So, I'm suggesting that the long neck is held vertically as a way of gaining extra height for food reach, reaching the ground, and longer range vision without the increased bulk of longer legs, taller body, etc.
Not only that, but I'd conjecture that the long neck must have evolved vertically. The musculature required to hold a long neck like that horizontal must be enormous, and hardly an efficient way of bearing weight. Plus, is it any coincidence that the large dinosaur neckbones look kind of like hip bones, the primary vertical weight-bearing bone in people?
And the BS about the massive tail counterbalancing a long neck... for that to work as an opposing force on the neck, with the body as a fulcrum... well... that would required the spine to be pretty rigid. I'm not sure how well that would work in practice.
On a side note, have you ever seen a giraffe try to reach the ground with their head? It's pretty amusing. It reminds me of myself, trying to pick up my kids crayons from the floor... it's a whole lot of effort (what? so I'm not in shape or flexible. That's normal here, right?)
Well, that was a quick slashdotting. Hopefully they'll be back up soon.
Re: modern pseudo-analogues -- based upon the geese I raised as a kid, I never could quite grok the 'head-held-low' posture. Geese only hold their heads low to screw or to attack. It seems very inefficient for a large creature to hold that much weight horizontally away from the body (remember those physics lessons re: levers and distance from the fulcrum?).
Dinosaurs are awesome, as most five-year-olds will tell you. Armchair paleontology is fun too. And since we slashdotters are so fond of pretending expertise on subjects we know little about, and TFA seems to be slashdotted, I'm looking forward to a very amusing (but maybe not quite so enlightening) discussion.
How many users can each crocodile kill or maim? How many users can attempt to cross each moat at a time? Can the users access the drawbridge controls? What is the cost of the security on the drawbridge controls?
What is the value, in crocodiles, of a moat-bound kraken? Have you considered ill-tempered sea bass as an alternative to crocodiles (they are much cheaper than sharks WFLBs)?
In short, I'm not sure you've thought through the moat implementation in depth. My firm, Moats and Goats, LLC, would be happy to offer our moat consulting services for a small fee. If you sign a contract by the 15th of this month, I'll throw in free goat lawn trimming for your castle courtyard (please note that goat disposal is not an issue; the crocs or kraks will need to be fed, after all).
Re:Best of Arcade games
on
Tetris Turns 25
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Who has not tried to arrange blocks even in real life after getting hooked onto Tetris.
I know, right? I mean, in high school I got a summer job loading hay bales into trucks just to work on my Tetris skills.
It had the unfortunate side effect of sculpting my upper body into the form of Adonis, and all the attention from women prevented me from playing Tetris as much as I wanted -- but man, my fitting-blocks-into-a-confined-space skills really blossomed that summer.
If you graduated from playing Tetris to moving blocks in real life, you may have had a problem.
Or maybe it's me with the problem, as I simply cannot comprehend the depths of your nerdhood. I bow before you, nerdly master.
The stated concern was mercury contamination. Even with transport costs figured in, use & recycling of CFLs is a net gain for both CO2 and Hg. See the EPA reports of 2007 & 2008 on the CFL-incandescent issue.
Transportation of used CFLs to a landfill is not cheaper than transportation and re-use of the mercury via a recycling plant. Keep in mind that mining and refining mercury is also expensive from an energy standpoint (as well as a cost standpoint, as there are lots of other applications for mercury).
You are still not considering all the factors, or are choosing to ignore the existence and results of numerous studies on the issue.
CCGs, especially M:TG, have really become a money-making scam. I'd love to play the online version, because I remember it being tons of fun, but that has the same business model. Waste of money.
Hmm... just like the micropayment model everyone (read: business analysts) say is the future of the web. I wonder if web producers will be able to restrain their greed enough to maintain their markets.
Low had tried to frame his brother the rapper, 9V. But the power required to electrocute the victim was too high -- and 9V demonstrated he had full charge by having the detective place both his contacts on his tongue. While 9V lost a lot of street cred for getting tongued by a male detective, it did show that he was fully-charged and quite innocent.
