Self-winding mechanical wristwatches have been around for decades. Granted, you have to wear it in order for them to wind themselves, but if you're going to pay $100,000 for a watch, you probably won't have more than one of them. (Well, although if you have $100,000 to spend on a wristwatch, you probably have $1,000,000 to spend on ten.)
To me, good science fiction starts with what makes good fiction. You need good, believable characters, an interesting plotline, etc. The difference between science fiction and other genres is the fact that there's science involved in it. There should be some correlation to real physical laws in the universe that may or may not have been discovered yet.
Science fiction is similar in some regards to horror and fantasy genres. They both are fiction that hold themselves within limitations that are commonly known. (Horror titles probably have a good amount of leeway. Fantasy titles enjoy more leeway than science fiction, also.) In my opinion, it is these limitations that make good science fiction.
Great science fiction asks, "What if?" questions that provoke our mind, but it'll do so within a hypothetical context. Take a look at LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness for instance.
My personal favorite episode of Star Trek (Original) is City on the Edge of Forever. It asks the question of how important can a single person be? How important is a single moment in time? It also provides some great scenes with the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (There's also that memorable line at the end, with McCoy saying, "I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?" And Spock replying, "He knows, Doctor. He knows." Love it!)
I also personally enjoy Larry Niven's Known Space stuff. Hard science fiction is great. As a reader, you exercise your mind and get entertained. "Science fiction without a net" is the perfect way to describe it.
Finally, I really enjoy Gibson's stuff. I must have read Neuromancer about twenty times, and there's always something new to find in there. Great books are like that.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 will have extremely large ramificiations with the IT industry. Some have said that it'll be bigger than Y2k compliance.
The reason? HIPAA basically means that every single company out there that deals with the health care industry must meet standards to ensure that information can be transferred readily as well as securely. Think about it. That not only means hospitals and physician groups, but insurers, employers, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, anybody that has anything to do with the health care industry.
If your company is only starting NOW, I feel sorry for you - the Act was signed back in 1996, and the compliance dates have already been pushed back a few times already. HIPAA-compliance involves programmatic and systematic changes in the way things are done. Ideally, someone would set up the back-end so that features like electronic security and data retrieval are handled without the people on the front-end having to worry about it too much.
My advice: learn how serious HIPAA-compliance is and translate that to the upper-level management. Maybe do a little research on what other entities are doing to achieve HIPAA-compliance. Take a look at HCFA, for instance, as a beginning. You need to make those people understand that HIPAA-compliance is a big deal, and their waiting this long to begin to get compliant spells doom. All of the employees are going to have to change their methodology, and a change like that can only come from the top.
Microsoft is very concerned about a man having been acquitted after allegedly selling modified chips that allow an Xbox to play Sony PS2 games. So concerned in fact, that they are saying: change the law, or they will have to reconsider selling the Xbox in Australia. Not selling the Xbox is well within their rights, but putting it in a (I paraphrase slightly) "change the law or we'll.." context seems assuming a bit too much
OK, when are we going to actually check the articles that come into slashdot and their validity? This very distressing. The Xbox CANNOT play PS2 games. Heck, if you could your top-end PC to play PS2 games well, I'd be damn impressed.
There is also virtually nothing in the article indicating a Microsoft tone of "change your law or we'll take our marbles and play elsewhere." Can we please at least check these things before they make it to the front page?
Slashdot is a terrific site, and there are some good people here with good opinions. However, if all the front page content is going to suffer, I fear that the entire slashdot community may suffer as well.
Re:XBox Live = Bad implementation.
on
Xbox Live Beta Report
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
There's actually a good reason why Microsoft doesn't want Xbox Live! to be compatible with PS2 and GameCube games. They can guarantee that every Xbox will be using a broadband connection. They can not say the same about PS2 users nor GameCube users. If you want a good gaming experience, you want as little lag as possible, and broadband gives you that. Ensuring that everyone has a decent connection is a step in the right direction.
And heaven forbid that they should charge money to try to recoup some of their costs! They're running dedicated servers. Do you think those come for free? You can look at this site, and you know that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Do you also realize that these dedicated Live! servers will allow people to see across games? Let's say you're playing Tony Hawk and your friend wants to play a game of NBA2k3 with you. Your friend can notify you through your Xbox because the service sits on the server. Amazing stuff.
