You've got your logic all wrong. ID can be tested... but it can't be disproved. We could look at our DNA and see proof that we were created. We could see "tags" that never change, or a really consistent encoding or maybe (in the "fluff" that doesn't do anything) we could find a thousand digit of pi (in base 4). But since we don't see anything like that, it doesn't prove that we *weren't* designed.
The same can be said for radio. You could find, for example, that one small planet is emitting high powered radio signals outside the typical ones floating around space. You might find that these signals reside specifically in the small band that is useful for long range communication, as they can accept other signals on top of a consistent "carrier" signal. You might see that, in fact, there are evenly spaced carrier signals started emitting 80 years ago and haven't stopped since. And that is what anyone listening with the right instruments would hear.
On the other hand, you might not find any of those things. There could still be a signal, of course, but if it was made like a military signal... with frequency hopping and encryption and a high noise to signal ratio... there wouldn't be any of the obvious signs that it was intended to carry a signal.
What makes ID not a science is that it can't be *disproved* not that there is no possibility of proof. You can make a radio wave (or life form) and include a specific signature that proves it was designed, not random. Take my example of pi, for example. You can't look at a radio wave (or life form) that was *not* signed in some way and say "this wasn't created" and you *certainly* can't look at a life form or radio wave designed specifically to look like background radiation or evolved life and say for sure "this was not created."
I certainly believe that global warming is happening. I believe that global warming will be catastrophic. I believe that humans have influenced global warming, increasing its magnitude. I just don't believe that the difference between the world with humans and the world if humans never evolved (200 years from now) is really that different.
Yes, there are examples like this article of increased temperature. Why the first week of January it was 60 outside here, setting record highs by huge amounts! Of course, last week it was very nearly a record low. Needless to say, for a week "global warming" was everywhere around this area... from half the stories on the local news to half the lunch room conversations. Last week, not a word was spoken about it. On the same note, there are no news stories on the glaciers that are growing. And yea, a surprising number are. More are shrinking, of course, but worldwide the change is *far* less then any single glacier or group of glaciers that makes the news. And don't forget that the earth goes through natural phases of ice ages and that time in between (where, obviously, the earth warms). The sun does the same, leading to temperature rises on every planet.
So yes, these glaciers are melting. Probably a decent part of the increased melting is caused by humans, but I'd bet money this glacier would be shrinking if humans were still in the stone age today. I believe that humans are increasing the average temperature of the earth, but I also believe that it would be increasing anyway. Basically, I believe that while global warming in happening and we should do what we can to stop the human caused portion of it, global warming is being *way* over sensationalized by the global media... in the same way they over sensationalize everything, in their never-ending quest for profits.
Normally I'd probably post something like this as an AC. The reason is simple... mods tend to use the negative moderation options (in my experience especially overrated... I've gotten *only* that at least 3 times) on comments that they disagree with. (Also comments that are just plain wrong, but that is still not the purpose of the moderations... to say "wrong" you should try replying)
Well, because if they get a warrant and they're wrong... there is a record of it. Someone can point and say "90% of the people you bug aren't even accused of crimes!" With no warrant, it doesn't come out if they don't want it to.
Obviously I agree that they should be required to get a warrant, so that they can be held accountable for watching people for the hell of it.
There is actually a good case for leaving second life on EBay, regardless of confusion. IIRC, Second life allows you to buy and sell ingame currency with real money, so the "virtual" property of second life has an actual "real life" value.
Also, since users of second life also hold copyright on their own content, said content should be able to be sold like any computer program. This is different from gold for other MMORPG, since the developers officially "own" your characters and their gold and there is no official exchange rate for their gold... not to mention the selling of the characters and accounts and other items are usually forbidden by the EULA as a bannable offense. Of course, there are still websites dedicated to selling ingame gold even if it can't be done over EBay anymore... but if they actually got rid of those auctions it would certainly hurt the gold sellers.
Shouldn't they be stopping *real* bullying, where someone gets beat up, before they try to tackle "cyber" bullying?
I mean, it isn't going to work... how do you stop people from talking to each other, and doesn't that raise ethical/censorship concerns? This just means that you don't have to be the biggest guy in school to bully somebody. Get an anonymous email and do it that way, and "we" get our turn bullying...
Seriously, you (a school) can't stop kids from using IM, E-mail, and forums. Only their parents can do that and most really don't care. The government trying to do that (even just for schoolkids) would be a huge step in the wrong direction as far as the first amendment goes.
