If you were somehow to install DieHard software on a DieBold machine, does the universe collapse in on itself? This is one of those pasta plus antipasto situations, I think.
If you're an American, can you imagine the uproar if anyone even considered passing a law making it illegal to portray the use of illegal drugs in a positive light?
High school kids aren't generally allowed to, for instance, wear shirts that even depict illegal drugs. I can well imagine a lot of mothers thinking the logical next step is to keep all those rappers from rapping about it. Someone, they might well think, ought to pass a law!
I'm certain that someone in Congress has proposed a law like this. The "protection of minors from indecent drug propaganda" law or something. All kinds of crazy things go on in Congress that nobody really hears about except the people who pay close attention to that stuff. It's already illegal to advertise cigarettes and alcohol to minors, or to use characters that are either well-known by children or even seem to be designed to attract minors. I believe a large number of Americans wouldn't think this is such a big step.
Please don't confuse the practice of science with the use of scientists' results. Science itself isn't contentious--it's pretty straightforward from the layman's standpoint at least (money and dorky-looking people go in; data eventually comes out). How people INTERPRET and USE the science that we do is what's contentious.
"Capcom Discovers Basic Server Browser Principles."
Seriously, how bone-headed do you have to be to NOT show your users how many people are in a server? Oh well. At least they have--unlike some companies--learned that people hate having to refresh server lists every time they fail to join a game, and really hate having to scroll through menus over and over for no reason at all. They're still doing better than some developers out there as far as server browser design.
Perhaps fundamentally more important, why can't they implement dynamic joining of games in progress, like what most PC FPSes have done for years now? I hope that kind of crap doesn't start to become popular on PC, if that's what this console "matchmaking" nonsense is about. Let me find my own servers.
I always thought that GOD was god. Where do some people get off saying that Jesus is God? Jesus and God can't BOTH be god, and if they could then why would God need the Jesus-figure for himself if he never has to prove himself to humans? Hell, why even bother with the Rapture if, once again, God never has to prove himself to mankind? And didn't Jesus really only care about people following the messages that he taught, not who did or did not believe such and such in specific?
This is why I usually try to stay out of talking religion with anyone. It doesn't make sense. No amount of explanation can make it make sense since it's been so widely interpreted and, let's not forget, practically everybody _knows_ theirs is the only Correct God. Everything in absolutes.
I have my belief, and I'm sticking with it: "don't do stupid shit."
I have been referred to a section in the contract I was forced to agree to that states something very vague along the lines of "Cablevision reserves the right to do anything we want."
As far as I can tell, that's the purpose of a contract: to bury the requisite "we can do whatever" statement in as much garbage as they can.
So far, it's been like dealing with a totally different company when dealing with anything related to FiOS.
Just wait until they don't need the early adopters any longer. Once Joe Public knows what FiOS is and how to get it--and can get it--they'll start cranking the machine up again. It's literally inevitable.
Unfortunately, I'm too drained from finals to think about it properly, but I believe there's an analogy to be made with the whole One Ring thing. With the right power in the wrong hands, either of those companies could rise up and start putting the boot to our faces just as hard as the other--I just can't think of what regulatory or monopoly power they'd need.
Hell, there's probably a power out there so terrible that we wouldn't even want to trust Google/Gandalf with it.
I can't remember if Bethesda is developing or publishing Fallout 3, but it really doesn't matter. Judging from their latest releases on both fronts, I'm not enthusiastic. Oblivion was a travesty next to Morrowind. ST:Legacy was a badly-done console port.
Back on the subject, though, the news of a Fallout MMO is not heartening. The last MMO I enjoyed was FFXI, and that was because it was (sorta) Final Fantasy. And it had mithra, too. Fine. I admit it.
It's my opinion that this doesn't really bode well for the Fallout series. Tactics was lackluster at best. I only hope a successful Fallout MMO would generate more interest in making a new Fallout game in the more traditional vein we're used to. It has only a slim chance of "beating WoW" and thus being noteworthy in the modern MMO market.
