The thing that astonishes me the most (and I've played WoW off-and-on since the release day) is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for Blood Elves to be Paladins. These are the elves that broke with the night elf race due to their all consuming addiction to magic. Paladins draw their powers from divine sources and divine power is non-magical (if you don't play WoW or have familiarity with the backstory, this may not make sense). But anyway, it smacks of a slap-and-dash solution to an underlying game issue and it just makes no sense. I always really liked the fact that the Horde went to the elements for their power and the Alliance went to their belief in divinity. Now that distinction is worthless, and it was done in a way that contradicts the backstory of one of the races. I'm sure, they will come up with some hokey "explanation", but I don't even play a Paladin or a Shaman (any more), and I'm still looking at this change and going, "WTF? That makes no sense." I didn't really expect that my first reaction to a basic fact about the expansion would be that. I was more expecting, "Hey, neat." Blizzard caves to the eternal whining of the forumkiddies. How disappointing.
The rock would glow and vaporize and change from a boulder to a conglomeration of pebbles.
Sure a conglomeration of pebbles would still have inertia and all that jazz, but Asimov is talking vapor, man! Small rocks still sink in water, but vapor--no way!
I think you're looking at this all wrong. When I read the article, I did find it extremely funny. I found it funny because I had the thought: I wonder how many other Slashdotters are reading this right now and thinking, "Holy Shit! I swear, I could quit my tech job right now, act like a frikken idiot, and write Dvorak's stupid editorial pieces for him and no one would even realize." That was funny. But then I thought, "...and let's see who makes more money for their time, effort, and expertise. Oh yes. Now I remember what we reward." That was the part that was extremely stupid and not funny.
The person experiencing the pain should change their usage habits. Take frequent breaks, and start doing some basic hand and wrist exercises. Finger rolls, wrist rotations, use one of those stress balls, massage the fingers, palm, wrist, and forearm. Most people do very little for mobility of the joints in their hands and they wonder why they have problems. If I sit at a desk 8 hours a day with my wrist pressing on the table, and move my fingers only enough to tap keys and move a mouse from side to side, I end up in pain, too. But if I take a few breaks, care for my plants, clean up the desk, and do some of those exercises every hour or so, I have no problems.
I agree that fear is the problem. The reason we have so much fear is that our populations are increasing heedlessly beyond the carrying capacity of the planet and the average temperatures are rising similarly causing famine, drought, flooding, the rise of infectious diseases, increasingly violent weather patterns, and so on. All because we globally are popping out additional people as fast as possible. And I mean that globally; I know darn well what the birth rates are in the U.S. We went from 4 billion to 9 billion in a few decades, after a span of 4000 years in the millions range. And we industrialized and started spewing toxins into the atmosphere: globally. People should be afraid, and people are afraid. Because we are squeezing ourselves and our planet tighter and tighter and rats don't stop to talk to each other when they are fleeing from a flood. Why are people so isolated? Because they're in a perpetual state of panic and the only thing that gives momentary release is a refuge in the very things that have created the problem: namely hiding (isolation), fucking (more population), and consuming (energy, non-renewable resources). All we do is gobble all the dwindling resources up, and produce greater numbers of ourselves to do more of the same.
I know this sounds really grim, but in the next 30 years it will sound horrifying because we'll be living the consequences in stark reality. I don't even feel an ounce of doubt about it, because the population numbers just don't lie. Population is going up exponentially and with it goes pollution and consumption of natural resources. The cycle will break, a lot of people will die, and life will change dramatically for what's left. What scares me is not knowing how to survive it. How will it come? Sweeping deathtolls from a disease? Radical political reform that lands you in a police state where most freedoms are curtailed because the general population is too foolish to curb self-destructive behaviors? Mass starvation due to a rapid and severe reduction in the amount of arable land? Where do you go? Where will be safe? What if money becomes valueless? What's your currency? What skills do you have that you can trade for food? What land will be livable? How many millions (billions?) will be competing?
There's a real possibility that the arctic cap will melt. I'm not saying it's going to happen, just that there's a significant probability. Well, OK. What do you do when there's a significant probability that 100 million people are quite suddenly going to be in desparate need of a place to live with adequate supply of food, water, and energy? How stressful and miserable is that going to be? How much crime will result? Will people start killing each other?