I meant more like spread out over an entire room containing an objective or some such thing, and point your guns at the only entrance. For maximum effect make it the gun with the most powerful single shot. Player enters, dies before he can move.
Anyway, on further thought I really don't think that there will be enough "bad guy" player characters for it to matter. Still, the differences in skills could become terribly unfair for people just picking up the game if this wasn't just a sort of novelty endgame mode or something.
Can you say ambush? As in all the human "bad guys" find a place the "good guy" needs to go that also has lots of "bad" NPC, and all point their strongest weapons at the door...
That's just one example of a very simple tactic the "bad guys" are sure to develop in time, even if they can't communicate. The first will probably be "herding" where they stick together, all the better to take down a better armed foe.
Then there's those people who are so bad at FPS that they just won't be able to beat the game if having "real" opponents isn't just an option.
You'll also have to find a "swarm" of people playing the bad side in this odd multiplayer for every "good" player.
Until you find a google image photo of someone bleeding to death, or a really good photoshop job... then it makes things worse.
Still, just treat a fake picture like you would a normal false call (I.E. they send people out and you were lying you get fined or worse...) and I'm all for this. It could certainly save lives, and (after initial abuse) wouldn't make things worse on the "prank call" front.
This seems like a reasonable idea. It would certainly allow you any amount of fair use... but like any attempt at controlling access to something (presumably you still wouldn't be able to distribute it to a few thousand close friends via the internet...) it is probably doomed to failure.
Something similar to this was featured in a couple Tom Clancy books, the "Canary Trap" where a few key words were changed in versions of a document, without changing the meaning. Find an exact quote and you know who gave it. The problem is that once someone knows about that system, its pretty easy to not give an exact quote.
Obviously this system is a bit different. BUT... find three copies, and take a look at the string of 1 and 0 that follow. If two of the three match for one position but the third is different... go for the two that are the same in the version you distribute. Obviously there are probably some interesting things they could do to prevent this, I'm sure, but given time I'm equally sure they could be overcome.
Hey, think of it this way... some jerk is coming at you with their high beams on, but *you* are driving *this* car. He blinds himself as much as he blinds you, and figures out to turn them off!
That actually looks like a pretty cool idea to me, but my only problem is that I'm not entirely sure that it would make enough energy to justify the land use... though I guess it might.
My own personal favorite idea is to harness one of the greatest powers on earth - the tide. A simple ratcheting device that offers a bit of resistance to a wave could produce some pretty decent power on a fairly consistent basis, especially if you could turn it around whenever the tide changed.
Anyway, making use of the difference in heating between the day and night sounds interesting.
Ah but you forget: karma is *not* like golf - getting marked troll and flamebait (as it turns out) is *not* the objective. Boy was I doing this wrong.
Of course, there is still "that guy" who always seems to find my posts first and give them "-1 overrated" before I get any positive mods... I have yet to find him and tell him about this recent revelation.
(And now of course comes the inevitable internal debate - post anonymously and (possibly) save karma or stop being a coward actually make use of positive karma.)
Could you set it up to dual boot? I did that to my laptop yesterday, and it was my first experience with Linux. I can now use windows for playing several games, and linux when I feel the need. *I* haven't noticed any problems, but if you don't have 50GB of free space (like I did) it might not be an option. Consider extra space the next time you buy a computer, and during set up go ahead and partition it... you can always undo it later if you decide to give up on Linux.
I've always heard that the blackberry was addicting, which was why I was worried when my dad got one for his work. It hasn't been a problem, though. It makes a buzzing sound whenever he gets an email, and I hear it fairly often at dinner (and yea, we actually eat dinner together, 9/10 times). He doesn't answer it... he usually doesn't even look at it until the next morning. The easy way to do that is to remind people that it is just e-mail. E-mail != instant message. E-mail can wait for a response.
My dad manages IT for a small chain of banks, so sometimes he really is needed for something. If something important happens (usually an alarm going off, once or twice armed robbery...) then they'll call him. I rather suspect that this is true for *anyone.* If they really need a fast response they'll call - doesn't the blackberry itself offer voice service?
Perhaps it is something about my family... I never check my email more then once a day, either. People seem confused when I tell them I hadn't yet gotten their email 12 hours after they sent it. I have a cell phone - if it is important they'll call me.
