I find gnomish engineering offers a distinct advantage in PvP. Most especially, the net-o-matic projector, the invisibility device, the poultryizer, the extreme rocket boots, the sonic noise machine. I also quite like the parachute cloak and hand pyro-rockets. The other gnomish trinkets are useful when you first get them, but don't scale with level.
I used to kill people with these items. In PvP, it's not about doing more damage, it's about stopping them from hurting you. Just when that warrior thinks you can't possibly fear him anymore, you hit him with the net. Is he still coming? Rocket boots away! And did you know you can mount while invisible? The sonic noise machine makes it hard to dismount you too. And those hand-mounted pyro-rockets are great for finishing people off when they're running away. Warning: Mages get mad when you polymorph them.
I love all my death-toys like they were my children, but that net is by far the best, especially if you do ranged damage. I love how they turn their character from side to side, in helpless frustration. Those moments are sweet to me. And yet, I have never seen even ONE other person use any of these trinkets. Not once. I feel Blizzard conditions people to want incremental improvements to their stats, to the point where they are unable to think clearly about anything else.
It's just a shame the good ones don't work in Arena. Even in warsong gultch, the rocket boots now make you drop the flag. That is so lame. YES, engineering gives me an unfair advantage, that's why I picked it.
But in ten year's time, it will be hillarious! Every gif in internet explorer will need at least 10 gigs and three different processes. Don't get me started on the calculator.
A brief examination of Tesla's business plan suggests that they will, in fact, be manufacturing cars three years from now. Unless you're suggesting that it's all a pack of lies? If so, they'll have some explaining to do, as they just got half a billion from the US government to develop their next line of lower-cost electric vehicles, the Model S.
Unless you're suggesting they're doomed to fail, despite being flush with cash and profitable in the middle of a recession?
I must disagree. I am familiar with the skeptic's challenge, and for years thought it had no good answer, other than "I think therefore I am." However, I enrolled in a philosophy course where I heard a convincing argument:
"How do we know the things around us are real? We act as if they are, but have no way of knowing. It is because, from a practical point of view, we are interested in knowing 'the truth'. The skeptic is urging us to consider reality in an improbable way. Since we wish to know the truth of our reality, we take that which seems most likely to be true, call it truth, and use it until we have reason to believe some other explanation is more probable."
I choose to call people conscious because it is the only reasonable explanation I am aware of. I could say: "There is no reason to think other people are not conscious, so the probability that it's true is negligible, and not worth considering." And try this one on for size: "God does not exist because there's no reason to think that he does."
So I am going to claim that yes people are conscious, and yes consciousness is a physical thing, because there's no reason to suspect otherwise. (If I arrange a bunch of atoms *just so*, they'll be conscious.)
People with fatal familial insomnia invariably die after around nine months without any sleep whatsoever. Strange that this condition was not mentioned in the article.
I have always felt that this was a strength of the series, not a weakness. I prefer stories that are true to their own rules. He imagined some characters, described the situations they're in, and then started to write. I dislike reading books and saying "That's not what would have happened!". Books where everything is too neat; where the hero always wins and the bad guys eventually lose.
There's no excitement, there's no tension. When one of George Martin's characters is in danger, you're on the edge of your seat because Mr. Martin has no problem with killing his characters off.
His plot is the same way: reality doesn't consist of neat predictable storylines with well-defined milestones. It's a chaotic mish-mash, and even the near future is very difficult to predict. I find his writing to be quite refreshing after years of reading formulaic fantasy stories.
The moon is abundant in Helium 3. If we had fusion generators, a single shuttle load of helium 3 could supply the entire energy demands of the US for an entire year. Helium 3 is incredibly rare on Earth. Maybe in 50-75 years, we'll have a working fusion generator that can take advantage of it. In the meantime, it makes sense
'Dark energy' is causing galaxies to accelerate away from one another. This effect is proportional to the distance between two objects. While dark energy exists between the Earth and the Moon, it's effect is so small as to be negligible. Instead, the Moon's orbit is slowly decaying, and it would one day crash into the Earth. This is why tidal wave generators aren't a perpetual energy source, tidal energy can be thought of as continually robbing momentum from the Moon.
