There is a large segment of the book reading public that do not care about battery consumption. They read at home or where there are power outlets. For them, LCD is superior to eInk in just about every way.
Except, e-ink displays are reported to be easier on the eyes to read, because they are a reflective surface and not an illuminated one.
Having read books on my computer screen, the only advantage is that it scrolls relatively smoothly. Otherwise, my eyes felt like they'd been sucked out Gollumn-style after 4 hours of reading. I'd much rather read on an e-ink display, even if I were near an outlet. I am also unlikely to try and read in the dark, where an LCD screen would be more visible.
I did not realize that my plugins list was the largest source of fingerprint data. I didn't even know it was listed.
I imagine many people use Opera at my screen resolution, but I'd be interested in seeing how many people shared my particular combo of data (aside from the plugins list).
I think that the steampunk theme, while pretty, wasn't really much of functional change. It didn't represent a machine. Sure, the resource-usage indicators looked like steampunk elements (guages, vacuum tubes), but there wasn't really a significant change. The "home" thing looked like a house still, but with a wooden roof. Most of the icons were computer-y, because (I assume) all the things the user had to DO on that system were really not steampunk things, but computer-y tasks. The interface is pretty, and has nice wood grains, but I couldn't say that it looked at all like it represented a steampunk machine, or any other machine.
Interesting. I generally dislike that feature, though I like friendly fire to be enabled. I've already screwed my team in S&D if I accidentally kill a teammate, I'd rather not further reduce our numbers from a stupid mistake. Of course, that depends on having an admin who can/will kick people who are TKing on purpose.
HC: Hardcore. (1-2 shots kills you, usually) TDM: Team deathmatch HQ: Headquarters S&D: Search and destroy
The former is a mod on the difficulty level, the latter three are different flavors of game type. I enjoy search and destroy because the rounds reset when everyone dies, and you never have people spawning behind you.
As soon as we heard that cameras were digital, we pretty much immediately thought, "Oh I can't wait until we can have tiny screens to see what we're taking/took". It's the natural extension of the technology. If my dad can think of this, and I can, it's pretty obvious. The implementation of that, and the techniques you use to do it, should be patentable, but... isn't the existence of a preview screen something that pretty much any camera-user would have thought of? What am I missing?
If you are going to a conference, consider bringing your data on DVD (multiple ones perhaps), and then mailing your computer to your hotel (and back). Insure it, whatever, but it's probably more likely to get there unmolested.
...as multiplayer seems to inevitably bring it out somewhere. You might find some great players, but you may find some who insist on getting you killed by guards and then teabagging you, or find some other way to grief you.
That said, it still sounds like it has some serious fun potential, especially if it's cooperative.
G = R * Fw * Fl * Fa * Fu * Gb... where Fl was the fraction of UK women living in London. Except... wouldn't the fact that he's already in London (and therefore not sampling women across the whole population) mean that he's only sampling women from London anyways? Would that make that term drop out? I guess I misunderstand its application.
Also, I suspect his Fb (fraction he finds attractive) is... underestimated. Would he really only find 5% physically attractive? I'd expect most men to consider any woman who's even above average to be attractive. 5% sounds low, I'd think 30% to 50% (or not higher) is more likely.
He seems to have left off the fraction of those women that would find HIM attractive, but he does mention that (along with other factors) in his paper. I suspect he can't estimate those as well as the others.
It's not a matter of signals being impossible. Rather, adding additional communications infrastructure to an existing space installation requires power, mass, and a rocket to take it up there. If they can use their existing (poor) connection speed, they can avoid all of that.
Considering that he's already homeless, saying that he "should be sued into bankruptcy" sounds overly harsh to me. I'd not wish that on anyone aside from villainous people who area blight on society. This guy's just a nutjob who needs his case thrown out of court.
Pants are overrated. May I recommend a Utilikilt? They're sturdy, and have pockets.... if you live in a windy environment, you may want to wear some underwear. Also, watch out for cold metal chairs.
Pants are less overrated than I originally implied, but kilts are still [sometimes] awesome.;)
Well, what I mean is, whenever we see something about "20% of people over X age have Y disease" or "... die of Z", it's tempting to get alarmed. It seems like Y or Z are getting worse or more prevalent, when to a certain extent it's that people aren't dying before Y or Z kills them. E.g., if I were a soldier in WWI, the risk of death to lung cancer was much less than the other risks of death.