How anyone can find themselves addicted to checking email or a blackberry is still beyond me. Then again what annoys me even more is a phone in a store... lets say you walk into a store for two reasons, to buy something and to ask if they'll be open on a minor holiday. You wait in a line, and when you get to the front you pay, then start to ask your question... and the phone rings. This person also asks if they'll be open for this minor holiday, but despite the fact that you bothered to come in, and just gave them money, they will always talk to the person on the phone first. What happened to the "hold" button? People are so addicted to instant communication these days that the person right in front of them gets shunted to the side.
Can you say publicity stunt?
Seriously, gaming in Germany is massive, and nearly every video game is violent in some way. Why don't they ban "tag" while they're at it, a game which encourages *actual* attacking of another human being in the game.
I'm not familiar with German law, but I get the feeling this guy isn't elected. Why? Because so many germans play games and would be against it. This would probably be political suicide even in America, a country that seems more inclined to take away people's rights. Now, however, whoever the interior minister works for can point to this (probably) failed bill whenever a school shooting comes up, but then point at someone else whenever the bill is criticised.
Some day people are going to realize that the people in school shootings got the plan on *how* to go about doing their crime from a video game *at worst.* The idea *to* do it came from themselves, from deep mental issues probably stemming from their parents or not having enough ways of releasing their anger safely (ever try video games for that?).
If they hadn't gotten the plan from a game, they'd get it from a movie, or a book, or even (gasp) come up with their own.
So should google specifically change its system to make sure that it *doesn't* show up at the top of searches?
Or does someone have proof that google spoofed its own system to make sure it came out on top.
Lets face it, google is the best (or at worst most used) search engine. People link to google with all kinds of words... so it comes up high in all kinds of searches. That's just how the system works.
While watching a movie or something seems to be the most obvious use of this type of system, I think the most interesting uses would be those that involve leaving most of the screen clear at any given time.
A HUD for a soldier, sure... or a little digital clock and mini forcast (like forcast fox) whenever you look up and to the right or something for a civilian. You could even use it to add a 3D picture of something to every day life, if you added a camera or a motion sensor...
I just can't wait until someone makes a popup virus for one of these... hijack wireless or bluetooth connected to the device and an ad appears 10 feet in front of you every 5 minutes... that would be interesting, especially if such a device were required for some tracking system:P
I don't suppose anybody could tell *when* this radioactive material was made in Russia. Perhaps it was actually made in the Soviet Union? If so, then nobody can say for certain that the Russian government is responsible for this... bigger things went missing when the government changed, IIRC.
I can't see a reason why the Russian government would poison the former spy so long after he defected. The death wasn't exactly instant, so if they were worried about some secret he hadn't told yet this wasn't the way to go.
Also of note is that the Russian government is perfectly aware that we can trace radioactive elements to their source. They also know that if you spray an area with mist then lead your target through the area that the person leading will *also* get sprayed with the same mist.
To me this whole thing seems just a bit wrong... while it was by no means a simple plot, it doesn't seem to have been very well thought out if it was done by the Russian government. Unless of course it *wasn't* done by the Russian government, or even by someone who wants relations between the west and the Russians to deteriorate. I'm not normally a big fan of conspiracy theories and I certainly can't think of anyone who would benefit...
The only logical thing I can think of is a rouge person or small group with a grudge against the former spy.
A black hole *might* not actually need to be super massive, it just has to be huge to be seen beyond the solar system. As for the basic physics part, pretty much yes - a few atoms properly smashed could take up 0 space, have an event horizon, and totally block light outside the actual mass... making it a black hole. Such an object could in theory destroy each additional atom it hit, slowly growing as it went back and forth through the earth until the entire earth was a part of it.
The problem, though, is threefold. First, black holes emit energy, and a small black hole would probably emit energy faster then it could gain energy, meaning it would die pretty much instantly. (*far* less then a second). Second, if the black hole didn't disappear instantly, it would probably be thrown out of earth orbit by the massive speed of the device. Finally, the black holes would be so small that they wouldn't actually hit protons very often. This sounds odd, but the same thing is true of galaxies... the milky way one day will hit the andromada galaxy, but statistically there will be about 6 collisions of stars before it becomes one stable system. The nucleus of an atom is just so small in comparison to the space the atom takes up due to its electron shell... and of course the event horizon for such a small black hole would be incredibly small (much smaller then the original particles). The belief is that if despite all odds a stable black hole was created and fell into the ground, the sun would go nova before we noticed anything wrong with the earth because of the black hole.