Take two bodies that are orbiting one another. Increase the distance between the two such that the orbital decay is exactly offset by dark energy. Install a tidal generator (which will be very large and produce a very, very tiny amount of power). Infinite energy?
Because one of the final five is dead, and it supposedly takes all five of them to create the resurrection technology. But they might decide to search for Hera, and hope to uncover the secret to reproduction.
Hydrogen has a tendency to leak. It's a very small atom, and passes right through solid matter. Helium has the same problem, but to a lesser extent. This is why helium balloons at birthday parties are metallic. If the blimp has to stay up for ten years, helium might be the better choice.
Unless interstellar travel is such a difficult task that no species has ever managed it. Perhaps technological civilizations last for a few centuries before they run out of metals and fuel, and then enter permanent decline.
Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co
on
Progress On Electric Cars
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The molten-salt 'Zebra' battery works very well in the cold, and is competitive with lithium-ion in terms of energy density.
Basically, it needs to be heated to 250 degrees Celsius to work. The battery is very well insulated, so if you turn off the heat it takes 4 days to completely cool down. (And another two days to heat back up to 250 degrees)
You need to keep the car plugged in at night to run the little heater, which can also be powered by the battery itself. You can get this type of battery with the Th!nk City electric car, and it is superbly resistant to cold temperatures.
I don't see any reason you couldn't take the insulation and heater from a Zebra battery, and use them to package a battery of any other type. For one thing, the required temperature would be much lower.
"Now two American physicists have made an important breakthrough by proving that two quantum channels with zero capacity can carry information when used together. That's interesting because it indicates that physicists may have been barking up the wrong tree with this problem: it implies that the quantum capacity of a channel does not uniquely specify its ability for transmitting quantum information (abstract)."
Let me be the first to say that random material implies a review board that is not at odds with itself. Interestingly, researchers are able to better understand material used in conjunction with algorithmic development and first principles engineering, which does not suggest a relationship between the reader and any given node.
Furthermore, citations may be employed to enhance this phenomenon when used together with LaTeX and multiples of knowledge.
I find the Penny Arcade comic sums up my feelings on the expansion: clicky
Seriously - how many areas are just the same area over and over again with different graphics? The towns and mountains and such are in different places, but by level 10 you've pretty much seen all the gameplay there is to see.
I predict Northrend will have individual monsters slowly roaming back and forth over small areas of ground. Occasionally there will be a few monsters standing together. Virtually every quest will involve killing X of them. To step things up, you can kill difficult elite monsters while in a group. The combat will be so simple that an 8-line perl script can do it.
When you try to imagine the game without the graphics, you realize how little gameplay there actually is. It might be feasible to make a nethack-style game that captures every element of WoW gameplay, but that would be a very dull game indeed.
From the CIA world fact book on Argentina: "Democracy returned in 1983, and has persisted despite numerous challenges, the most formidable of which was a severe economic crisis in 2001-02 that led to violent public protests and the resignation of several interim presidents. The economy has recovered strongly since bottoming out in 2002." and "Real GDP rebounded to grow by an average 9% annually over the subsequent five years, taking advantage of previously idled industrial capacity and labor, an audacious debt restructuring and reduced debt burden, excellent international financial conditions, and expansionary monetary and fiscal policies."
However, I've often wondered if we're doomed to poverty. It may be possible for us to transition to renewable energy without a significant decrease in the standard of living. However, what about other non-renewables, like metal? No recycling program can ever be 100% efficient, and a great deal of metal is always being lost.
As time passes, will metals be steadily deposited in places that don't allow for economic recovery - say, as a thin film of rust on the bottom of the oceans? Or will we be able to recycle metals indefinitely? A few thousand years from now, we might all be back in the stone ages. I have yet to see any good information on the long-term survival of technology.
I've noticed that every contestant in these challenges assumes that the Turing test is invalid. Meaning, that it's possible to pass the Turing test without producing intelligent software.
If they actually felt the Turing test had merit, step one would be to create a general-purpose problem solver with capabilities similar to human beings. Step two would be to have it brush up on its chat skills and enter the contest.
Slashdot Mirror
I had thought it burned with a cool green flame.
Damn it.
I find gnomish engineering offers a distinct advantage in PvP. Most especially, the net-o-matic projector, the invisibility device, the poultryizer, the extreme rocket boots, the sonic noise machine. I also quite like the parachute cloak and hand pyro-rockets. The other gnomish trinkets are useful when you first get them, but don't scale with level.