My real fear is that we'll end up with a NWN2-style sequel--"better" graphics, linear plot, and some fixes for some annoyances from the previous entries in the series.
Hm. With the HeNe lasers I always worked with, the symptom of a misaligned output coupler or high reflector was that you didn't have any significant laser output. I didn't think gas flow lasers were different, so maybe it's something further up the beampath you're talking about. I imagine if the cavity itself were to get damaged, there'd probably be bigger problems than the mirrors.
I guess that they're not being used for research purposes, but whenever I've worked with lasers it's always been key that communication with the manufacturer is possible. Continuum (etc.) certainly benefits if they're the only ones that ever fix my laser, but then again they have processes for verifying that their calibrations won't screw up my data by more than a certain small amount.
I guess it really doesn't matter if you're just blasting a CO2 laser in the vague shape of words or something. Sure, alignment is tricky, but I've aligned a low-power open-cavity HeNe on my own--and I imagine if a laser of that power and size gets misaligned, it's probably beyond help.
Hey, I think I see some applications, too! We could make a weapon that, when used in one way, heals people of the pain of their wounds. Used in a different way--say, applied to an enemy--it poisons them!
Problem is, you would want ordinary soldiers to be able to use it without a bunch of gadgets to fumble around with. It should be easy--like swinging an axe! You could call it a bioaxe! (Warning: link has embedded MIDI)
If I can get a copy of a rare game for cheap(er) just because it comes bundled with some 3D glasses I'll never use, I don't really care about buying into the fake 3D garbage.
However, if it's some special or crippled edition of the game that won't run with BC mods (which are what really make the game, from what I've heard) or BC patches, then I wouldn't touch it.
I really don't feel like paying $50 only to find out that I've got some hamstrung copy of the game and have to pay $70 to get a real copy--and I can't seem to find any resources that talk about this "Extreme 3D" version of the game. One Ebay listing suggested that 3D rendering required an nVidia chipset, which would be a showstopper for me since I have an ATI/AMD--but is that _all_ 3D rendering or just their whiz-bang depth 3D?
There's already an anesthetic drug out there that's based off of a conotoxin. Ziconotide, from what I can tell, is a synthetic conotoxin substance based upon omega-conotoxin derived from the cone snail. Wikipedia has an entry on it, including that it's already in use as the drug "Prialt."
I don't understand why nothing in the article even mentions this already-existing drug derived from (probably different) conotoxins.
First, the link's broken due to an extra slash at the end.
Good luck finding a copy of the game. It's slightly rare, and is going for up to $70 on ebay. People are listing it on Amazon for up to $90 "Like New." There's also some kind of "Extreme 3D" version of the game, but people seem slightly reluctant to bid on it--I don't know why, but it may not use the same patches as the original or something like that.
(Although I'd like to play the game, it's not worth $70-90 to me--especially considering that there are some very disappointing cons listed in reviews.)
There's nothing like a role-playing game where players are pigeonholed into a tiny number of roles. Just once I'd like to see a multiplayer CRPG or MMO forgiving enough to allow people to play party roles that _don't_ have names, or to play _and have fun_ with the old tabletop RPG saw that you play with the stats you roll. Now, one could argue that such is the entire point of a class-based system, but then I'd argue back that almost invariably Clerics, Priests, and even White Mages have more than just healing spells.
Female tiefling rogue? How does she compare to the one in Planescape: Torment?
And oh gee, a dwarven fighter/comedian, an agressive sorceress. Those character archetypes are so hackneyed that they name their voice sets after them. There are dwarven priests, aren't there? Is "gnome" still a playable race? Does the game have a bard that's useful for nothing really more than comic relief? Are the game designers the kind of people who wouldn't ever pick a clearly male portrait for a female character or what?
The main campaign of NWN had some interesting characters--I'll give it that much. I couldn't get past the brutal repetition of the combat, though, and it doesn't sound like this incarnation is any more promising.
It's amazing how much in common use has not been rigorously tested and peer reviewed by real scientists.
