I actually think you've missed a bit of the point.
A completely automated robot miner will probabally be a huge inhuman device with littel or no real inteligence, just a base drive to dig and retrieve materials- it will not question it's goals, it will not think about what it's doing, just dig, dig, dig.
the domestic robot may be the thing providing health care for humans-I don't know if you've ever been seriously ill or hospitalized, but let me tell you nothing is more terrifying then being 'cared for' by someone who behaved in a cold emotionless manner; even if it's the best thing for you, someone that is cold and distant to your care makes you feel uncomfortable
My point is- if a robot is going to becomes a perminant caregiver for an elderly individual it's going to have to be able to keep up smalltalk, explain what it's doing, and generally be friendly and chipper, those 'skill's' will be unique for each and every individual (How friendly should it be, should it ignore bladder problems when they happen and clean them up or comment about it, how should it prepare meals for diabetics, should it remind them of there condition when they ask for shugary foods, or just flatly say no) so programming won't cut it- the robot will have to 'learn' how to be sociable with it's charge while at the same time obeying it's programming on how to care for them
Not suprisingly- we'll have completely autonomus miner robots long before we have home care robots.
And thats when the robot psycologist has to come in; because now that the toaster and the fridge thing that bagels are evil and must be destroyed- but there owner likes bagels; if something isin't done to aliviate the situation the toaster and fridge may come to the conclusion that there owner means them harm, or maby the owner can just order them to accept bagles and stop there silly uprising and it'll happen- that'll be the job for someone on the other side of a tech support hotline.
but anyone can get GUI-frontend everything by simply installing Webmin (which is a throughly useful program that should come installed with every distro and enabled for local access for root only by default) and going to 127.0.0.1:10000
I think what a lot of people are doing is there assuming 'biggest and best' with respect to the laptops that will be issued- but I think that's false; these are going to be a special run of ruggidized laptops that are not going to be top notch (and will probbally be overpriced for the components within them).
Consider:
Standard monitor 13.5", but replaceable
no HDD, instead a 2gb flash card (1.5gb for windows XP), or a 5gb HDD with extera padding
slide out CD-rom (where all books will actually be)
Spillproof keybaord
Shockproff the whole thing
Low end processor (maby 500mhz celleron)
$700 each
Now that's far more expensive then those components are worth, but at the same time, how else is a school board going to be able to get thousands if not tens of thousands of these things created exactly the same. As well since all the individual components are cheap, removable, and build with the intention of ocassionally being replaced the cost to the student for abuse is more minimal then the cost of having abused a textbook (With the exception of the screen I can't see a single component in that thing exceding $80; then again, loosing the whole laptop wouldne't be fun)
There suing the literal tool instead of the figurative one. They should really be chasing down the competitors who bought up advertisements for there name. Consider the following simmilar real life scenario.
The fictional company uggle rents billboard space along the most populated highway in the world, the fictional insurance company PAX is a well known and respected french insuance company, a competitor to PAX rents a billboard right before the offramp to get to PAX insuance, and posts a copyright infringing sign attempting to get people to go to the next offramp where there insurance company is.
Who has commited a crime here; uggle, PAX (For having a copyright that has enough scope to stop others from advertising simmilar products and mentioneing them), or it's competitor
I think the fault lies with the competitor buying up advertising space and breaking copyright to use PAX's name....
Bhuddists are told to 'walk the middel path' that means ocassionally having to do things you siad you would not do before in order to maintain your 'balance' on the middel path.
Taoists are told to 'do what is most natural' 'enjoy life' or 'do what feels right'; if that means breaking your word to a faceless organization, or even a loved one- then it it what you should do (In taoist theroy if you allwase follow what feels most 'right' you will never have regrets later)
Rasputin's special form of christianity relied on the concept that in order to understand gods will you should be as evil and wrong as you can be in life, ask for forgiveness on your deathbed, and the come one step closer to understanding gods unlimited love, because he will forgive you
Regular christianinity states that you should worship no god other then the one god, and that worship of a false god is a crime, if your dedication to certain media players because of there ability to play your DRMed information starts bordering on what others might call worship- it would be most safe to avoid those players; and hence remove the DRM so that your songs can be used in other ones
Many sects of judaisim have very strict notes on what constitutes 'work' on the sabbath- including the number of keytypes on a keyboard; if playing your music constitutes as work then you need to either go without music or convert them to something that will not constitute work (on a day which is not saturday though)
There are, I am sure many more examples; but these are the most glaring ones that poped into my mind.
I have to agree with the others in this thread, this simple comic provides a LOT of different points of view leading to the downfall of it's subject 'pop singer', only one of which was illegal downloading (Though they did mention it twice; however I think that that was to set up that he has to explain the exact same situation to every individual he meets)
It's a comic so several factors are being blown out of proportion to point out what's stoping true artists from producing music in this day and age.
1- People download there crap; when your a tiny flash in the pan that only has the POTENITAL to make it big, this could be a major problem (in the comic this is blown out of proportion to say that EVERYONE downloaded his CD and he diden't sell a single copy)
2- The producers rob you blind in order to 'promote' your music (This is blown out of proportion because he made no money off CDs so the producer stole all his existing money; though artists are often forced to pay exuberant bills for there productions in advance in the hope that they sell well)
3- There is saturdation in the market making it so that live performers don't gather the audiences they could; since there lost in a sea of a 'cookie-cutter' musicians (blown out of proportion to say that he could NEVER perform live due to lack of venue)
4- Often real life stops artists who can't live off there music from producing music (Blown out of proportion to say that he had to burn his gutar to keep warm)
blast out of modpoints when something that other's should see shows up.
The bostom pops version of the Zelda theme is in fact, quite good.
Spare telescope, yes.