In conclusion, a small black hole probably can't exist. Well, at least on the several atoms scale. Even if it can exist (we don't really know for sure that it can't) it won't do any real damage to earth. I guess flinging black holes into space might not be a great idea on the multi-billion year scale, but within the probable lifespan of humanity probably nobody would notice.
Try to take a piece of artwork (a picture of a person) and turn it into a sprite, perhaps 80*80. That took about 10 seconds.
Now try to turn that same picture into a 3D model with a billion (exaggerated, but getting close) polygons. Unfortunately they are actually adding information to a 2D drawing to make it 3D, detailing thickness and reflection and such. Now add in animations. For the 2D sprite you make a second sprite and switch back and forth between two. For the 3D model...
Tell me right now that your original X-Box or PS2 or Gamecube games aren't fun to play. Wait what? They are fun to play? Basically a graphics update is nice, but it doesn't really make the game better. Nintendo is focusing on new and innovative ways to play a game, PS3 and X-Box are just a better graphics card. Nobody is going to go back to sprite graphics, but honestly the main benefit of the graphics for the PS3 and 360 are the HD support. If you don't have an HD-TV, then you pretty much paid however much for nothing. And most people don't have an HD-TV.
Sure, you could make a game for the Wii and the PS3 with motion sensing, but the Wii was built for sensing motion. The PS3 had it thrown on at the last second, but is really still the traditional controller. Also, just the developer kit for the PS3 costs way more then the Wii not to mention the time spent porting the code to a completely different council that most developers claim isn't very easy to write for. With the number of PS3 that may eventually be sold... it just might not be worth writing for the PS3.
I know that at my college there were people who camped out the PS3. 90% or more did it to make money on EBAY. Most of those used the profit to buy a Wii, before it sold out.
Slashdot Mirror
You've got your logic all wrong. ID can be tested... but it can't be disproved. We could look at our DNA and see proof that we were created. We could see "tags" that never change, or a really consistent encoding or maybe (in the "fluff" that doesn't do anything) we could find a thousand digit of pi (in base 4). But since we don't see anything like that, it doesn't prove that we *weren't* designed.
The same can be said for radio. You could find, for example, that one small planet is emitting high powered radio signals outside the typical ones floating around space. You might find that these signals reside specifically in the small band that is useful for long range communication, as they can accept other signals on top of a consistent "carrier" signal. You might see that, in fact, there are evenly spaced carrier signals started emitting 80 years ago and haven't stopped since. And that is what anyone listening with the right instruments would hear.
On the other hand, you might not find any of those things. There could still be a signal, of course, but if it was made like a military signal... with frequency hopping and encryption and a high noise to signal ratio... there wouldn't be any of the obvious signs that it was intended to carry a signal.
What makes ID not a science is that it can't be *disproved* not that there is no possibility of proof. You can make a radio wave (or life form) and include a specific signature that proves it was designed, not random. Take my example of pi, for example. You can't look at a radio wave (or life form) that was *not* signed in some way and say "this wasn't created" and you *certainly* can't look at a life form or radio wave designed specifically to look like background radiation or evolved life and say for sure "this was not created."
I certainly believe that global warming is happening. I believe that global warming will be catastrophic. I believe that humans have influenced global warming, increasing its magnitude. I just don't believe that the difference between the world with humans and the world if humans never evolved (200 years from now) is really that different.
Yes, there are examples like this article of increased temperature. Why the first week of January it was 60 outside here, setting record highs by huge amounts! Of course, last week it was very nearly a record low. Needless to say, for a week "global warming" was everywhere around this area... from half the stories on the local news to half the lunch room conversations. Last week, not a word was spoken about it. On the same note, there are no news stories on the glaciers that are growing. And yea, a surprising number are. More are shrinking, of course, but worldwide the change is *far* less then any single glacier or group of glaciers that makes the news. And don't forget that the earth goes through natural phases of ice ages and that time in between (where, obviously, the earth warms). The sun does the same, leading to temperature rises on every planet.