Also, have you played on battle.net? I'll admit that they've done a superb job with the Warcraft III release, but EVERY release before then has been utterly horrid on the battle.net servers. The servers would lag for days while people would jump on or download the latest patch. The old adage of you get what you pay for is true.
btw, it's PS2, not PS/2. The PS/2 is either a) your keyboard connector or b) an old IBM machine. Sorry, that's just a pet peeve of mine.
The article really is not informative as to the whole Xbox Live! experience. So far everyone that I've heard from in the beta really enjoys it. Heck, even the guys at penny-arcade enjoy it. I am looking forward to November 15th myself.
Sometimes the Controller IS the game!
on
E3 Controller Previews
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Is it just me, or does anyone else want to avoid paying $30+ for a controller you can only use for one game, on top of the $50+ price tag for the game itself?
There have been several games in the past where the price of the controller is more than the game itself, but the controller literally makes the game. I can think of two examples right now: Dance Dance Revolution (or any bemani game) and Samba de Amigo. Both of these games are fun in and of themselves with the standard controller, but throw in the peripherals, and stand back!
I, for one, spent $50 on Samba then $100 on two sets of maracas. (You heard me correctly. Maracas.) It's an instant party, and a unique game experience you really can't duplicate any other way. Sometimes it's worth it to spend.
I heard the Xbox has a proprietary DVD player that spins backwards. Sooo.... won't that be a problem in making an Xbox of your very own?
It's not that it spins backwards (counter-clockwise versus clockwise or whatever) - the X-Box DVD's read from the outside-in, versus the inside-out. Please note that this not adds to their proprietariness and makes it harder to pirate, but it's also a bit ingenious - you get a faster linear read rate at the outer edge so it can read in its data that much quicker.
Traffic cameras have come and gone rather quickly here. They were introduced on a trial run starting in December of last year and went live with actual citations in early January. The program is now dead. Legislators moved to repeal the program, and Governor Cayetano basically terminated the program by the end of April.
The program was incredibly unpopular, or it was unpopular with incredibly vocal people. People cited things like invasion of privacy to how this was all just a money-making scheme by the government to proof of guilt. It even got the point where the ACLU stepped in because the company running the program was allowed access to people's SS#'s. Now that's a no-no.
The program was basically implemented as poorly as possible. ACS, the company that was contracted, and the State DOT basically went about it a very unpopular fashion. In addition, they never bothered to change the law. The basic speed law in Hawaii (and most places) indicates that you must identify the driver of the vehicle. That's incredibly difficult and is virtually impossible at night, if you're going to be taking pictures from the side of the road. In addition, the company and the DOT made a lot of PR errors along the way, and the program basically died.
Oh well. Now we can get back to that debate about speed and fatality rates. Where's all that Montana data, anyway? And isn't this thing U-shaped? You are actually safer if you are travelling 5-10 mph faster than everyone else because faster drivers are usually paying more attention to the road.
No one here really seems to care about the invasion of the frogs. Hawaii is a lovely environment and is home to more than 10,000 species of plant and animal life found nowhere else in the world. It is blessed with having virtually every major ecological zone (the only one missing is permafrost-tundra, like think Antarctica) and was virtually isolated from everywhere else in the world, as the islands are at least two thousand miles away from any other large land mass.
That is, until we started to really live there, and now invasive species threaten many of the plants and wildlife that are unique to Hawaii.
There's a great deal to know and understand about the endangered species in Hawaii and the invasive species that threaten them. We have no snakes, or many other reptiles, for that matter. There are no scorpions, no tarantulas, none of that really vile stuff you find in other rainforests.
Criswell estimates it would take about $15 billion to launch the project and then about $135 billion more before the investment begins to break even.
Well thank you very much. Another thing -- how would the energy be transfered back to the Earth? Microwaves?
Yes, the article mentions microwaves too. (Cue SimCity flashback.)
I don't understand how he feels this would take the effort of many nations, though. The annual budget for the Defense Department for the US currently stands at $300 billion. We could split this lunar project cost over like ten years and that'd be about 5% of the DoD's budget! (I'm not harping on the Dept. of Defense. The Health and Human Services budget is WAY bigger than theirs is.)