Those are the things I fear. I watched Katrina with a terrible feeling. Imagine that kind of displacement happening on a global scale...and it's not even that unlikely. 9 billion people. Suppose it's 15 billion in 30 years. Damn right we should be fearful. Fearful that we aren't dramatically changing the way we do things right now. Right now, because we see that it just cannot continue. Do you realize that we don't even discuss carrying capacity of land as a basic part of education anymore? We don't! Our children and even 99% of adults in the U.S., a supposedly very well educated nation have no clue. "Oh, let the public utilities and the grocery stores worry about having enough supply to meet demand." That's really disturbing. Because it means people can't even make educated choices about something as basic as procreation. I think we should all be required to draw sustenance from growing on an area of land. There was a time when we each had a direct responsibility for ensuring adequate food, water, and shelter for our familys as a function of what we could directly obtain from the Earth, but now we've lost sight of that. It's all imaginary monetary units. We don't know the real consequences. Most of us don't even pay attenti
On Mars we absolutely hate this kind of thinking. We like pull technology. We like the ability to choose what we listen to, and we prefer that people not push their idea of reality on us "for our own good", but if they try to that is OK because we will just walk away. The pushers will mistakenly identify that as isolationism, but this is a mistake: such people are not lazy and they are not isolated.
On Mars, people seek what is new and different. Martians enjoy exploring both sides of an argument, and they are not intent on isolating themselves from anything that is not them. Well, some Martians are--but, that is how they wish it. On Mars, people are allowed to be isolated, if they want, but other Martians don't judge them or spend time trying to educate them about the error of their ways. It's each Martian's responsibility to identify and mend the error of their own ways, if there are any. As a consequence, Martians are about as unlazy as you could imagine, because they know their own progress in life is entirely up to them.
Martians are very kind and understanding people; they aren't shallow or selfish. They just insist on being who they are, and they don't accept the judgement of others about how they live their life. That doesn't mean that Martians have no respect or understanding for the importance of community. What it means is that they understand the value of accepting what is different, perhaps more than people that spend their time labeling others with words like "lazy", "shallow", and "selfish". Martians know that what might seem lazy to you, may just be work that you are failing to see.
The primary reason that I do play an online game is cost. Even if I am not keen on playing, I shell out the monthly fee deliberately because it leaves me with little motivation to purchase $50-a-pop titles at retail. Usually there are 1 or 2 really great games a year that come out. I may buy one of those, but that's about it.
The question of whether the online game is responsible for losses in the industry is stupid. If there were 15 incredible titles a year, sales would be just fine. If on the other hand there are 13 mediocre titles and 2 great ones (if even), well now, I'd say it's not that some online *cough*WoW*cough* game is so unbelievably amazing, but rather than it's an economical alternative amidst a field of mediocrity.
The dumbest thing is that it is a fact that our industries have altered the PPM concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the air by more than 100PPM in 50 years (over double). Whether warming is a fact or not, the gas concentration is. We are having a global impact on our planet. Whether it is warming or not; that is a scary thing. It's even more scary that we don't all conclusively agree that global warming is real or not. I mean, WTF? Shouldn't everyone be really disturbed by the fact that people are not unanimously saying, "Global warming is BS?" If there's even a 30% or 20% or 10% change that it is happening, it's enough I should think to be proactive.
I think, as a species, we will be naturally selected out because were are dumb enough to argue the possibilities to death, rather than just hedge our bets. Like two guys arguing whether a gun is loaded while the play Russian roulette with it.
Ok, to reply to your idea that one key mind is no longer necessary. Consider the film industry which has been going strong for over 50 years: Lucas, Spielburg, Scott, Hughes, Hitchcock.
I think I could have just said Hitchcock and that would be enough, but you see where I am going. In software development, there are a very small number of people that are masters of their art. In fact, in any area of human accomplishment, this is true. My area is martial arts, and history has shown the same pattern.
If games continue to be of interest to us, time will find genius in that art.