So yes, these glaciers are melting. Probably a decent part of the increased melting is caused by humans, but I'd bet money this glacier would be shrinking if humans were still in the stone age today. I believe that humans are increasing the average temperature of the earth, but I also believe that it would be increasing anyway. Basically, I believe that while global warming in happening and we should do what we can to stop the human caused portion of it, global warming is being *way* over sensationalized by the global media... in the same way they over sensationalize everything, in their never-ending quest for profits.
Normally I'd probably post something like this as an AC. The reason is simple... mods tend to use the negative moderation options (in my experience especially overrated... I've gotten *only* that at least 3 times) on comments that they disagree with. (Also comments that are just plain wrong, but that is still not the purpose of the moderations... to say "wrong" you should try replying)
Well, when you realize that nobody has actually found a way to do it without a mobile phone yet I still have 100 unused invites.
Forget most of those... what about the millions that are raised every year for cancer research? Why can't that go to something that is a proven cure?
Well, because if they get a warrant and they're wrong... there is a record of it. Someone can point and say "90% of the people you bug aren't even accused of crimes!" With no warrant, it doesn't come out if they don't want it to.
Obviously I agree that they should be required to get a warrant, so that they can be held accountable for watching people for the hell of it.
There is actually a good case for leaving second life on EBay, regardless of confusion. IIRC, Second life allows you to buy and sell ingame currency with real money, so the "virtual" property of second life has an actual "real life" value.
Also, since users of second life also hold copyright on their own content, said content should be able to be sold like any computer program. This is different from gold for other MMORPG, since the developers officially "own" your characters and their gold and there is no official exchange rate for their gold... not to mention the selling of the characters and accounts and other items are usually forbidden by the EULA as a bannable offense. Of course, there are still websites dedicated to selling ingame gold even if it can't be done over EBay anymore... but if they actually got rid of those auctions it would certainly hurt the gold sellers.
Shouldn't they be stopping *real* bullying, where someone gets beat up, before they try to tackle "cyber" bullying?
I mean, it isn't going to work... how do you stop people from talking to each other, and doesn't that raise ethical/censorship concerns? This just means that you don't have to be the biggest guy in school to bully somebody. Get an anonymous email and do it that way, and "we" get our turn bullying...
Seriously, you (a school) can't stop kids from using IM, E-mail, and forums. Only their parents can do that and most really don't care. The government trying to do that (even just for schoolkids) would be a huge step in the wrong direction as far as the first amendment goes.
I meant more like spread out over an entire room containing an objective or some such thing, and point your guns at the only entrance. For maximum effect make it the gun with the most powerful single shot. Player enters, dies before he can move.
Anyway, on further thought I really don't think that there will be enough "bad guy" player characters for it to matter. Still, the differences in skills could become terribly unfair for people just picking up the game if this wasn't just a sort of novelty endgame mode or something.
Can you say ambush? As in all the human "bad guys" find a place the "good guy" needs to go that also has lots of "bad" NPC, and all point their strongest weapons at the door...
That's just one example of a very simple tactic the "bad guys" are sure to develop in time, even if they can't communicate. The first will probably be "herding" where they stick together, all the better to take down a better armed foe.
Then there's those people who are so bad at FPS that they just won't be able to beat the game if having "real" opponents isn't just an option.
You'll also have to find a "swarm" of people playing the bad side in this odd multiplayer for every "good" player.
Nuke 'em from orbit. Then you (a population living off the earth) win.
Until you find a google image photo of someone bleeding to death, or a really good photoshop job... then it makes things worse.
Still, just treat a fake picture like you would a normal false call (I.E. they send people out and you were lying you get fined or worse...) and I'm all for this. It could certainly save lives, and (after initial abuse) wouldn't make things worse on the "prank call" front.
This seems like a reasonable idea. It would certainly allow you any amount of fair use... but like any attempt at controlling access to something (presumably you still wouldn't be able to distribute it to a few thousand close friends via the internet...) it is probably doomed to failure.
Something similar to this was featured in a couple Tom Clancy books, the "Canary Trap" where a few key words were changed in versions of a document, without changing the meaning. Find an exact quote and you know who gave it. The problem is that once someone knows about that system, its pretty easy to not give an exact quote.
Obviously this system is a bit different. BUT... find three copies, and take a look at the string of 1 and 0 that follow. If two of the three match for one position but the third is different... go for the two that are the same in the version you distribute. Obviously there are probably some interesting things they could do to prevent this, I'm sure, but given time I'm equally sure they could be overcome.
Centuries from now the actions of the RIAA will seem ridiculous? I was under the opinion that they seemed that way now!