I somehow have the feeling that $135 billion is a bit low. What's Microsoft's market cap at right now?
right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.
that one day's difference is enough to teach them a whole lifetime of moral and social implications, and they can suddenly make that choice that they could not have made 24 hours previously.
Sarcasm noted. But how would YOU propose we handle the situation? Create a morality and ethics test for people to take? This is the same argument with being 21 to drink and being 16 (or whatever) to drive. Nothing magical happens.
There are very mature individuals who are under 18 years of age who probably could make these decisions. There are also very immature individuals who are older than 18 who really shouldn't make those decisions. But you need to draw the line somewhere. I agree with you that age is not the best line. We should have tests to take, people can read a person's history, etc. However, there is such an increased cost involved that it's just plain not worth it.
An 18 year old having (I'm assuming consensual) sex with his 17 year old girlfriend is fine by me. Your statutory rape law should be looked at so that it compares the difference in age. (A 35 year old having sex with a 17 year old may be a different story.)
Maybe you are smart enough to make those choices for yourself. I'm sure alot of people here are. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Yes, it's arbitrary and it's not perfect, but it works better than alot of other things out there. It also makes practical sense.
In other words, deal with it. You live in a country where you have a say in the laws and the law-making process. Use it, as you are currently using your right to speak about it.
I thought a big use for these were going to be for heated runways - so you don't have to worry about de-icing them anymore. (I just hope they don't heat them too much and then you have a bunch of lizards just hanging out on the runway warming themselves.)
This sounds more like a management issue, doesn't it? When are people going to take some responsibility? People have fooled around at work before there was connectivity to the internet, and even before there were computers! gasp!
Computers and networks are tools. They should be used as such. If people are goofing off too much at work and having decreased productivity, that's management's fault and not the internet's. Hopefully some sane people will realize this before it gets out of hand.
Didn't/. already run something about secure password schemes? Anyhoo, I usually strive for easy to remember, yet hard to dictionary attack. The easiest ways are:
l33t-speak: replace letters with numbers. So your wife's name of Kathleen becomes "K@thl33n"
inserting numbers for syllables of a word like: "x10u8" (extenuate)
Using directions and keyboard geometry. (For my pin number I would use something like 36987, which is a backwards L on the keypad.)
Inserting a number sequence inside of a word. r3o1v4e1r5 = rover + pi
Using these methods, it's pretty easy to come up with a word that's relatively secure to a dictionary attack yet is as simple to remember as a much easier word.
(One thing: PLEASE don't use your SS# in any of these!)
My current theory is that love will turn him evil. Love for his mother and his love for Amidala. That, to me, would be a really good twist on the whole deal. Most people think that love is a good thing and that no bad could come from it, but we all know people who twist "love" to their own means. If Lucas could turn the Anakin-Amidala love thing into the source of Vader's evil, that would be one good triumph.
You can also see Palpatine beginning to influence young Anakin as well. That is sure to have some effect as Palpatine is about the coolest behind-the-scenes evil influence there is.
Is Anakin going to become Vader in this episode? That would be the best, as the whole next movie we could see him in action. Yet, maybe Anakin is too young...
Well, from the spoilers that I've seen... uhh... I'll save comment on that. But you can definitely see some of the turning - remarks about his arrogance, the chancellor letting him go and also bringing him under his wing. Good stuff. In fact, Palpatine could easily go down as THE evil mastermind of all time if things work out as I think they will.
Also, once the HD is formatted for Linux, you won't be able to use it for your PS2 games that use the HD. Oh, and there's STILL no network connectivity with that guy. Linux w/out a network connection is like ummmm.... yeah
First hand account. Japanese controller works with US Xbox.
That's interesting, considering the Japanese release for the X-Box is not until 2/22, which puts it at least a day away. Of course, you could have gotten early access to the peripherals, but forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.
Seriously, though. You could put Indy and his dad in 2002 at their "current" age. (No make up for them) After all, they both drank from the fountain of youth, right? So they should be able to live until an extremely old age.
It'd be neat to see Indy in modern times. Guns haven't really changed THAT much. I don't know who the enemies could be, though, without being too radically politcally incorrect. Just make it some greedy Americans or something. And go make them find Atlantis. Think Abyss meets Indiana Jones.