So then Low Battery tried to frame his sister, Anita Agatha Battery, but AA Battery simply didn't have the brute power necessary for the job.
Out of blood relatives (and it had to be one of the siblings, as established by DC-NA testing), by process of elimination, it was Low Battery who depleted his power by committing the electrocution, with terminal results.
This is the problem with business fines on a monopoly... in the end, those fines hit the consumer, since they have little choice of going to a competitor (who, in theory, offers a competitive product at a competitive price, without the cost of the fine factored in).
Fining a monopoly is counterproductive. It hurts the very people it's meant to help. Disbanding a monopoly is a far better choice.
Volkswagen Beetles filled with magentic tapes (data throughput)
Aw, crap. That one was missed by the spellchecker. Since when was magentic a word? Is that the adjectival form of magenta? Is fuschial a word?
At any rate, I didn't mean a VW Beetle full of purplish tapes. I meant magnetic tapes. Although now my mental image of data throughput is a lot prettier.
You're missing a whole bunch. At some point, I've got to put up a reference chart on a website somewhere.
The media system of measurement includes the following units and more:
Libraries of Congress (data) Volkswagen Beetles (length or height, when laid end-to-end or stacked) Volkswagen Beetles (volume, for large holes or containers) Volkswagen Beetles filled with magentic tapes (data throughput) football fields (area) swimming pools (volume) EPU-NAEG (entire power output, north american energy grid -- power) EPC-SH (Entire power consumption, single home) EPC-USH (Entire power consumption, all United States homes) Empire State Buildings (height) Mississippi Rivers (flow rate) point of a pin|needle (area)
I'm sure there are many, many more... I've misplaced the list I was compiling.
It's semantics, really, but the popularity of a product can be gauged across the entire population (pretty much useless), it can be gauged across the potential market (useful), or it can be gauged against the existing market (most useful [for marketing]).
If the Kindle's share of new e-book purchases is over 85%, I'd call it enormously popular.
What I'd like to see is an extensive used Kindle market. It bothers me to no end that every time one is purchased, it does an extra point of damage for each one that has been discarded*.
*Ok, each one that is in the graveyard, since I don't want to get hammered by bigger MTG nerds than myself. As a side note, I wonder if MTG is still a relevant nerd topic. I don't see many references to it anymore, though I do see it is still being sold.
Google is not a hardware company. I'd look for an API and not much else.
Came here to say something like this.
Since it's already been said, let me clarify:
Google will not make a proprietary e-book reader. They want their wares on as many machines as possible. Whether it's firmware, applications, 'appliances', or whatever. Eyeballs == data == better targeting of ads == higher profits on ad sales.
Releasing an e-book reader themselves pitches them squarely against the very companies they want to be using their wares, to enable them to sling ads to everyone.
Google is an advertising behemoth. For all the neat-o things they produce and we use, they exist to make money by slinging ads at people. Every business move they make should be considered in light of the fact that they will choose the route that nets them the most eyeballs -- and in this case, this means making an API or firmware for other companies to use. They do not want to alienate ad targets who use other e-book readers.
Did you know that it's possible to recycle CFLs so that the mercury can be either re-used or disposed of according to federal guidelines?
You don't have to put them in the trash, ultimate destination: landfill. Moreover, if you do put them in the trash, you're despicable -- you can, for free, recycle your used (but not broken) CFLs at retailers like Home Depot (they are the one I know for sure; the EPA is working with other retail chains to implement similar programs -- and I believe some of those programs might already be in place).
The mercury issue is a non-issue with CFLs from a consumer pollution standpoint.
Then as a gamer, if you liked it you could buy the rest of the game... or perhaps mid game you could decide the level design had gone to pot and buy no more.
Sounds great in theory... but in practice, I'd hate it. Nothing like ruining a sense of accomplishment by forcing the player to add cash to continue. Paying $X for extra lives makes more sense... just like most coin-op videogames.