That's an interesting point. As we conquer the lower hanging medical fruit, and prevent the things that used to kill people younger (disease, malnutrition, gum disease, accidents etc), a higher proportion of the people that DO die will be dying because of old age, or of diseases which only tend to affect older people.
Exactly. I think that MN would argue that they're not taxing interstate commerce, but ALL commerce that meets the criteria -- of which much happens to be out of state.
I thought some of the plant & animal life was really clever. I was also really glad they didn't try to make all the novel things logical - they never attempted an explanation of the flying rocks, which I think is good.... The word unobtainium is still utterly ridiculous (seriously guys?), but it wasn't featured too prominently.
"Unobtanium" is generally sci-fi parlance for "Material that does nigh-magical things, that we can't produce". The rock they were mining in this movie was a superconducting magnetic structure, which worked at room temperature. (Something which apparently is valuable, and we can't do it.) The director of the expedition was playing with some in his office, for example, when he was explaining the value of it to the doctor. I felt that using that term (while perhaps tongue-in-cheek) made it clear that this was the ONLY place to get said material. Imagine this planet as Arakkis, and the humans are after the technological equivalent of spice.
The floating rocks were (I assumed) composed at least partially of this material, and were basically levitated by magnetism in the planet's magnetic field. Some were tethered to one another by plant growths, but the rocks themselves were held up by the large magnetic deposits. (The smaller ones seemed buouyant also, but I'm sure some were just normal rock overgrown with vines.) They talked many times about the flux -- lines of magnetic force -- and how it was so strong there that it completely screwed their navigational electronics, and also messed with computer displays (in the gunships) and interfered with voice communications. The rocks around the aliens' Most Holy Place were arranged (as others mentioned) in lines like magnetic force lines. The connection seemed (to me) to be clear, but I could be wrong.
The hints at the underlying science do seem to be there. I definitely want to see the director's cut, and read the novel.
It is not a bad movie by any stretch, but without the special effect advancement, would this movie garner any attention? Will Avatar's real legacy be laying the groundwork for better integrated CGI rather than the story told?
Isn't that like asking whether a porn movie would still get attention if it didn't have any sex?
Of course it's Who Framed Roger Rabbit in Space (as I heard someone call it). It's just looks Really Good.
Sherlock Holmes loses little seen in my home via Netflix, on my non-HD television. Avatar would still be pretty, but I watched seemingly a quarter of the movie with my jaw in my lap. The visuals are simply breathtaking. I didn't even see it in 3D (though I am thinking about going back to do so). Given the fact that one was intended to be a visual spectacle, and one was not, made it very clear which I want to see at home versus which I'll see in a theater. (The fact that seeing Holms at home is so much cheaper, more pleasant, and convenient isn't my fault.;))
I was impressed, frankly. I went in expecting a crappy story and good visuals, and got stunning visuals with a good story. (I'm a hopeless romantic, though, so I like these things.) If I wanted something that wasn't predictable, I wouldn't have seen Star Wars dozens of times, Harry Potter a dozen times, and the Princess Bride a similar number of times. Of course I knew it had a love story -- you could tell as soon as the marine saw the alien girl.;) The graphics were just breathtaking (especially the night scenes, and distant vistas of the forest floor). Even the blue people were done very well: I didn't get a "Jar Jar" feel from them, and they were alien enough that they didn't get mired in the uncanny valley. (I saw FF:Spirits Within, and the people there seemed fake. In Star Wars, the CGI aliens just seemed... fake. These somehow moved Right, to me. I'm sure I can find flaws in it when I see it again.)
--- spoiler ---
I was very interested in how things were going to be resolved -- like how they'd manage to get him to safely participate in the war when he needed to be in a terran equipment pod, uplinking to his Avatar body. Pretty much as soon as he first ran in his new body, I was wondering how he would escape his human shell for good -- as he said, it was like his real life was in the blue body, and his waking moments in the human body were a dream in a crippled shell.
Slashdot Mirror
Except, e-ink displays are reported to be easier on the eyes to read, because they are a reflective surface and not an illuminated one.