What do forensic scientists do, then? Are they mostly concerned with chemical analyses kits and ballistics? This isn't a troll--I honestly don't know what they would do if not validate techniques and processes--like what medical researchers spend so much time doing.
there's no way a kid under the age of 15 would spot the danger of talking on a cellphone while driving
Perhaps not. Too bad the article didn't say "talking." I think kids are certainly smart enough to figure out that if, while driving, you're trying to do something with your hands that requires dexterity, you're more likely to have an accident. When I was younger, my father would on very rare occasions drive with his knees when he wanted to, for instance, unwrap a burger. This certainly happened at least once before I was 15 (I know this because of which car he was driving at the time), and I realized immediately that this was a very dangerous thing to be doing, even on a straight stretch of road. I can't even imagine how someone would type on a Blackberry without taking a hand off the wheel or sticking the thing directly in their field of view.
Say, perhaps the kids have _watched_ Mommy and Daddy almost swerve off the road while they were typing away on their Blackberries? That would spare them even the tiny margin of creative thought that they supposedly can't muster.
Oh, come on. I'm no epidemiologist, but I'm sure there's stronger evidence for trans fats increasing risk of cardiovascular problems versus the risk of video games causing people to become more violent and possibly hurt another person. If we suddenly discovered that only violent video games were (somehow) causing the incidence of brain cancer to skyrocket, you'd probably see a lot of motions to get them banned. The OP clearly meant to ask if one would ban food that tastes good simply because it might induce susceptible people to overeat.
Wow. I don't think I played anything half that violent when I was a kid--and I had a Nintendo.
OK, well, I did have Super Dodgeball, and you did kill little computer men using balls--but then the guy came back two rounds later with brown skin and suddenly he was from India instead of Iceland. Nobody went home with cuts or bruises, either.
Slashdot Mirror
If you were somehow to install DieHard software on a DieBold machine, does the universe collapse in on itself? This is one of those pasta plus antipasto situations, I think.
This website was refreshingly easy to read, honestly. Nicely contrasted text in a reasonably large font.
Neller predicts that within about five years On Demand Books will be able to reproduce every volume ever printed...
Textbooks
I guess we just have to hope he doesn't have a stroke or stroke-like attack.
If you're an American, can you imagine the uproar if anyone even considered passing a law making it illegal to portray the use of illegal drugs in a positive light?
High school kids aren't generally allowed to, for instance, wear shirts that even depict illegal drugs. I can well imagine a lot of mothers thinking the logical next step is to keep all those rappers from rapping about it. Someone, they might well think, ought to pass a law!
I'm certain that someone in Congress has proposed a law like this. The "protection of minors from indecent drug propaganda" law or something. All kinds of crazy things go on in Congress that nobody really hears about except the people who pay close attention to that stuff. It's already illegal to advertise cigarettes and alcohol to minors, or to use characters that are either well-known by children or even seem to be designed to attract minors. I believe a large number of Americans wouldn't think this is such a big step.
Please don't confuse the practice of science with the use of scientists' results. Science itself isn't contentious--it's pretty straightforward from the layman's standpoint at least (money and dorky-looking people go in; data eventually comes out). How people INTERPRET and USE the science that we do is what's contentious.
"Capcom Discovers Basic Server Browser Principles."
Seriously, how bone-headed do you have to be to NOT show your users how many people are in a server? Oh well. At least they have--unlike some companies--learned that people hate having to refresh server lists every time they fail to join a game, and really hate having to scroll through menus over and over for no reason at all. They're still doing better than some developers out there as far as server browser design.
Perhaps fundamentally more important, why can't they implement dynamic joining of games in progress, like what most PC FPSes have done for years now? I hope that kind of crap doesn't start to become popular on PC, if that's what this console "matchmaking" nonsense is about. Let me find my own servers.
Everyone knows the Dnyarri came first! These Futurewhatsis people, they're just stealing the Dnyarri's thunder! Yeah!
Except, uh, Dnyarri don't take over people's minds with hypnotism or frighteningly powerful telepathy or anything. Nope! Of course not. That's absurd.