If micropayments HAVE to be done, then they need to be done gracefully. For games, I'd love to hear from some Korean gamers who have been getting hit by the micropayment hammer for a while now... what is their take on it?
I think, so far, most people have gotten used to paying for access to content (via ISP), but not actually paying for the content online. This is a recurring issue re: micropayments, re: paywalls, etc. At some point we all have to realize that all this content is not free to produce, and we might have to start paying for it, like it or not.
I know that I, personally, will change my browsing/app habits to minimize cost... and the web as we know it will go the way of the dodo.
The motto is "Don't Be Evil," and is commonly misquoted as "Do No Evil."
It's an important distinction, too... the first option allows for Evil acts (they just need to be outweighed by good acts -- the net outcome of all of Google's acts must be either neutral or good). The second option would severely hamper their ability to take over the word (or, worst-case-scenario, end the world, a la Googol the Destroyer).
Personally, I think Google's motto should be "See all evil, Hear all evil, Use all evil data collected to sell complex targeted (evil) advertising schemes)".
But something tells me that wouldn't fit well underneath a logo on a baseball cap.
It's the property of his employer, and, unlike a case where he would be leasing it, and thereby be able to claim some contractual ownership rights, in this case it is clearly their property.Please note that this was not a settled issue at the time. There is some expectation of privacy for communications even on work systems -- even in the US (in Europe, IIRC, that expectation is law). Where the expectation of privacy is gone is when the employee is explicitly informed that communications are the property of the employer, as almost all companies do now.
Journalism from the major corporations ended a long time ago in favour of increased profits.
Obviously you've never worked in a newsroom.
Journalistic integrity is still a huge issue among major newspaper journalists. Even in the past 5 years we have seen journalists have their careers ended due to integrity issues.
I think maybe you're confusing television news with news journalism, they are VERY different beasts.
Slashdot Mirror
Eat, fat, and chapped?
Sounds remarkably like my lovelife.
Huh? Why would a dinosaur be emo?
It's not like my lawn in sleepytime, where I get to be a Viking but my lawn is emo because it cuts itself.
I'm sure there's something to your joke, but I just don't get it... can you explain?
Not only that, but I'd conjecture that the long neck must have evolved vertically. The musculature required to hold a long neck like that horizontal must be enormous, and hardly an efficient way of bearing weight. Plus, is it any coincidence that the large dinosaur neckbones look kind of like hip bones, the primary vertical weight-bearing bone in people?
And the BS about the massive tail counterbalancing a long neck... for that to work as an opposing force on the neck, with the body as a fulcrum... well... that would required the spine to be pretty rigid. I'm not sure how well that would work in practice.
On a side note, have you ever seen a giraffe try to reach the ground with their head? It's pretty amusing. It reminds me of myself, trying to pick up my kids crayons from the floor... it's a whole lot of effort (what? so I'm not in shape or flexible. That's normal here, right?)
Well, that was a quick slashdotting. Hopefully they'll be back up soon.
Re: modern pseudo-analogues -- based upon the geese I raised as a kid, I never could quite grok the 'head-held-low' posture. Geese only hold their heads low to screw or to attack. It seems very inefficient for a large creature to hold that much weight horizontally away from the body (remember those physics lessons re: levers and distance from the fulcrum?).
Dinosaurs are awesome, as most five-year-olds will tell you. Armchair paleontology is fun too. And since we slashdotters are so fond of pretending expertise on subjects we know little about, and TFA seems to be slashdotted, I'm looking forward to a very amusing (but maybe not quite so enlightening) discussion.
I think you're missing a few factors.
How many users can each crocodile kill or maim?
How many users can attempt to cross each moat at a time?
Can the users access the drawbridge controls? What is the cost of the security on the drawbridge controls?
What is the value, in crocodiles, of a moat-bound kraken?
Have you considered ill-tempered sea bass as an alternative to crocodiles (they are much cheaper than sharks WFLBs)?