Having read books on my computer screen, the only advantage is that it scrolls relatively smoothly. Otherwise, my eyes felt like they'd been sucked out Gollumn-style after 4 hours of reading. I'd much rather read on an e-ink display, even if I were near an outlet. I am also unlikely to try and read in the dark, where an LCD screen would be more visible.
I did not realize that my plugins list was the largest source of fingerprint data. I didn't even know it was listed.
I imagine many people use Opera at my screen resolution, but I'd be interested in seeing how many people shared my particular combo of data (aside from the plugins list).
I think that the steampunk theme, while pretty, wasn't really much of functional change. It didn't represent a machine. Sure, the resource-usage indicators looked like steampunk elements (guages, vacuum tubes), but there wasn't really a significant change. The "home" thing looked like a house still, but with a wooden roof. Most of the icons were computer-y, because (I assume) all the things the user had to DO on that system were really not steampunk things, but computer-y tasks. The interface is pretty, and has nice wood grains, but I couldn't say that it looked at all like it represented a steampunk machine, or any other machine.
Well, that and turning virtual knobs with a mouse (as opposed to sliding a slider widget) is a pain in the ass.
If you're punished in Hell for your sins, how is that Forgiveness in any way, shape, or form?
Interesting. I generally dislike that feature, though I like friendly fire to be enabled. I've already screwed my team in S&D if I accidentally kill a teammate, I'd rather not further reduce our numbers from a stupid mistake. Of course, that depends on having an admin who can/will kick people who are TKing on purpose.
Thanks, I didn't know that! I salute you, informative pedant. :D
OK, that was a bit snarky, but I really am glad you posted that. I learned something I didn't know before.
HC: Hardcore. (1-2 shots kills you, usually)
TDM: Team deathmatch
HQ: Headquarters
S&D: Search and destroy
The former is a mod on the difficulty level, the latter three are different flavors of game type. I enjoy search and destroy because the rounds reset when everyone dies, and you never have people spawning behind you.
As long as tabs (And corresponding blocks) are indented properly, I don't think I would care as much.
If the President is pressuring him to keep it secret, then we should direct pressures (letters, phone calls) to both him and to the White House.
As soon as we heard that cameras were digital, we pretty much immediately thought, "Oh I can't wait until we can have tiny screens to see what we're taking/took". It's the natural extension of the technology. If my dad can think of this, and I can, it's pretty obvious. The implementation of that, and the techniques you use to do it, should be patentable, but ... isn't the existence of a preview screen something that pretty much any camera-user would have thought of? What am I missing?
Do it with something that is in the public domain. Perhaps random snippets from a random Project Gutenberg article.
If you are going to a conference, consider bringing your data on DVD (multiple ones perhaps), and then mailing your computer to your hotel (and back). Insure it, whatever, but it's probably more likely to get there unmolested.
...as multiplayer seems to inevitably bring it out somewhere. You might find some great players, but you may find some who insist on getting you killed by guards and then teabagging you, or find some other way to grief you.
That said, it still sounds like it has some serious fun potential, especially if it's cooperative.
His equation was
G = R * Fw * Fl * Fa * Fu * Gb ... where Fl was the fraction of UK women living in London. Except ... wouldn't the fact that he's already in London (and therefore not sampling women across the whole population) mean that he's only sampling women from London anyways? Would that make that term drop out? I guess I misunderstand its application.
Also, I suspect his Fb (fraction he finds attractive) is ... underestimated. Would he really only find 5% physically attractive? I'd expect most men to consider any woman who's even above average to be attractive. 5% sounds low, I'd think 30% to 50% (or not higher) is more likely.
He seems to have left off the fraction of those women that would find HIM attractive, but he does mention that (along with other factors) in his paper. I suspect he can't estimate those as well as the others.
It's not a matter of signals being impossible. Rather, adding additional communications infrastructure to an existing space installation requires power, mass, and a rocket to take it up there. If they can use their existing (poor) connection speed, they can avoid all of that.
Considering that he's already homeless, saying that he "should be sued into bankruptcy" sounds overly harsh to me. I'd not wish that on anyone aside from villainous people who area blight on society. This guy's just a nutjob who needs his case thrown out of court.