I actually don't think so. It looks like this process requires a coupling laser. If you change that laser, you can retrieve the earlier packets of light. So unless you're willing to shoot a laser at your solar panel, this method really wouldn't work. There's also all that extra energy you need because of the coupling laser. With this particular process, you probably wouldn't see any increase in efficiency. You're better off with better materials for your solar panels.
I would think that market share would play a large role in this. If you are licensing your technology and you become the de facto standard, there's a lot of bucks to be made in that.
If google can capture geek market share, guess who usually makes the IT decisions at a company? By having some goodwill out there today, they will try to bank on it in the future. (Hey, remember us? We saved your flame war from '89!) Buy our stuff!
Besides, since it IS all text, it probably doesn't take up THAT much space. There are probably pr0n sites that create more memory usage in one day than USENET did in one year.
This seems similar to the Bells and AT&T selling the consumer Caller ID, then CID blocker to the telemarketers, then selling caller id blocker blocker to the consumer, then....
Is this like the star-bellied sneetches? No, really. You could learn alot from Dr. Seuss.
Well, it's rushed compared to the book. I mean, let's face it. For a grand fellowship involving a handful of diverse characters, we really get no feeling at all for them. We just have a handful of people who simply kick butt, but with different weapons. Great. I think Predator had a more interesting cast as far as their personalities go for a band of people kicking ass.
Although I guess I will hold out some hope for an extended version. Improving the fight scenes would go quite a ways to improving my feeling for the movie. Especially that last fight scene. All right! It's going to be an epic battle between the main good guy and main bad guy. Oh, it's over already? yeesh...
Of somewhat interest to me is how my original comment was modded to +4 and then got a "troll" and "flamebait" down to +2. I guess you just can't express an unpopular opinion here.
Goodness. So now you're going to take a movie that was nearly three hours and make it three and a half or so? I was looking at my watch from about the halfway point in this movie. I'll probably lose karma for this (but it's only karma, right?), but this movie really isn't a good movie. There's virtually no character development, the action sequences are usually done badly (i.e. too close), and the storyline is rushed (for obvious reasons).
Gak. If you want to see a good three and a half hour movie, go get the Apocalypse Now Redux.
Slashdot Mirror
Self-winding mechanical wristwatches have been around for decades. Granted, you have to wear it in order for them to wind themselves, but if you're going to pay $100,000 for a watch, you probably won't have more than one of them. (Well, although if you have $100,000 to spend on a wristwatch, you probably have $1,000,000 to spend on ten.)
To me, good science fiction starts with what makes good fiction. You need good, believable characters, an interesting plotline, etc. The difference between science fiction and other genres is the fact that there's science involved in it. There should be some correlation to real physical laws in the universe that may or may not have been discovered yet.
Science fiction is similar in some regards to horror and fantasy genres. They both are fiction that hold themselves within limitations that are commonly known. (Horror titles probably have a good amount of leeway. Fantasy titles enjoy more leeway than science fiction, also.) In my opinion, it is these limitations that make good science fiction.
Great science fiction asks, "What if?" questions that provoke our mind, but it'll do so within a hypothetical context. Take a look at LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness for instance.
My personal favorite episode of Star Trek (Original) is City on the Edge of Forever. It asks the question of how important can a single person be? How important is a single moment in time? It also provides some great scenes with the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (There's also that memorable line at the end, with McCoy saying, "I could have saved her! Do you know what you just did?" And Spock replying, "He knows, Doctor. He knows." Love it!)
I also personally enjoy Larry Niven's Known Space stuff. Hard science fiction is great. As a reader, you exercise your mind and get entertained. "Science fiction without a net" is the perfect way to describe it.
Finally, I really enjoy Gibson's stuff. I must have read Neuromancer about twenty times, and there's always something new to find in there. Great books are like that.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 will have extremely large ramificiations with the IT industry. Some have said that it'll be bigger than Y2k compliance.
The reason? HIPAA basically means that every single company out there that deals with the health care industry must meet standards to ensure that information can be transferred readily as well as securely. Think about it. That not only means hospitals and physician groups, but insurers, employers, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, anybody that has anything to do with the health care industry.
If your company is only starting NOW, I feel sorry for you - the Act was signed back in 1996, and the compliance dates have already been pushed back a few times already. HIPAA-compliance involves programmatic and systematic changes in the way things are done. Ideally, someone would set up the back-end so that features like electronic security and data retrieval are handled without the people on the front-end having to worry about it too much.