If a private company being given the same powers as the police doesn't seem ridiculous, there is something else wrong.
Hey, think of it this way... some jerk is coming at you with their high beams on, but *you* are driving *this* car. He blinds himself as much as he blinds you, and figures out to turn them off!
This is a perfect idea!
That actually looks like a pretty cool idea to me, but my only problem is that I'm not entirely sure that it would make enough energy to justify the land use... though I guess it might.
My own personal favorite idea is to harness one of the greatest powers on earth - the tide. A simple ratcheting device that offers a bit of resistance to a wave could produce some pretty decent power on a fairly consistent basis, especially if you could turn it around whenever the tide changed.
Anyway, making use of the difference in heating between the day and night sounds interesting.
Ah but you forget: karma is *not* like golf - getting marked troll and flamebait (as it turns out) is *not* the objective. Boy was I doing this wrong.
Of course, there is still "that guy" who always seems to find my posts first and give them "-1 overrated" before I get any positive mods... I have yet to find him and tell him about this recent revelation.
(And now of course comes the inevitable internal debate - post anonymously and (possibly) save karma or stop being a coward actually make use of positive karma.)
*laughs*
*cries*
Best irony ever.
Could you set it up to dual boot? I did that to my laptop yesterday, and it was my first experience with Linux. I can now use windows for playing several games, and linux when I feel the need. *I* haven't noticed any problems, but if you don't have 50GB of free space (like I did) it might not be an option. Consider extra space the next time you buy a computer, and during set up go ahead and partition it... you can always undo it later if you decide to give up on Linux.
I've always heard that the blackberry was addicting, which was why I was worried when my dad got one for his work. It hasn't been a problem, though. It makes a buzzing sound whenever he gets an email, and I hear it fairly often at dinner (and yea, we actually eat dinner together, 9/10 times). He doesn't answer it... he usually doesn't even look at it until the next morning. The easy way to do that is to remind people that it is just e-mail. E-mail != instant message. E-mail can wait for a response.
My dad manages IT for a small chain of banks, so sometimes he really is needed for something. If something important happens (usually an alarm going off, once or twice armed robbery...) then they'll call him. I rather suspect that this is true for *anyone.* If they really need a fast response they'll call - doesn't the blackberry itself offer voice service?
Perhaps it is something about my family... I never check my email more then once a day, either. People seem confused when I tell them I hadn't yet gotten their email 12 hours after they sent it. I have a cell phone - if it is important they'll call me.
How anyone can find themselves addicted to checking email or a blackberry is still beyond me. Then again what annoys me even more is a phone in a store... lets say you walk into a store for two reasons, to buy something and to ask if they'll be open on a minor holiday. You wait in a line, and when you get to the front you pay, then start to ask your question... and the phone rings. This person also asks if they'll be open for this minor holiday, but despite the fact that you bothered to come in, and just gave them money, they will always talk to the person on the phone first. What happened to the "hold" button? People are so addicted to instant communication these days that the person right in front of them gets shunted to the side.
Can you say publicity stunt? Seriously, gaming in Germany is massive, and nearly every video game is violent in some way. Why don't they ban "tag" while they're at it, a game which encourages *actual* attacking of another human being in the game. I'm not familiar with German law, but I get the feeling this guy isn't elected. Why? Because so many germans play games and would be against it. This would probably be political suicide even in America, a country that seems more inclined to take away people's rights. Now, however, whoever the interior minister works for can point to this (probably) failed bill whenever a school shooting comes up, but then point at someone else whenever the bill is criticised. Some day people are going to realize that the people in school shootings got the plan on *how* to go about doing their crime from a video game *at worst.* The idea *to* do it came from themselves, from deep mental issues probably stemming from their parents or not having enough ways of releasing their anger safely (ever try video games for that?). If they hadn't gotten the plan from a game, they'd get it from a movie, or a book, or even (gasp) come up with their own.
So should google specifically change its system to make sure that it *doesn't* show up at the top of searches? Or does someone have proof that google spoofed its own system to make sure it came out on top. Lets face it, google is the best (or at worst most used) search engine. People link to google with all kinds of words... so it comes up high in all kinds of searches. That's just how the system works.