It's pretty clear if you look at the management changes since the H and P in HP left, that HP has moved away from innovation and toward the bottom line. HP was very successful and well known for many years due to the unusual quality of its corporate culture and products. But the above poster's comment about HP/Wal-Mart is dead on.
The more the new executives and managers chase the bottom line, the more HP will suffer (the more brilliant people will leave), and the worse they will fare in the market. I expect someone to acquire HP for the name at some point in the not-to-distant future. No doubt it will seem like a smart move to the new Wal-Mart managers, when looking at the "bottom line".
Well, I think what you are referring to is the "definition" of Communism being opposite to that of Capitalism. That may be in many ways true, but it is also true that the "reality" of Communism tends to look quite a bit like rapid Capitalism with the "politburo" played by the "rich" (which is usually equivalent to "politically-well connected" since money speaks so loudly in the political arena).
There is no first amendment guarantee to others not taking action against you because of your words.
There are a whole bunch of other laws that say what kind of action can and cannot be taken, however.
The quote from the article is:
The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday.
This is the beginning of the situation where a whole society sees a terrible wrongness and no one will say a word because they are terrified of reprisal. Eventually, even the people that have the job of punishing those that speak out are too terrified to not punish. And then you have a society of good people that are locked into a happy cycle of evil that they do not even want to be part of.
Anyway, that's the reason some people are saying this is so wrong. Whether it's a big jump from this to what I described or not, I do not know. Usually bad things are not nearly as far away as we think. And usually that's because we try to keep those bad things as far from our thoughts as possible,:-).
All too true. Oil is more of a big "Kick some ass here" sign than anything. But if they have oil and weapons grade uranium! Now that would be something. Maybe they could combine the two: one uranium fission bomb in an oil canister for each thousand barrels of oil. "Without the proper disarming codes, the stolen fission canister will detonate X hours after leaving Iranian territory. Have a nice day, infidels."
That sounds incendiary, but I find myself on the side of Iran. I can't help but have this feeling that our government manipulates the press so that it can justify plundering the resources of other countries in the name of democracy and the fight against "terror". Sure, the terror of the #1 fossil fuel economy running out of oil. Rather than accept responsibility for our own energy consumption, we use military force to control the supplier.
It's not hard to see the perspective of people outside the U.S. that think the U.S. is an evil oppressor. Geez, I walk down the street and see families living in palatial houses with huge gas guzzling cars (several of them) and very expensive lifestyles. Then you flip on the tube and see abject poverty and starvation all over the world. Oops, end of rant...
A spider produces silk from the food and air it consumes; a nanobot could repair nanotubes in much the same way, by "breathing" carbon dioxide or pure carbon and doing repairs. Hell, it doesn't even need to MAKE carbon nanotubes, it could pick them up at "ground floor" and deliver them up the cable.
A self-repair system. No need to invoke convoluted biology and DNA.
What I was saying is that nature has produced many examples of self repairing systems. The key motivation is that interaction with the environment can cause damage, and repair is often the naturally prefered alternative to recreate.
Yes, our bodies and a cable stretching into space are different things, but we can learn important design lessons from what nature has done, not just in our bodies but everywhere. Nature is also an excellent structural and materials engineer. Look at trees and spider webs.
No, we can't just read an answer for the space elevator out of our DNA, but it is very clear to me that any solution would be self-healing and self-monitoring. That may very well come in the form of pods along the inside of the ribbon that dispatch nanomachines that can diagnose and repair structural defects.
Who can say what approach will be best. A more likely approach might be that we'll have an unrelated scientific breakthrough which will provide an economical way to get to space without an elevator and then we might never bother to make one.
But with a structure of that scope, you need a system that is relatively autonomous and can detect and repair things at the scale on which it was built. You need that, and that's what our bodies do. We can learn from that.
You build a big long ribbon of carbon nanofibre that extends beyond the protective envelope of the atmosphere. The ribbon passes through a cloud of small highly accelerated particles that damage the ribbon and compromise the integrity of the ribbon on a microscopic scale. This can happen at any time and in many places on the ribbon. You need to detect and correct such problems before they result in failure.
Your solution is?