My advice: learn how serious HIPAA-compliance is and translate that to the upper-level management. Maybe do a little research on what other entities are doing to achieve HIPAA-compliance. Take a look at HCFA, for instance, as a beginning. You need to make those people understand that HIPAA-compliance is a big deal, and their waiting this long to begin to get compliant spells doom. All of the employees are going to have to change their methodology, and a change like that can only come from the top.
Microsoft is very concerned about a man having been acquitted after allegedly selling modified chips that allow an Xbox to play Sony PS2 games. So concerned in fact, that they are saying: change the law, or they will have to reconsider selling the Xbox in Australia. Not selling the Xbox is well within their rights, but putting it in a (I paraphrase slightly) "change the law or we'll .." context seems assuming a bit too much
OK, when are we going to actually check the articles that come into slashdot and their validity? This very distressing. The Xbox CANNOT play PS2 games. Heck, if you could your top-end PC to play PS2 games well, I'd be damn impressed.
There is also virtually nothing in the article indicating a Microsoft tone of "change your law or we'll take our marbles and play elsewhere." Can we please at least check these things before they make it to the front page?
Slashdot is a terrific site, and there are some good people here with good opinions. However, if all the front page content is going to suffer, I fear that the entire slashdot community may suffer as well.
There's actually a good reason why Microsoft doesn't want Xbox Live! to be compatible with PS2 and GameCube games. They can guarantee that every Xbox will be using a broadband connection. They can not say the same about PS2 users nor GameCube users. If you want a good gaming experience, you want as little lag as possible, and broadband gives you that. Ensuring that everyone has a decent connection is a step in the right direction.
And heaven forbid that they should charge money to try to recoup some of their costs! They're running dedicated servers. Do you think those come for free? You can look at this site, and you know that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Do you also realize that these dedicated Live! servers will allow people to see across games? Let's say you're playing Tony Hawk and your friend wants to play a game of NBA2k3 with you. Your friend can notify you through your Xbox because the service sits on the server. Amazing stuff.
Also, have you played on battle.net? I'll admit that they've done a superb job with the Warcraft III release, but EVERY release before then has been utterly horrid on the battle.net servers. The servers would lag for days while people would jump on or download the latest patch. The old adage of you get what you pay for is true.
btw, it's PS2, not PS/2. The PS/2 is either a) your keyboard connector or b) an old IBM machine. Sorry, that's just a pet peeve of mine.
The article really is not informative as to the whole Xbox Live! experience. So far everyone that I've heard from in the beta really enjoys it. Heck, even the guys at penny-arcade enjoy it. I am looking forward to November 15th myself.
Is it just me, or does anyone else want to avoid paying $30+ for a controller you can only use for one game, on top of the $50+ price tag for the game itself?
There have been several games in the past where the price of the controller is more than the game itself, but the controller literally makes the game. I can think of two examples right now: Dance Dance Revolution (or any bemani game) and Samba de Amigo. Both of these games are fun in and of themselves with the standard controller, but throw in the peripherals, and stand back!
I, for one, spent $50 on Samba then $100 on two sets of maracas. (You heard me correctly. Maracas.) It's an instant party, and a unique game experience you really can't duplicate any other way. Sometimes it's worth it to spend.
I heard the Xbox has a proprietary DVD player that spins backwards. Sooo.... won't that be a problem in making an Xbox of your very own?
It's not that it spins backwards (counter-clockwise versus clockwise or whatever) - the X-Box DVD's read from the outside-in, versus the inside-out. Please note that this not adds to their proprietariness and makes it harder to pirate, but it's also a bit ingenious - you get a faster linear read rate at the outer edge so it can read in its data that much quicker.
Traffic cameras have come and gone rather quickly here. They were introduced on a trial run starting in December of last year and went live with actual citations in early January. The program is now dead. Legislators moved to repeal the program, and Governor Cayetano basically terminated the program by the end of April.
The program was incredibly unpopular, or it was unpopular with incredibly vocal people. People cited things like invasion of privacy to how this was all just a money-making scheme by the government to proof of guilt. It even got the point where the ACLU stepped in because the company running the program was allowed access to people's SS#'s. Now that's a no-no.