In short, I'm not sure you've thought through the moat implementation in depth. My firm, Moats and Goats, LLC, would be happy to offer our moat consulting services for a small fee. If you sign a contract by the 15th of this month, I'll throw in free goat lawn trimming for your castle courtyard (please note that goat disposal is not an issue; the crocs or kraks will need to be fed, after all).
I know, right? I mean, in high school I got a summer job loading hay bales into trucks just to work on my Tetris skills.
It had the unfortunate side effect of sculpting my upper body into the form of Adonis, and all the attention from women prevented me from playing Tetris as much as I wanted -- but man, my fitting-blocks-into-a-confined-space skills really blossomed that summer.
If you graduated from playing Tetris to moving blocks in real life, you may have had a problem.
Or maybe it's me with the problem, as I simply cannot comprehend the depths of your nerdhood. I bow before you, nerdly master.
No, I am "system thinking".
The stated concern was mercury contamination. Even with transport costs figured in, use & recycling of CFLs is a net gain for both CO2 and Hg. See the EPA reports of 2007 & 2008 on the CFL-incandescent issue.
Transportation of used CFLs to a landfill is not cheaper than transportation and re-use of the mercury via a recycling plant. Keep in mind that mining and refining mercury is also expensive from an energy standpoint (as well as a cost standpoint, as there are lots of other applications for mercury).
You are still not considering all the factors, or are choosing to ignore the existence and results of numerous studies on the issue.
Hmm... just like the micropayment model everyone (read: business analysts) say is the future of the web. I wonder if web producers will be able to restrain their greed enough to maintain their markets.
No, you misread the ending. I read the same book.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The killer's name really was Low Battery.
Low had tried to frame his brother the rapper, 9V. But the power required to electrocute the victim was too high -- and 9V demonstrated he had full charge by having the detective place both his contacts on his tongue. While 9V lost a lot of street cred for getting tongued by a male detective, it did show that he was fully-charged and quite innocent.
So then Low Battery tried to frame his sister, Anita Agatha Battery, but AA Battery simply didn't have the brute power necessary for the job.
Out of blood relatives (and it had to be one of the siblings, as established by DC-NA testing), by process of elimination, it was Low Battery who depleted his power by committing the electrocution, with terminal results.
So sorry. That last pun was just over the top.
And where do they get their cash from?
This is the problem with business fines on a monopoly... in the end, those fines hit the consumer, since they have little choice of going to a competitor (who, in theory, offers a competitive product at a competitive price, without the cost of the fine factored in).
Fining a monopoly is counterproductive. It hurts the very people it's meant to help. Disbanding a monopoly is a far better choice.
I didn't separate data-collection from ad-serving, as they are both the result of more eyeballs via application use.
Data collection is as dependent on eyeballs as ad-serving is.
Aw, crap. That one was missed by the spellchecker. Since when was magentic a word? Is that the adjectival form of magenta? Is fuschial a word?
At any rate, I didn't mean a VW Beetle full of purplish tapes. I meant magnetic tapes. Although now my mental image of data throughput is a lot prettier.
You're missing a whole bunch. At some point, I've got to put up a reference chart on a website somewhere.
The media system of measurement includes the following units and more:
Libraries of Congress (data)
Volkswagen Beetles (length or height, when laid end-to-end or stacked)
Volkswagen Beetles (volume, for large holes or containers)
Volkswagen Beetles filled with magentic tapes (data throughput)
football fields (area)
swimming pools (volume)
EPU-NAEG (entire power output, north american energy grid -- power)
EPC-SH (Entire power consumption, single home)
EPC-USH (Entire power consumption, all United States homes)
Empire State Buildings (height)
Mississippi Rivers (flow rate)
point of a pin|needle (area)
I'm sure there are many, many more... I've misplaced the list I was compiling.
It's semantics, really, but the popularity of a product can be gauged across the entire population (pretty much useless), it can be gauged across the potential market (useful), or it can be gauged against the existing market (most useful [for marketing]).
