The game you are looking for is called Nethack. It has been around since 1987 and is probably the world's champion time-suck. When you're dead; you're dead. You start the game over from the beginning. Since it does save if you quit, you can, of course, copy the save file, but that is considered cheating by most players. The original is ASCII, but there are newer versions that use graphic tile sets. You have been warned. @
Nice blog reporting on a nifty bit of biological research. In the last forty years we have seen a change from constructing phylogenetic trees based on phenotype to constructing them based on genotype. This has resulted in a number of nice surprises like this. Good to see Mayr's hypothesis about these birds borne out.
>Load up your computer with files named "LondonBombingPlans05May2009.doc" or "HOT13YOPUSSY!!!!.JPG" and have them be copies of George Orwell's books.
The drawback to this plan being that jackbooted Thought Police kick your door in at 3:00 am, haul your ass off, and throw you into a dank, unlit hole full of rats where you are buggered with cattle prods until you provide the decryption key to Chapter 14 of 1984.
>Guess I'm not much for a.) getting slowly cooked by solar radiation b.) constantly worrying about a hole the size of a pinprick sucking all the atmosphere out of the ship, c.) either losing my sanity in the confines of ship I can't leave for months on end or waiting for my fellow shipmates to do the same and d.) finally arriving at my destination which is even less hospitable and almost certainly more dangerous than life on the ship.
Sounds about like colonization on Earth during the age of sail. Except for "B" being ocean leaking in rahter than atmosphere leaking out. I guess we all know how badly that all turned out.
I still think the best continuation of the Star Trek Universe is Boston Legal. It's got Kirk and Odo and Quark and even Seven of Nine a couple of years back.
I liked it as well. I picked it up at the video store and realized looking at the back that it was derived from Eaters of the Dead. Took it home thinking it would probably suck and was very pleasantly surprised. It is quite good.
Living in "Bigfoot Country" gives Eaters of the Dead and the whole Beowulf mythos a little extra kick.
Now that Jack is defying the court order requiring him to have another member in good standing of the Florida bar to submit motions for him,
From TFSCD, "The Court approves the corrected referee's report and John Bruce Thompson is permanently disbarred, effective thirty days from the date of this order so that respondent can close out his practice and protect the interests of existing clients. If respondent notifies the Court in writing that he is no longer practicing and does not need the thirty days to protect existing clients, this Court will enter an order making the permanent disbarment effective immediately. Respondent shall accept no new business from the date this order is filed."
It looks like he is disbarred 30 days from the date of notice, not immediately. They do graciously allow him to be disbarred sooner if he wishes.
>Most AIDS tests are 99%+ accurate at telling you that a person with HIV actually has HIV. They're also 99% accurate at saying a person who doesn't have HIV, doesn't have HIV.
While I assume without checking that both of your statements are true, they are independent statements, and the second does not follow from the first. Just because a test gives only 1% false negatives does not necessarily mean that it gives only 1% false positives. Your test could also be 99% accurate at telling that a person with HIV actually has HIV while also being only 75% accurate at telling a person without HIV that he is free of HIV. While such a test probably wouldn't do well in a free market economy, selling to the government is a whole different deal. We already know that TSA doesn't give a shit about abusing the innocent.
Sheesh! I've never seen a bunch of geeks so opposed to developing an immature technology before! Perhaps a toning down of the pessimism would be in order, and perhaps we may see some improvements in our understanding of human behaviour, and the programs built to understand it.
It isn't the idea of developing an immature technology that upsets people. It is our well-justified fear of the government deploying immature technology. I'd rather not be subjected to a public beta-test of a thoughtcrime detector.
>clearly a misspelling of "libraries of conger" as in [[daggertooth pike conger]]
You've used the wrong collective noun for such an aggregation of conger. According to this it should be a swarm of [conger] eels. They just don't seem very bookish to me.:-) They are tasty, however.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey rude boy, you might try "Vaya con dios" next time.
You'll still sound like an asshole, but at least like an educated asshole!
Agreed, but for Roland, one should say, "Allez avec Dieu."
The game you are looking for is called Nethack. It has been around since 1987 and is probably the world's champion time-suck. When you're dead; you're dead. You start the game over from the beginning. Since it does save if you quit, you can, of course, copy the save file, but that is considered cheating by most players. The original is ASCII, but there are newer versions that use graphic tile sets. You have been warned. @
Nice blog reporting on a nifty bit of biological research. In the last forty years we have seen a change from constructing phylogenetic trees based on phenotype to constructing them based on genotype. This has resulted in a number of nice surprises like this. Good to see Mayr's hypothesis about these birds borne out.