I used to kill people with these items. In PvP, it's not about doing more damage, it's about stopping them from hurting you. Just when that warrior thinks you can't possibly fear him anymore, you hit him with the net. Is he still coming? Rocket boots away! And did you know you can mount while invisible? The sonic noise machine makes it hard to dismount you too. And those hand-mounted pyro-rockets are great for finishing people off when they're running away. Warning: Mages get mad when you polymorph them.
I love all my death-toys like they were my children, but that net is by far the best, especially if you do ranged damage. I love how they turn their character from side to side, in helpless frustration. Those moments are sweet to me. And yet, I have never seen even ONE other person use any of these trinkets. Not once. I feel Blizzard conditions people to want incremental improvements to their stats, to the point where they are unable to think clearly about anything else.
It's just a shame the good ones don't work in Arena. Even in warsong gultch, the rocket boots now make you drop the flag. That is so lame. YES, engineering gives me an unfair advantage, that's why I picked it.
In five year's time, your post will be doubtful.
But in ten year's time, it will be hillarious! Every gif in internet explorer will need at least 10 gigs and three different processes. Don't get me started on the calculator.
A brief examination of Tesla's business plan suggests that they will, in fact, be manufacturing cars three years from now. Unless you're suggesting that it's all a pack of lies? If so, they'll have some explaining to do, as they just got half a billion from the US government to develop their next line of lower-cost electric vehicles, the Model S.
Unless you're suggesting they're doomed to fail, despite being flush with cash and profitable in the middle of a recession?
"How do we know the things around us are real? We act as if they are, but have no way of knowing. It is because, from a practical point of view, we are interested in knowing 'the truth'. The skeptic is urging us to consider reality in an improbable way. Since we wish to know the truth of our reality, we take that which seems most likely to be true, call it truth, and use it until we have reason to believe some other explanation is more probable."
I choose to call people conscious because it is the only reasonable explanation I am aware of. I could say: "There is no reason to think other people are not conscious, so the probability that it's true is negligible, and not worth considering." And try this one on for size: "God does not exist because there's no reason to think that he does."
So I am going to claim that yes people are conscious, and yes consciousness is a physical thing, because there's no reason to suspect otherwise. (If I arrange a bunch of atoms *just so*, they'll be conscious.)
Good news everyone - there's some bad news on the TV!
People with fatal familial insomnia invariably die after around nine months without any sleep whatsoever. Strange that this condition was not mentioned in the article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia
I have always felt that this was a strength of the series, not a weakness. I prefer stories that are true to their own rules. He imagined some characters, described the situations they're in, and then started to write. I dislike reading books and saying "That's not what would have happened!". Books where everything is too neat; where the hero always wins and the bad guys eventually lose.
There's no excitement, there's no tension. When one of George Martin's characters is in danger, you're on the edge of your seat because Mr. Martin has no problem with killing his characters off.
His plot is the same way: reality doesn't consist of neat predictable storylines with well-defined milestones. It's a chaotic mish-mash, and even the near future is very difficult to predict. I find his writing to be quite refreshing after years of reading formulaic fantasy stories.
No one. I guess it's curtains for me...
...it makes sense to ensure we have the capability to harvest it.
Never post while dead tired.
The moon is abundant in Helium 3. If we had fusion generators, a single shuttle load of helium 3 could supply the entire energy demands of the US for an entire year. Helium 3 is incredibly rare on Earth. Maybe in 50-75 years, we'll have a working fusion generator that can take advantage of it. In the meantime, it makes sense
One of many sources: http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2006/12/72276
What do you think of my perpetual motion device?
'Dark energy' is causing galaxies to accelerate away from one another. This effect is proportional to the distance between two objects. While dark energy exists between the Earth and the Moon, it's effect is so small as to be negligible. Instead, the Moon's orbit is slowly decaying, and it would one day crash into the Earth. This is why tidal wave generators aren't a perpetual energy source, tidal energy can be thought of as continually robbing momentum from the Moon.
Take two bodies that are orbiting one another. Increase the distance between the two such that the orbital decay is exactly offset by dark energy. Install a tidal generator (which will be very large and produce a very, very tiny amount of power). Infinite energy?