I always thought that GOD was god. Where do some people get off saying that Jesus is God? Jesus and God can't BOTH be god, and if they could then why would God need the Jesus-figure for himself if he never has to prove himself to humans? Hell, why even bother with the Rapture if, once again, God never has to prove himself to mankind? And didn't Jesus really only care about people following the messages that he taught, not who did or did not believe such and such in specific?
This is why I usually try to stay out of talking religion with anyone. It doesn't make sense. No amount of explanation can make it make sense since it's been so widely interpreted and, let's not forget, practically everybody _knows_ theirs is the only Correct God. Everything in absolutes.
I have my belief, and I'm sticking with it: "don't do stupid shit."
I have been referred to a section in the contract I was forced to agree to that states something very vague along the lines of "Cablevision reserves the right to do anything we want."
As far as I can tell, that's the purpose of a contract: to bury the requisite "we can do whatever" statement in as much garbage as they can.
So far, it's been like dealing with a totally different company when dealing with anything related to FiOS.
Just wait until they don't need the early adopters any longer. Once Joe Public knows what FiOS is and how to get it--and can get it--they'll start cranking the machine up again. It's literally inevitable.
Unfortunately, I'm too drained from finals to think about it properly, but I believe there's an analogy to be made with the whole One Ring thing. With the right power in the wrong hands, either of those companies could rise up and start putting the boot to our faces just as hard as the other--I just can't think of what regulatory or monopoly power they'd need.
Hell, there's probably a power out there so terrible that we wouldn't even want to trust Google/Gandalf with it.
I can't remember if Bethesda is developing or publishing Fallout 3, but it really doesn't matter. Judging from their latest releases on both fronts, I'm not enthusiastic. Oblivion was a travesty next to Morrowind. ST:Legacy was a badly-done console port.
Back on the subject, though, the news of a Fallout MMO is not heartening. The last MMO I enjoyed was FFXI, and that was because it was (sorta) Final Fantasy. And it had mithra, too. Fine. I admit it.
It's my opinion that this doesn't really bode well for the Fallout series. Tactics was lackluster at best. I only hope a successful Fallout MMO would generate more interest in making a new Fallout game in the more traditional vein we're used to. It has only a slim chance of "beating WoW" and thus being noteworthy in the modern MMO market.
My real fear is that we'll end up with a NWN2-style sequel--"better" graphics, linear plot, and some fixes for some annoyances from the previous entries in the series.
Hm. With the HeNe lasers I always worked with, the symptom of a misaligned output coupler or high reflector was that you didn't have any significant laser output. I didn't think gas flow lasers were different, so maybe it's something further up the beampath you're talking about. I imagine if the cavity itself were to get damaged, there'd probably be bigger problems than the mirrors.
I guess that they're not being used for research purposes, but whenever I've worked with lasers it's always been key that communication with the manufacturer is possible. Continuum (etc.) certainly benefits if they're the only ones that ever fix my laser, but then again they have processes for verifying that their calibrations won't screw up my data by more than a certain small amount.
I guess it really doesn't matter if you're just blasting a CO2 laser in the vague shape of words or something. Sure, alignment is tricky, but I've aligned a low-power open-cavity HeNe on my own--and I imagine if a laser of that power and size gets misaligned, it's probably beyond help.
Hey, I think I see some applications, too! We could make a weapon that, when used in one way, heals people of the pain of their wounds. Used in a different way--say, applied to an enemy--it poisons them!
Problem is, you would want ordinary soldiers to be able to use it without a bunch of gadgets to fumble around with. It should be easy--like swinging an axe! You could call it a bioaxe! (Warning: link has embedded MIDI)
If I can get a copy of a rare game for cheap(er) just because it comes bundled with some 3D glasses I'll never use, I don't really care about buying into the fake 3D garbage.
However, if it's some special or crippled edition of the game that won't run with BC mods (which are what really make the game, from what I've heard) or BC patches, then I wouldn't touch it.