Perhaps they should have just asked you for the solution before sending up a space shuttle in a blaze of O-ring glory.
The objections in the article will not hold for long. The real problem with this man-made structure as with most is that it is not self-repairing. That's the genius of the genetic code in our bodies. Out of necessity we have evolved repair mechanisms to cope with destructive interactions with our environment.
When we better understand genetics and what it takes to build self-sustaining repair subsystems, we will be able to build sustainable structures that exist in our atmosphere and beyond it. It's the same with our space stations and our space vehicles. They have an expiration date that is inevitable based on chance encounter with destructive environmental agents. The Earth is a self repairing structure that has been alive for billions of years. The Moon has been up there quite a while, too, and it's connected to the Earth by gravity. If we find a way to ride that link, we may well have the elevator we need already there.
But as far as coping with environmental damage, we have the same issues on earth with just about every object we create. It wears out and it wears out pretty rapidly. Even we wear out, though our repair systems allow us to do quite a few amazing things over a long period of time before we die. If we really want renewable structures, then they will have to have a "nervous system" of sorts that perceives structural damage and a "repair system" of sorts that can restore damaged areas to original state.
This is not impossible. Our bodies are proof that it is possible. We just don't know how to do it yet. Likely because it's never been a big enough priority. When we start to use up all the easily accessible non-renewable material resources on the planet, we may start making breakthroughs in this area of recycling and repairing rather than discarding (a la "cars no longer go to the junkyard because it's too costly to waste all those materials, so instead we build cars that can repair themselves and last 3 times longer (at which point we'll probably call them "horses").
Would be if Apple came along and provided legal council for this poor guy and then not only will the suit be chucked out the window but Apple can make some money off the sorry bastards in consulting fees when the firm realizes it should settle out of court and quietly.
Well, assuming the facts are as they appear to be and they falsified his name as plaintiff in the suit, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing that astonishes me the most (and I've played WoW off-and-on since the release day) is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for Blood Elves to be Paladins. These are the elves that broke with the night elf race due to their all consuming addiction to magic. Paladins draw their powers from divine sources and divine power is non-magical (if you don't play WoW or have familiarity with the backstory, this may not make sense). But anyway, it smacks of a slap-and-dash solution to an underlying game issue and it just makes no sense. I always really liked the fact that the Horde went to the elements for their power and the Alliance went to their belief in divinity. Now that distinction is worthless, and it was done in a way that contradicts the backstory of one of the races. I'm sure, they will come up with some hokey "explanation", but I don't even play a Paladin or a Shaman (any more), and I'm still looking at this change and going, "WTF? That makes no sense." I didn't really expect that my first reaction to a basic fact about the expansion would be that. I was more expecting, "Hey, neat." Blizzard caves to the eternal whining of the forumkiddies. How disappointing.
Nao's extra degrees of freedom appear to come in the form of gripping hands. Coochi-coochi coo!
I think you're looking at this all wrong. When I read the article, I did find it extremely funny. I found it funny because I had the thought: I wonder how many other Slashdotters are reading this right now and thinking, "Holy Shit! I swear, I could quit my tech job right now, act like a frikken idiot, and write Dvorak's stupid editorial pieces for him and no one would even realize." That was funny. But then I thought, "...and let's see who makes more money for their time, effort, and expertise. Oh yes. Now I remember what we reward." That was the part that was extremely stupid and not funny.
The person experiencing the pain should change their usage habits. Take frequent breaks, and start doing some basic hand and wrist exercises. Finger rolls, wrist rotations, use one of those stress balls, massage the fingers, palm, wrist, and forearm. Most people do very little for mobility of the joints in their hands and they wonder why they have problems. If I sit at a desk 8 hours a day with my wrist pressing on the table, and move my fingers only enough to tap keys and move a mouse from side to side, I end up in pain, too. But if I take a few breaks, care for my plants, clean up the desk, and do some of those exercises every hour or so, I have no problems.
Pretty sure the idea was, "Look, Google is doing evil! The founders have their own jet and they sue the little guy! ZOMG! The Evil!"
Damnit. If I had anyone to talk to about these things before I posted, I would have seen that obvious hole in my argument!