>Load up your computer with files named "LondonBombingPlans05May2009.doc" or "HOT13YOPUSSY!!!!.JPG" and have them be copies of George Orwell's books.
The drawback to this plan being that jackbooted Thought Police kick your door in at 3:00 am, haul your ass off, and throw you into a dank, unlit hole full of rats where you are buggered with cattle prods until you provide the decryption key to Chapter 14 of 1984.
>Guess I'm not much for a.) getting slowly cooked by solar radiation b.) constantly worrying about a hole the size of a pinprick sucking all the atmosphere out of the ship, c.) either losing my sanity in the confines of ship I can't leave for months on end or waiting for my fellow shipmates to do the same and d.) finally arriving at my destination which is even less hospitable and almost certainly more dangerous than life on the ship.
Sounds about like colonization on Earth during the age of sail. Except for "B" being ocean leaking in rahter than atmosphere leaking out. I guess we all know how badly that all turned out.
Starbucks was actually founded in Seattle.
Using Peet's coffee.
>While we're Blue Skying, I'd also like to call for wider adoption of deodorant in the CS field.
Would you accept a friendly amendment to you motion to call for wider adoption of regular bathing and clothes laundering?
I still think the best continuation of the Star Trek Universe is Boston Legal. It's got Kirk and Odo and Quark and even Seven of Nine a couple of years back.
"It's dead, Jim."
This really does open up the potential for a pantheistic multiple-ego solipsism convention.
Just search on Cocaine. Maradona's bound to turn up.
In Catch-22, the Army disappeared Dunbar in the 1961 first edition, so I think it predates the Argentine nastiness.
All your data are belong to us, boss.
I liked it as well. I picked it up at the video store and realized looking at the back that it was derived from Eaters of the Dead. Took it home thinking it would probably suck and was very pleasantly surprised. It is quite good.
Living in "Bigfoot Country" gives Eaters of the Dead and the whole Beowulf mythos a little extra kick.
Agreed. Rosemary's Baby is one of the creepiest movies made.
>A live feed from the smelloscope is unfortunately a few centuries away from being invented."
In this case, that is NOT unfortunate.
How did couch potatoes evolve to live on Cheetos?
Cheetos don't run very fast.
And why, if it is potatoes and tomatoes, isn't it Cheetoes?
Fuck.
Sorry, that's taken already.
Because it will take at least seven standard PCs to boot the next version of Windows.
By submitting this motion he has violated that order, though I doubt much will come of it since he has already been disbarred.
Ahh, I missed that. Anything that gets him locked up for contempt is a good thing, I say.
Now that Jack is defying the court order requiring him to have another member in good standing of the Florida bar to submit motions for him,
From TFSCD, "The Court approves the corrected referee's report and John Bruce Thompson is permanently disbarred, effective thirty days from the date of this order so that respondent can close out his practice and protect the interests of existing clients. If respondent notifies the Court in writing that he is no longer practicing and does not need the thirty days to protect existing clients, this Court will enter an order making the permanent disbarment effective immediately. Respondent shall accept no new business from the date this order is filed."
It looks like he is disbarred 30 days from the date of notice, not immediately. They do graciously allow him to be disbarred sooner if he wishes.
>Most AIDS tests are 99%+ accurate at telling you that a person with HIV actually has HIV. They're also 99% accurate at saying a person who doesn't have HIV, doesn't have HIV.
While I assume without checking that both of your statements are true, they are independent statements, and the second does not follow from the first. Just because a test gives only 1% false negatives does not necessarily mean that it gives only 1% false positives. Your test could also be 99% accurate at telling that a person with HIV actually has HIV while also being only 75% accurate at telling a person without HIV that he is free of HIV. While such a test probably wouldn't do well in a free market economy, selling to the government is a whole different deal. We already know that TSA doesn't give a shit about abusing the innocent.
Sheesh! I've never seen a bunch of geeks so opposed to developing an immature technology before! Perhaps a toning down of the pessimism would be in order, and perhaps we may see some improvements in our understanding of human behaviour, and the programs built to understand it.
It isn't the idea of developing an immature technology that upsets people. It is our well-justified fear of the government deploying immature technology. I'd rather not be subjected to a public beta-test of a thoughtcrime detector.
>clearly a misspelling of "libraries of conger" as in [[daggertooth pike conger]]
You've used the wrong collective noun for such an aggregation of conger. According to this it should be a swarm of [conger] eels. They just don't seem very bookish to me. :-) They are tasty, however.