I really don't feel like paying $50 only to find out that I've got some hamstrung copy of the game and have to pay $70 to get a real copy--and I can't seem to find any resources that talk about this "Extreme 3D" version of the game. One Ebay listing suggested that 3D rendering required an nVidia chipset, which would be a showstopper for me since I have an ATI/AMD--but is that _all_ 3D rendering or just their whiz-bang depth 3D?
There's already an anesthetic drug out there that's based off of a conotoxin. Ziconotide, from what I can tell, is a synthetic conotoxin substance based upon omega-conotoxin derived from the cone snail. Wikipedia has an entry on it, including that it's already in use as the drug "Prialt."
I don't understand why nothing in the article even mentions this already-existing drug derived from (probably different) conotoxins.
First, the link's broken due to an extra slash at the end.
Good luck finding a copy of the game. It's slightly rare, and is going for up to $70 on ebay. People are listing it on Amazon for up to $90 "Like New." There's also some kind of "Extreme 3D" version of the game, but people seem slightly reluctant to bid on it--I don't know why, but it may not use the same patches as the original or something like that.
(Although I'd like to play the game, it's not worth $70-90 to me--especially considering that there are some very disappointing cons listed in reviews.)
There's nothing like a role-playing game where players are pigeonholed into a tiny number of roles. Just once I'd like to see a multiplayer CRPG or MMO forgiving enough to allow people to play party roles that _don't_ have names, or to play _and have fun_ with the old tabletop RPG saw that you play with the stats you roll. Now, one could argue that such is the entire point of a class-based system, but then I'd argue back that almost invariably Clerics, Priests, and even White Mages have more than just healing spells.
Female tiefling rogue? How does she compare to the one in Planescape: Torment?
And oh gee, a dwarven fighter/comedian, an agressive sorceress. Those character archetypes are so hackneyed that they name their voice sets after them. There are dwarven priests, aren't there? Is "gnome" still a playable race? Does the game have a bard that's useful for nothing really more than comic relief? Are the game designers the kind of people who wouldn't ever pick a clearly male portrait for a female character or what?
The main campaign of NWN had some interesting characters--I'll give it that much. I couldn't get past the brutal repetition of the combat, though, and it doesn't sound like this incarnation is any more promising.
It's amazing how much in common use has not been rigorously tested and peer reviewed by real scientists.
What do forensic scientists do, then? Are they mostly concerned with chemical analyses kits and ballistics? This isn't a troll--I honestly don't know what they would do if not validate techniques and processes--like what medical researchers spend so much time doing.
as Mom and Dad type away while driving
there's no way a kid under the age of 15 would spot the danger of talking on a cellphone while driving
Perhaps not. Too bad the article didn't say "talking." I think kids are certainly smart enough to figure out that if, while driving, you're trying to do something with your hands that requires dexterity, you're more likely to have an accident. When I was younger, my father would on very rare occasions drive with his knees when he wanted to, for instance, unwrap a burger. This certainly happened at least once before I was 15 (I know this because of which car he was driving at the time), and I realized immediately that this was a very dangerous thing to be doing, even on a straight stretch of road. I can't even imagine how someone would type on a Blackberry without taking a hand off the wheel or sticking the thing directly in their field of view.
Say, perhaps the kids have _watched_ Mommy and Daddy almost swerve off the road while they were typing away on their Blackberries? That would spare them even the tiny margin of creative thought that they supposedly can't muster.
Oh, come on. I'm no epidemiologist, but I'm sure there's stronger evidence for trans fats increasing risk of cardiovascular problems versus the risk of video games causing people to become more violent and possibly hurt another person. If we suddenly discovered that only violent video games were (somehow) causing the incidence of brain cancer to skyrocket, you'd probably see a lot of motions to get them banned. The OP clearly meant to ask if one would ban food that tastes good simply because it might induce susceptible people to overeat.
kill-the-guy-with-the-ball
Wow. I don't think I played anything half that violent when I was a kid--and I had a Nintendo.
OK, well, I did have Super Dodgeball, and you did kill little computer men using balls--but then the guy came back two rounds later with brown skin and suddenly he was from India instead of Iceland. Nobody went home with cuts or bruises, either.