Because one of the final five is dead, and it supposedly takes all five of them to create the resurrection technology. But they might decide to search for Hera, and hope to uncover the secret to reproduction.
Hydrogen has a tendency to leak. It's a very small atom, and passes right through solid matter. Helium has the same problem, but to a lesser extent. This is why helium balloons at birthday parties are metallic. If the blimp has to stay up for ten years, helium might be the better choice.
Unless interstellar travel is such a difficult task that no species has ever managed it. Perhaps technological civilizations last for a few centuries before they run out of metals and fuel, and then enter permanent decline.
The molten-salt 'Zebra' battery works very well in the cold, and is competitive with lithium-ion in terms of energy density.
Basically, it needs to be heated to 250 degrees Celsius to work. The battery is very well insulated, so if you turn off the heat it takes 4 days to completely cool down. (And another two days to heat back up to 250 degrees)
You need to keep the car plugged in at night to run the little heater, which can also be powered by the battery itself. You can get this type of battery with the Th!nk City electric car, and it is superbly resistant to cold temperatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_battery
I don't see any reason you couldn't take the insulation and heater from a Zebra battery, and use them to package a battery of any other type. For one thing, the required temperature would be much lower.
"Now two American physicists have made an important breakthrough by proving that two quantum channels with zero capacity can carry information when used together. That's interesting because it indicates that physicists may have been barking up the wrong tree with this problem: it implies that the quantum capacity of a channel does not uniquely specify its ability for transmitting quantum information (abstract)."
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/06
So does this mean it is possible to send information using entangled particles, but we just have no idea how to do it?
Let me be the first to say that random material implies a review board that is not at odds with itself. Interestingly, researchers are able to better understand material used in conjunction with algorithmic development and first principles engineering, which does not suggest a relationship between the reader and any given node.
Furthermore, citations may be employed to enhance this phenomenon when used together with LaTeX and multiples of knowledge.
Why not put the pagefile on a RAM drive?
I find the Penny Arcade comic sums up my feelings on the expansion: clicky
Seriously - how many areas are just the same area over and over again with different graphics? The towns and mountains and such are in different places, but by level 10 you've pretty much seen all the gameplay there is to see.
I predict Northrend will have individual monsters slowly roaming back and forth over small areas of ground. Occasionally there will be a few monsters standing together. Virtually every quest will involve killing X of them. To step things up, you can kill difficult elite monsters while in a group. The combat will be so simple that an 8-line perl script can do it.
When you try to imagine the game without the graphics, you realize how little gameplay there actually is. It might be feasible to make a nethack-style game that captures every element of WoW gameplay, but that would be a very dull game indeed.
In fact, the future arrived yesterday.
From the CIA world fact book on Argentina: "Democracy returned in 1983, and has persisted despite numerous challenges, the most formidable of which was a severe economic crisis in 2001-02 that led to violent public protests and the resignation of several interim presidents. The economy has recovered strongly since bottoming out in 2002." and "Real GDP rebounded to grow by an average 9% annually over the subsequent five years, taking advantage of previously idled industrial capacity and labor, an audacious debt restructuring and reduced debt burden, excellent international financial conditions, and expansionary monetary and fiscal policies."
However, I've often wondered if we're doomed to poverty. It may be possible for us to transition to renewable energy without a significant decrease in the standard of living. However, what about other non-renewables, like metal? No recycling program can ever be 100% efficient, and a great deal of metal is always being lost.
As time passes, will metals be steadily deposited in places that don't allow for economic recovery - say, as a thin film of rust on the bottom of the oceans? Or will we be able to recycle metals indefinitely? A few thousand years from now, we might all be back in the stone ages. I have yet to see any good information on the long-term survival of technology.
So... I'd say the odds of IE switching to an open-source engine are looking promising?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
There are only two seasons here - winter and construction. And you picked the wrong one!
Next you'll be skiing in July and going down detours in December.
I've noticed that every contestant in these challenges assumes that the Turing test is invalid. Meaning, that it's possible to pass the Turing test without producing intelligent software.
If they actually felt the Turing test had merit, step one would be to create a general-purpose problem solver with capabilities similar to human beings. Step two would be to have it brush up on its chat skills and enter the contest.