The program was basically implemented as poorly as possible. ACS, the company that was contracted, and the State DOT basically went about it a very unpopular fashion. In addition, they never bothered to change the law. The basic speed law in Hawaii (and most places) indicates that you must identify the driver of the vehicle. That's incredibly difficult and is virtually impossible at night, if you're going to be taking pictures from the side of the road. In addition, the company and the DOT made a lot of PR errors along the way, and the program basically died.
Oh well. Now we can get back to that debate about speed and fatality rates. Where's all that Montana data, anyway? And isn't this thing U-shaped? You are actually safer if you are travelling 5-10 mph faster than everyone else because faster drivers are usually paying more attention to the road.
No one here really seems to care about the invasion of the frogs. Hawaii is a lovely environment and is home to more than 10,000 species of plant and animal life found nowhere else in the world. It is blessed with having virtually every major ecological zone (the only one missing is permafrost-tundra, like think Antarctica) and was virtually isolated from everywhere else in the world, as the islands are at least two thousand miles away from any other large land mass.
That is, until we started to really live there, and now invasive species threaten many of the plants and wildlife that are unique to Hawaii.
Obligatory linkage for the karma-whoring:
Nature Conservancy
Google directory
Carnivorous Caterpillars!
There's a great deal to know and understand about the endangered species in Hawaii and the invasive species that threaten them. We have no snakes, or many other reptiles, for that matter. There are no scorpions, no tarantulas, none of that really vile stuff you find in other rainforests.
Criswell estimates it would take about $15 billion to launch the project and then about $135 billion more before the investment begins to break even.
Well thank you very much. Another thing -- how would the energy be transfered back to the Earth? Microwaves?
Yes, the article mentions microwaves too. (Cue SimCity flashback.)
I don't understand how he feels this would take the effort of many nations, though. The annual budget for the Defense Department for the US currently stands at $300 billion. We could split this lunar project cost over like ten years and that'd be about 5% of the DoD's budget! (I'm not harping on the Dept. of Defense. The Health and Human Services budget is WAY bigger than theirs is.)
I somehow have the feeling that $135 billion is a bit low. What's Microsoft's market cap at right now?
right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.
that one day's difference is enough to teach them a whole lifetime of moral and social implications, and they can suddenly make that choice that they could not have made 24 hours previously.
Sarcasm noted. But how would YOU propose we handle the situation? Create a morality and ethics test for people to take? This is the same argument with being 21 to drink and being 16 (or whatever) to drive. Nothing magical happens.
There are very mature individuals who are under 18 years of age who probably could make these decisions. There are also very immature individuals who are older than 18 who really shouldn't make those decisions. But you need to draw the line somewhere. I agree with you that age is not the best line. We should have tests to take, people can read a person's history, etc. However, there is such an increased cost involved that it's just plain not worth it.
An 18 year old having (I'm assuming consensual) sex with his 17 year old girlfriend is fine by me. Your statutory rape law should be looked at so that it compares the difference in age. (A 35 year old having sex with a 17 year old may be a different story.)
Maybe you are smart enough to make those choices for yourself. I'm sure alot of people here are. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Yes, it's arbitrary and it's not perfect, but it works better than alot of other things out there. It also makes practical sense.
In other words, deal with it. You live in a country where you have a say in the laws and the law-making process. Use it, as you are currently using your right to speak about it.
I thought a big use for these were going to be for heated runways - so you don't have to worry about de-icing them anymore. (I just hope they don't heat them too much and then you have a bunch of lizards just hanging out on the runway warming themselves.)
This sounds more like a management issue, doesn't it? When are people going to take some responsibility? People have fooled around at work before there was connectivity to the internet, and even before there were computers! gasp!
Computers and networks are tools. They should be used as such. If people are goofing off too much at work and having decreased productivity, that's management's fault and not the internet's. Hopefully some sane people will realize this before it gets out of hand.
Didn't /. already run something about secure password schemes? Anyhoo, I usually strive for easy to remember, yet hard to dictionary attack. The easiest ways are:
l33t-speak: replace letters with numbers. So your wife's name of Kathleen becomes "K@thl33n"
inserting numbers for syllables of a word like: "x10u8" (extenuate)
Using directions and keyboard geometry. (For my pin number I would use something like 36987, which is a backwards L on the keypad.)