I know this sounds really grim, but in the next 30 years it will sound horrifying because we'll be living the consequences in stark reality. I don't even feel an ounce of doubt about it, because the population numbers just don't lie. Population is going up exponentially and with it goes pollution and consumption of natural resources. The cycle will break, a lot of people will die, and life will change dramatically for what's left. What scares me is not knowing how to survive it. How will it come? Sweeping deathtolls from a disease? Radical political reform that lands you in a police state where most freedoms are curtailed because the general population is too foolish to curb self-destructive behaviors? Mass starvation due to a rapid and severe reduction in the amount of arable land? Where do you go? Where will be safe? What if money becomes valueless? What's your currency? What skills do you have that you can trade for food? What land will be livable? How many millions (billions?) will be competing?
There's a real possibility that the arctic cap will melt. I'm not saying it's going to happen, just that there's a significant probability. Well, OK. What do you do when there's a significant probability that 100 million people are quite suddenly going to be in desparate need of a place to live with adequate supply of food, water, and energy? How stressful and miserable is that going to be? How much crime will result? Will people start killing each other?
Those are the things I fear. I watched Katrina with a terrible feeling. Imagine that kind of displacement happening on a global scale...and it's not even that unlikely. 9 billion people. Suppose it's 15 billion in 30 years. Damn right we should be fearful. Fearful that we aren't dramatically changing the way we do things right now. Right now, because we see that it just cannot continue. Do you realize that we don't even discuss carrying capacity of land as a basic part of education anymore? We don't! Our children and even 99% of adults in the U.S., a supposedly very well educated nation have no clue. "Oh, let the public utilities and the grocery stores worry about having enough supply to meet demand." That's really disturbing. Because it means people can't even make educated choices about something as basic as procreation. I think we should all be required to draw sustenance from growing on an area of land. There was a time when we each had a direct responsibility for ensuring adequate food, water, and shelter for our familys as a function of what we could directly obtain from the Earth, but now we've lost sight of that. It's all imaginary monetary units. We don't know the real consequences. Most of us don't even pay attenti
On Mars, people seek what is new and different. Martians enjoy exploring both sides of an argument, and they are not intent on isolating themselves from anything that is not them. Well, some Martians are--but, that is how they wish it. On Mars, people are allowed to be isolated, if they want, but other Martians don't judge them or spend time trying to educate them about the error of their ways. It's each Martian's responsibility to identify and mend the error of their own ways, if there are any. As a consequence, Martians are about as unlazy as you could imagine, because they know their own progress in life is entirely up to them.
Martians are very kind and understanding people; they aren't shallow or selfish. They just insist on being who they are, and they don't accept the judgement of others about how they live their life. That doesn't mean that Martians have no respect or understanding for the importance of community. What it means is that they understand the value of accepting what is different, perhaps more than people that spend their time labeling others with words like "lazy", "shallow", and "selfish". Martians know that what might seem lazy to you, may just be work that you are failing to see.
The question of whether the online game is responsible for losses in the industry is stupid. If there were 15 incredible titles a year, sales would be just fine. If on the other hand there are 13 mediocre titles and 2 great ones (if even), well now, I'd say it's not that some online *cough*WoW*cough* game is so unbelievably amazing, but rather than it's an economical alternative amidst a field of mediocrity.
I've had one of these devices for quite some time. It's called a memory.
I think, as a species, we will be naturally selected out because were are dumb enough to argue the possibilities to death, rather than just hedge our bets. Like two guys arguing whether a gun is loaded while the play Russian roulette with it.
I think I could have just said Hitchcock and that would be enough, but you see where I am going. In software development, there are a very small number of people that are masters of their art. In fact, in any area of human accomplishment, this is true. My area is martial arts, and history has shown the same pattern.
If games continue to be of interest to us, time will find genius in that art.
The more the new executives and managers chase the bottom line, the more HP will suffer (the more brilliant people will leave), and the worse they will fare in the market. I expect someone to acquire HP for the name at some point in the not-to-distant future. No doubt it will seem like a smart move to the new Wal-Mart managers, when looking at the "bottom line".