While watching a movie or something seems to be the most obvious use of this type of system, I think the most interesting uses would be those that involve leaving most of the screen clear at any given time. A HUD for a soldier, sure... or a little digital clock and mini forcast (like forcast fox) whenever you look up and to the right or something for a civilian. You could even use it to add a 3D picture of something to every day life, if you added a camera or a motion sensor... I just can't wait until someone makes a popup virus for one of these... hijack wireless or bluetooth connected to the device and an ad appears 10 feet in front of you every 5 minutes... that would be interesting, especially if such a device were required for some tracking system :P
I don't suppose anybody could tell *when* this radioactive material was made in Russia. Perhaps it was actually made in the Soviet Union? If so, then nobody can say for certain that the Russian government is responsible for this... bigger things went missing when the government changed, IIRC.
I can't see a reason why the Russian government would poison the former spy so long after he defected. The death wasn't exactly instant, so if they were worried about some secret he hadn't told yet this wasn't the way to go.
Also of note is that the Russian government is perfectly aware that we can trace radioactive elements to their source. They also know that if you spray an area with mist then lead your target through the area that the person leading will *also* get sprayed with the same mist.
To me this whole thing seems just a bit wrong... while it was by no means a simple plot, it doesn't seem to have been very well thought out if it was done by the Russian government. Unless of course it *wasn't* done by the Russian government, or even by someone who wants relations between the west and the Russians to deteriorate. I'm not normally a big fan of conspiracy theories and I certainly can't think of anyone who would benefit...
The only logical thing I can think of is a rouge person or small group with a grudge against the former spy.
A black hole *might* not actually need to be super massive, it just has to be huge to be seen beyond the solar system. As for the basic physics part, pretty much yes - a few atoms properly smashed could take up 0 space, have an event horizon, and totally block light outside the actual mass... making it a black hole. Such an object could in theory destroy each additional atom it hit, slowly growing as it went back and forth through the earth until the entire earth was a part of it. The problem, though, is threefold. First, black holes emit energy, and a small black hole would probably emit energy faster then it could gain energy, meaning it would die pretty much instantly. (*far* less then a second). Second, if the black hole didn't disappear instantly, it would probably be thrown out of earth orbit by the massive speed of the device. Finally, the black holes would be so small that they wouldn't actually hit protons very often. This sounds odd, but the same thing is true of galaxies... the milky way one day will hit the andromada galaxy, but statistically there will be about 6 collisions of stars before it becomes one stable system. The nucleus of an atom is just so small in comparison to the space the atom takes up due to its electron shell... and of course the event horizon for such a small black hole would be incredibly small (much smaller then the original particles). The belief is that if despite all odds a stable black hole was created and fell into the ground, the sun would go nova before we noticed anything wrong with the earth because of the black hole. In conclusion, a small black hole probably can't exist. Well, at least on the several atoms scale. Even if it can exist (we don't really know for sure that it can't) it won't do any real damage to earth. I guess flinging black holes into space might not be a great idea on the multi-billion year scale, but within the probable lifespan of humanity probably nobody would notice.
Try to take a piece of artwork (a picture of a person) and turn it into a sprite, perhaps 80*80. That took about 10 seconds.
Now try to turn that same picture into a 3D model with a billion (exaggerated, but getting close) polygons. Unfortunately they are actually adding information to a 2D drawing to make it 3D, detailing thickness and reflection and such. Now add in animations. For the 2D sprite you make a second sprite and switch back and forth between two. For the 3D model...
Tell me right now that your original X-Box or PS2 or Gamecube games aren't fun to play. Wait what? They are fun to play? Basically a graphics update is nice, but it doesn't really make the game better. Nintendo is focusing on new and innovative ways to play a game, PS3 and X-Box are just a better graphics card. Nobody is going to go back to sprite graphics, but honestly the main benefit of the graphics for the PS3 and 360 are the HD support. If you don't have an HD-TV, then you pretty much paid however much for nothing. And most people don't have an HD-TV.
Sure, you could make a game for the Wii and the PS3 with motion sensing, but the Wii was built for sensing motion. The PS3 had it thrown on at the last second, but is really still the traditional controller. Also, just the developer kit for the PS3 costs way more then the Wii not to mention the time spent porting the code to a completely different council that most developers claim isn't very easy to write for. With the number of PS3 that may eventually be sold... it just might not be worth writing for the PS3.
I know that at my college there were people who camped out the PS3. 90% or more did it to make money on EBAY. Most of those used the profit to buy a Wii, before it sold out.