Inserting a number sequence inside of a word. r3o1v4e1r5 = rover + pi
Using these methods, it's pretty easy to come up with a word that's relatively secure to a dictionary attack yet is as simple to remember as a much easier word.
(One thing: PLEASE don't use your SS# in any of these!)
My current theory is that love will turn him evil. Love for his mother and his love for Amidala. That, to me, would be a really good twist on the whole deal. Most people think that love is a good thing and that no bad could come from it, but we all know people who twist "love" to their own means. If Lucas could turn the Anakin-Amidala love thing into the source of Vader's evil, that would be one good triumph.
You can also see Palpatine beginning to influence young Anakin as well. That is sure to have some effect as Palpatine is about the coolest behind-the-scenes evil influence there is.
Is Anakin going to become Vader in this episode? That would be the best, as the whole next movie we could see him in action. Yet, maybe Anakin is too young...
Well, from the spoilers that I've seen... uhh... I'll save comment on that. But you can definitely see some of the turning - remarks about his arrogance, the chancellor letting him go and also bringing him under his wing. Good stuff. In fact, Palpatine could easily go down as THE evil mastermind of all time if things work out as I think they will.
Also, once the HD is formatted for Linux, you won't be able to use it for your PS2 games that use the HD. Oh, and there's STILL no network connectivity with that guy. Linux w/out a network connection is like ummmm.... yeah
First hand account. Japanese controller works with US Xbox.
That's interesting, considering the Japanese release for the X-Box is not until 2/22, which puts it at least a day away. Of course, you could have gotten early access to the peripherals, but forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.
Why does this sound like something from Wheels of Zeus? I'm waiting for "Beers of Zeus" myself! The BoZ is back!
Seriously, though. You could put Indy and his dad in 2002 at their "current" age. (No make up for them) After all, they both drank from the fountain of youth, right? So they should be able to live until an extremely old age.
It'd be neat to see Indy in modern times. Guns haven't really changed THAT much. I don't know who the enemies could be, though, without being too radically politcally incorrect. Just make it some greedy Americans or something. And go make them find Atlantis. Think Abyss meets Indiana Jones.
I actually don't think so. It looks like this process requires a coupling laser. If you change that laser, you can retrieve the earlier packets of light. So unless you're willing to shoot a laser at your solar panel, this method really wouldn't work. There's also all that extra energy you need because of the coupling laser. With this particular process, you probably wouldn't see any increase in efficiency. You're better off with better materials for your solar panels.
I would think that market share would play a large role in this. If you are licensing your technology and you become the de facto standard, there's a lot of bucks to be made in that.
If google can capture geek market share, guess who usually makes the IT decisions at a company? By having some goodwill out there today, they will try to bank on it in the future. (Hey, remember us? We saved your flame war from '89!) Buy our stuff!
Besides, since it IS all text, it probably doesn't take up THAT much space. There are probably pr0n sites that create more memory usage in one day than USENET did in one year.
This seems similar to the Bells and AT&T selling the consumer Caller ID, then CID blocker to the telemarketers, then selling caller id blocker blocker to the consumer, then ....
Is this like the star-bellied sneetches? No, really. You could learn alot from Dr. Seuss.
Well, it's rushed compared to the book. I mean, let's face it. For a grand fellowship involving a handful of diverse characters, we really get no feeling at all for them. We just have a handful of people who simply kick butt, but with different weapons. Great. I think Predator had a more interesting cast as far as their personalities go for a band of people kicking ass.
Although I guess I will hold out some hope for an extended version. Improving the fight scenes would go quite a ways to improving my feeling for the movie. Especially that last fight scene. All right! It's going to be an epic battle between the main good guy and main bad guy. Oh, it's over already? yeesh...
Of somewhat interest to me is how my original comment was modded to +4 and then got a "troll" and "flamebait" down to +2. I guess you just can't express an unpopular opinion here.
Goodness. So now you're going to take a movie that was nearly three hours and make it three and a half or so? I was looking at my watch from about the halfway point in this movie. I'll probably lose karma for this (but it's only karma, right?), but this movie really isn't a good movie. There's virtually no character development, the action sequences are usually done badly (i.e. too close), and the storyline is rushed (for obvious reasons).
Gak. If you want to see a good three and a half hour movie, go get the Apocalypse Now Redux.