If the Kindle's share of new e-book purchases is over 85%, I'd call it enormously popular.
What I'd like to see is an extensive used Kindle market. It bothers me to no end that every time one is purchased, it does an extra point of damage for each one that has been discarded*.
*Ok, each one that is in the graveyard, since I don't want to get hammered by bigger MTG nerds than myself. As a side note, I wonder if MTG is still a relevant nerd topic. I don't see many references to it anymore, though I do see it is still being sold.
Came here to say something like this.
Since it's already been said, let me clarify:
Google will not make a proprietary e-book reader. They want their wares on as many machines as possible. Whether it's firmware, applications, 'appliances', or whatever. Eyeballs == data == better targeting of ads == higher profits on ad sales.
Releasing an e-book reader themselves pitches them squarely against the very companies they want to be using their wares, to enable them to sling ads to everyone.
Google is an advertising behemoth. For all the neat-o things they produce and we use, they exist to make money by slinging ads at people. Every business move they make should be considered in light of the fact that they will choose the route that nets them the most eyeballs -- and in this case, this means making an API or firmware for other companies to use. They do not want to alienate ad targets who use other e-book readers.
Fermentosecond?
Is that the time it takes for me to down a beer?
Or is that the time it takes for hot dogs, baked beans, and doritos to produce their, um, 'gastrointestinal distress signal'?
All that and more!
Did you know that it's possible to recycle CFLs so that the mercury can be either re-used or disposed of according to federal guidelines?
You don't have to put them in the trash, ultimate destination: landfill. Moreover, if you do put them in the trash, you're despicable -- you can, for free, recycle your used (but not broken) CFLs at retailers like Home Depot (they are the one I know for sure; the EPA is working with other retail chains to implement similar programs -- and I believe some of those programs might already be in place).
The mercury issue is a non-issue with CFLs from a consumer pollution standpoint.
No, no, that's acid *flashbacks*. Which would explain a lot of Scientology, to be honest.
Acid reflux is what you need to do to recharge the batteries on your DeLorean time machine.
Gee, thanks. That image has been burned into the retina of my mind's eye, and I can't make it go away.
Please be assured that you are not alone in dreading the day you have to wander stark naked.
Sounds great in theory... but in practice, I'd hate it. Nothing like ruining a sense of accomplishment by forcing the player to add cash to continue. Paying $X for extra lives makes more sense... just like most coin-op videogames.
If micropayments HAVE to be done, then they need to be done gracefully. For games, I'd love to hear from some Korean gamers who have been getting hit by the micropayment hammer for a while now... what is their take on it?
I think, so far, most people have gotten used to paying for access to content (via ISP), but not actually paying for the content online. This is a recurring issue re: micropayments, re: paywalls, etc. At some point we all have to realize that all this content is not free to produce, and we might have to start paying for it, like it or not.
I know that I, personally, will change my browsing/app habits to minimize cost... and the web as we know it will go the way of the dodo.
It's an important distinction, too... the first option allows for Evil acts (they just need to be outweighed by good acts -- the net outcome of all of Google's acts must be either neutral or good). The second option would severely hamper their ability to take over the word (or, worst-case-scenario, end the world, a la Googol the Destroyer).
Personally, I think Google's motto should be "See all evil, Hear all evil, Use all evil data collected to sell complex targeted (evil) advertising schemes)".
But something tells me that wouldn't fit well underneath a logo on a baseball cap.
Neither do I. However, in the end, who ends up paying $98/copy to i4i?
I'll give you a hint -- it's not Microsoft.
Obviously you've never worked in a newsroom.
Journalistic integrity is still a huge issue among major newspaper journalists. Even in the past 5 years we have seen journalists have their careers ended due to integrity issues.
I think maybe you're confusing television news with news journalism, they are VERY different beasts.
Unfortunately for him if that is the case, but the article, and the discussion, is about print media.