Spare set of measuring/viewing equipment that will let me use cet telescope without blinding myself while pointing it at the sun and looking through the 300x magnifying lense; no!
I think I'll leave this to the people who either don't value there eyesight, or have very good tinted googles.
except that were dealing with a theoretical situation where laser equiped bombers are attaching targets; if the stealth planes are virtually invisible at night and that invisibility provides there only defence against the 'awe inspiring invincible laser', then they lauch the bombing run duing the day and the stealth jet stands out like a black cat on a field of cement
Of course, this laser system, while it might be that effect, dose not yet strike me as being able to handle that sort of thing (needs programmign that specifically targets pilots or fule tanks in aircraft rather then the pressuized comparments in missiles)
Also if big lasers become the new standard in bombers, it won't be long until even BIGGER longer ranged lasers (or rail guns, or even just a more advanced version of a flak gun) become the standard in ground defence, then the laser bomber will only be effective for bulling smaller countries that have no big long ranged ground defence lasers (which coincedentally will make it a faviorate weapon of the americans in there 'war against (insert wag the dog scenario here)'
water purification? I think you have electrolysis confused with another process; electrolysis is aided by salt, because the conductivity of the water is increased, hence you invest in salt and a littel stirrer on the bottom for electrolosis; and the salt keeps anything from growing in the water, as well as not needing to replaced much.
As well, the fule cell/compressor while more expensive have more 'shelf life' then the equivalent in batteries , so while they may be more expensive initially, the lower maintainanance on them theoretically makes them a better buy.
you take the 'ultra-dummy mode' for the linux, but not for the mac, allow me to fill in the mac bit with equal 'ultra-dummyness'
click Safari:
-What's safari, where is that? (opens several instances of EVERY other thing on there menu bar, eventually mannages to figure out which one looks like a compass)
http://www.mozilla.org:
-Where do I type that, into google, which link do I want (eventually navigates google to mozilla's homepage)
Download FireFox (FireFox-0.9.dmg downloads, auto-mounts, and opens the folder)
-should be simple enough, as long as they haven't turned off automount, since were assuming an idiot user, they haven't Double-click on "FireFox"
-Which one do I doubleclick on, no, no, no, no, ahh there (by now has every single file into the DMG open!)
Hey! This is a great application! I think I'll keep it!
Drags FireFox icon to Applications
-Where is applciations? No I don't see it, what do you mean put my finder into collum mode, what, where, the three collums, ok now I see it, scrollbars? (After much instruction finally locates there application folder and drags the contents of mozilla there)
Two days later:
-I can't find mozilla! (user has never bothered copying to there menu bar, and dosen't know how to locate applications again!)
Note: I have worked in technical support for macs, this is EXACTLY the type of call we end up fielding (except for HP printer drivers!)
That was part of the writer's point; in real life, a D&D GM can fudge rules to make it make a bit more sence. However in the game, the rules are the rules- and the 40 meter long dragon that's been chained to the ground is every bit as difficult to hit as the 2cm^2 will-o-the-wisp (counting that they both have DEX 20)
Perhaps a good first step to making more 'fun' CRPGS (taking fun to mean; you actually 'fall into' your role) would be to either build them more like morrowind (I loved that game!), or to use a more sensible system like GURPS (Which incidently bethsheda softworks said was a major influence on there developing engine for daggerfall, morrowinds predicesor)
Yes/No; the author's comments focuse a lot on 'game balance', as well as storyline, and charecter interaction, and many of those issues are still present in KotOR;
1-Game balance; A STRONG jedi equiping a light saber is better then virtually every other class/weapon combo in the game; this is fine because your main charecter inevitabally becomes a jedi; however a balanced game would allow some more choices, that also make for a good charecter (Also strength is core to lightsaber weilding in the game, which somehow seems wrong to me; but strength is used in all meele to hit, and dammage rolls, even when your using a paperweight lightsaber who's dammage should be a set value based on what it is rather then the strength of it's weilder)
2- Storyline; Star wards D20, much like any pen and paper RPG is designed around a slowly gaining charecter, who will very slowly gain in power with a massive epic storyline outlining his/her rise to power- Unfortunately, spending 3/4 of the game on level 6 dose not appeal to many, so the experience for killing monsters goes way up, and your charecter reaches level 20 while working though a storyline which while containing several rather extreme scenarios, is not exactly long and epic... As well the storyline only follows two possible alignment pathes; whereas a real pen and paper game would have dozens of grey area nuances.
3- Ultimately charecter interaction becomes a 'are your stats high enough' (If you have a high enough charisma you can get certain dialog options) and 'follow the dialog tree'- which can get really annoying at times (IE: the big bad guy is taunting you; if you had Chr:14 you could deliver a retort, which would be nice- but what you'd really like to do is shoot him in the face)
they are applying the same rounding method to both time blocks; there rounding to the nearest 15 minutes to 12:00 noon
The anti-atomic mouth frothers are going to have a screeching feacies throwing field day attacking you for posting that stuff, no matter how true it is!
While your statments on the creation of hydrogen for fule cells are quite valid, and will most likely continue to be so for some time- you seem to be force lumping Hydrogen fule cells in with all fule cells.
While all fule cells go to the trouble of combining hydrogen and oxygen to create energy, it dose not require presurized hydrogen gas to do so (and it has been largely argued that fule cells will never be able to work on the large scale with presuized hydrogen gas due to leaks and safty issues; I believe them)- many experemental fule cells use ethanol, methanol, and one ambitius design uses hydrogen fixed detergent particles; if one of those concepts catches on fule cells could be a drop in replacement for gasoline (gas pumps switch from gas to ethanol), and it might make the home still catch on again (If your car can power off of ethanol, you might just be tempted to have a still to save on travel costs!)