Clients only see the "unit cost" of your work, not the development costs you invested in it.
Pants are overrated. May I recommend a Utilikilt? They're sturdy, and have pockets. ... if you live in a windy environment, you may want to wear some underwear. Also, watch out for cold metal chairs.
Pants are less overrated than I originally implied, but kilts are still [sometimes] awesome. ;)
Well, what I mean is, whenever we see something about "20% of people over X age have Y disease" or "... die of Z", it's tempting to get alarmed. It seems like Y or Z are getting worse or more prevalent, when to a certain extent it's that people aren't dying before Y or Z kills them. E.g., if I were a soldier in WWI, the risk of death to lung cancer was much less than the other risks of death.
That's an interesting point. As we conquer the lower hanging medical fruit, and prevent the things that used to kill people younger (disease, malnutrition, gum disease, accidents etc), a higher proportion of the people that DO die will be dying because of old age, or of diseases which only tend to affect older people.
Exactly. I think that MN would argue that they're not taxing interstate commerce, but ALL commerce that meets the criteria -- of which much happens to be out of state.
"Unobtanium" is generally sci-fi parlance for "Material that does nigh-magical things, that we can't produce". The rock they were mining in this movie was a superconducting magnetic structure, which worked at room temperature. (Something which apparently is valuable, and we can't do it.) The director of the expedition was playing with some in his office, for example, when he was explaining the value of it to the doctor. I felt that using that term (while perhaps tongue-in-cheek) made it clear that this was the ONLY place to get said material. Imagine this planet as Arakkis, and the humans are after the technological equivalent of spice.
The floating rocks were (I assumed) composed at least partially of this material, and were basically levitated by magnetism in the planet's magnetic field. Some were tethered to one another by plant growths, but the rocks themselves were held up by the large magnetic deposits. (The smaller ones seemed buouyant also, but I'm sure some were just normal rock overgrown with vines.) They talked many times about the flux -- lines of magnetic force -- and how it was so strong there that it completely screwed their navigational electronics, and also messed with computer displays (in the gunships) and interfered with voice communications. The rocks around the aliens' Most Holy Place were arranged (as others mentioned) in lines like magnetic force lines. The connection seemed (to me) to be clear, but I could be wrong.
The hints at the underlying science do seem to be there. I definitely want to see the director's cut, and read the novel.
Isn't that like asking whether a porn movie would still get attention if it didn't have any sex?
Of course it's Who Framed Roger Rabbit in Space (as I heard someone call it). It's just looks Really Good.
Sherlock Holmes loses little seen in my home via Netflix, on my non-HD television. Avatar would still be pretty, but I watched seemingly a quarter of the movie with my jaw in my lap. The visuals are simply breathtaking. I didn't even see it in 3D (though I am thinking about going back to do so). Given the fact that one was intended to be a visual spectacle, and one was not, made it very clear which I want to see at home versus which I'll see in a theater. (The fact that seeing Holms at home is so much cheaper, more pleasant, and convenient isn't my fault. ;))
I was impressed, frankly. I went in expecting a crappy story and good visuals, and got stunning visuals with a good story. (I'm a hopeless romantic, though, so I like these things.) If I wanted something that wasn't predictable, I wouldn't have seen Star Wars dozens of times, Harry Potter a dozen times, and the Princess Bride a similar number of times. Of course I knew it had a love story -- you could tell as soon as the marine saw the alien girl. ;) The graphics were just breathtaking (especially the night scenes, and distant vistas of the forest floor). Even the blue people were done very well: I didn't get a "Jar Jar" feel from them, and they were alien enough that they didn't get mired in the uncanny valley. (I saw FF:Spirits Within, and the people there seemed fake. In Star Wars, the CGI aliens just seemed ... fake. These somehow moved Right, to me. I'm sure I can find flaws in it when I see it again.)
--- spoiler ---
I was very interested in how things were going to be resolved -- like how they'd manage to get him to safely participate in the war when he needed to be in a terran equipment pod, uplinking to his Avatar body. Pretty much as soon as he first ran in his new body, I was wondering how he would escape his human shell for good -- as he said, it was like his real life was in the blue body, and his waking moments in the human body were a dream in a crippled shell.