Well, I think what you are referring to is the "definition" of Communism being opposite to that of Capitalism. That may be in many ways true, but it is also true that the "reality" of Communism tends to look quite a bit like rapid Capitalism with the "politburo" played by the "rich" (which is usually equivalent to "politically-well connected" since money speaks so loudly in the political arena).
The quote from the article is:
This is the beginning of the situation where a whole society sees a terrible wrongness and no one will say a word because they are terrified of reprisal. Eventually, even the people that have the job of punishing those that speak out are too terrified to not punish. And then you have a society of good people that are locked into a happy cycle of evil that they do not even want to be part of.Anyway, that's the reason some people are saying this is so wrong. Whether it's a big jump from this to what I described or not, I do not know. Usually bad things are not nearly as far away as we think. And usually that's because we try to keep those bad things as far from our thoughts as possible, :-).
What about the cable itself? Structural damage could occur inside the cable as well as on the surface.
AWESOME!
*hits the gas and zips along at a roaring 15mph with a look of fishpeople murdering glee in his one brown and one blue eye*
*twitch*
That sounds incendiary, but I find myself on the side of Iran. I can't help but have this feeling that our government manipulates the press so that it can justify plundering the resources of other countries in the name of democracy and the fight against "terror". Sure, the terror of the #1 fossil fuel economy running out of oil. Rather than accept responsibility for our own energy consumption, we use military force to control the supplier.
It's not hard to see the perspective of people outside the U.S. that think the U.S. is an evil oppressor. Geez, I walk down the street and see families living in palatial houses with huge gas guzzling cars (several of them) and very expensive lifestyles. Then you flip on the tube and see abject poverty and starvation all over the world. Oops, end of rant...
UN: Please don't censor your people, China.
China: We have nuclear weapons, stupid.
UN: Oh, damn.
UN: Hey, Iran. Please don't censor your...
Iran: Uranium, uranium, uranium. Stick it up uranium, UN.
Yes, our bodies and a cable stretching into space are different things, but we can learn important design lessons from what nature has done, not just in our bodies but everywhere. Nature is also an excellent structural and materials engineer. Look at trees and spider webs.
No, we can't just read an answer for the space elevator out of our DNA, but it is very clear to me that any solution would be self-healing and self-monitoring. That may very well come in the form of pods along the inside of the ribbon that dispatch nanomachines that can diagnose and repair structural defects.
Who can say what approach will be best. A more likely approach might be that we'll have an unrelated scientific breakthrough which will provide an economical way to get to space without an elevator and then we might never bother to make one.
But with a structure of that scope, you need a system that is relatively autonomous and can detect and repair things at the scale on which it was built. You need that, and that's what our bodies do. We can learn from that.
Your solution is?
Perhaps they should have just asked you for the solution before sending up a space shuttle in a blaze of O-ring glory.
When we better understand genetics and what it takes to build self-sustaining repair subsystems, we will be able to build sustainable structures that exist in our atmosphere and beyond it. It's the same with our space stations and our space vehicles. They have an expiration date that is inevitable based on chance encounter with destructive environmental agents. The Earth is a self repairing structure that has been alive for billions of years. The Moon has been up there quite a while, too, and it's connected to the Earth by gravity. If we find a way to ride that link, we may well have the elevator we need already there.
But as far as coping with environmental damage, we have the same issues on earth with just about every object we create. It wears out and it wears out pretty rapidly. Even we wear out, though our repair systems allow us to do quite a few amazing things over a long period of time before we die. If we really want renewable structures, then they will have to have a "nervous system" of sorts that perceives structural damage and a "repair system" of sorts that can restore damaged areas to original state.
This is not impossible. Our bodies are proof that it is possible. We just don't know how to do it yet. Likely because it's never been a big enough priority. When we start to use up all the easily accessible non-renewable material resources on the planet, we may start making breakthroughs in this area of recycling and repairing rather than discarding (a la "cars no longer go to the junkyard because it's too costly to waste all those materials, so instead we build cars that can repair themselves and last 3 times longer (at which point we'll probably call them "horses").
Never isn't quite now, but it's not far.
Well, assuming the facts are as they appear to be and they falsified his name as plaintiff in the suit, etc.