Posts by DropBear 4735 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2013
I foresee a generous sprinkling of supercaps on these - after all, the name of the game is not how much peak energy do you snaffle but how much do you need on average - and surely the blasts of floodlight style peak power would be limited in any show / movie, if nothing else to protect the viewer; the caps could carry you over a few minutes of "high beam" and could quietly recharge between them...
You also forgot to mention potentially decade-old bug reports with literally hundreds of complainers regarding a truly atrocious bug or lack of functionality shunned with "sorry that's the way it should work" / "we can't be arsed to bother with that" / "fix it yourself, it's you own goddamn fault if you can't code" (replace with 'fly a 747', 'dig an intercontinental tunnel', 'build a scanning tunneling microscope', 'conclusively prove Fermat's conjecture in at least a dozen different ways' or equivalent as needed to grasp the magnitude of sheer cynical callousness involved).
No, as these are computers they should be updateable [...]
Updateable? You mean like my few years old laptop that started flat out refusing to show anything using WebGL both in Firefox or Chrome (both used to work fine) because they both insist on using newer display drivers now that just aren't available for my "obsoleted" built-in video card...? Being able to resist the hamster-wheel of continuous SW/HW upgrades is nothing but a nice myth for anything you want to keep running that isn't stashed away in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door. I should know - I'd prefer to never update anything unless I have to, and I constantly find I DO have to (including upgrading the HW more often than not).
The reason LED blinking gets flak is that it requires precisely zero learning. Unpack, plug in, power up, click download, done. You're not halfway through anything, you haven't even touched the curve yet. Doing anything more complex (NOT just downloading a different sketch and/or changing a port pin or a delay value) is where the actual learning starts, and coincidentally where a lot of people stop (hey, they're "makers" now; job done!). As long as one works off Instructables or some other nice shiny step-by-step tutorial with bullet points the engaged brainpower hovers around zero - everyone has to start somewhere, yes, but learning happens when you do things you were NOT told how to do - ie. start figuring out stuff for yourself, which also coincidentally is the point where (the precious few remaining) people start to realize why datasheets exist (the brighter ones eventually even learn why erratas exist). Granted, it's a different story for a seasoned developer who just happens to start on a new platform - but he already has all the learning done BEFORE his LED starts blinking; for actual beginners that LED is the equivalent of starting to brag "hey look I'm a badass marine now" as soon as one signs up...
It's thought that by "giants" he may have meant "people taller than Hooke", who quarrelled with Newton and seems to have been short
It's also thought that in spite of being widely attributed the Newton in popular culture, the quote itself has basically f###all to do with him specifically, having been first written down at least half a century eariler.
Me, I'm rather partial to the Olimex variants (the "Olinuxinos") - much the same hardware (Allwiner chips), but at least there's a legit store, download links, and some github sources (oh, and some on-board LiPo battery support including charging)...
More like the first case. I might conceivably find something of interest if I looked hard enough with that intent, but to be honest it's not really surprising it works out this way for me: I'm literally interested mostly in the "good old games" GOG is famous for, and unsurprisingly those weren't exactly written with Linux in mind back in the day... (oh and that lone -1 isn't me)
I generally use the KMPlayer. Also free, also with built-in codecs, also plays absolutely anything I care to throw at it, but it was the first player I saw at the time that was able to easily load and display .srt subtitles over a DVD being played (for a language the DVD itself lacked subtitles for, obviously). I could conceivably have done something similar mucking around with external filters and overlays, but in my view the ole' DLL hell was cushy heaven compared to those...
I love GOG.com to bits, I really do. But it was just the other day I took a look out of curiosity at what OS download options it offered for my library of games fast approaching triple digits now, and at a cursory inspection I could find not a single game with a Linux option. I'm not denying such games do exist on GOG, mind you - all I'm saying is as long as I'm buying what I'm interested in as opposed to go around hunting for Linux-capable games, the site is pretty useless so far for quenching my Linux gaming urges. YMMV...
I'm pretty sure it's mostly "C" coupled with a corresponding amount of "A". I've seen countless times in life that people always end up playing to their strengths - relying on them, developing behaviour with those at the center; one of the most striking such patterns is that people not needing to do things for themselves just never learn to do them - it's just much easier to rely on one's ability to get other people do it for them. And before anyone objects, I've seen this applied by men just as well as by women - although admittedly male instincts toward women are an easily exploited target and form the bulk of such behaviour. If people like you, they tend to offer their help, and you tend to grow up learning to rely on that - as simple as that.
The other side of the coin is that this is just a generalization - specific individuals, male or female, will learn whatever they are interested in: I have seen women in IT that couldn't have been kept out of it even by sharks with lasers. But they are the exception; a lot of women actually just don't seem to enjoy the sort of challenges IT tends to offer so they stay out of it - if you want proof just stroll up to someone and try explaining to them the last problem you faced and how you solved it (if sixty seconds later she's still around you, you're either looking at a unicorn or she really likes you). Like it or not, that's not going to be less true just because someone has a chip on his shoulder and some windmills to fight...
this has to be a better route to innovative products than using market analysts who can only suggest things that have already been done.
Somewhat hilariously, this comes as a comment on a 'new product' that is about as unoriginal as it can get (e-paper watch? Naaaah, never heard of that one before...).
I do find it mind-boggling that the US justice system manages to find 44 different names for basically a single offence. Ok, it might not be a single one but it sure as hell ain't 44 either - and the loving care with which they apparently strive to plaster some label over every old thing They Would Really Like You Not To Do is nothing short of touching...
You seem to discard the very real possibility that in 500 years, absolutely nobody remembers Stephen Hawking's party, but time travel only gets invented 600 years from now. Or that it becomes a high risk / illegal activity that carries no corresponding reward for gratuitously showing up at a scientist's invite. Or that it requires technical means that make it impossible to return to a time before the first such thing is invented (much like it works with teleportation / jump gates - you need to bootstrap the process first). All of which goes to show that mr. Hawking's little experiment may be 'clever' but it's utterly useless as a rebuttal of time travel in general.
Exactly - this is the typical worthless trivia drivel game shows care so much to put on display and reward: doesn't matter what it is about as long as it's guaranteed to be useless for making any vaguely important decision about anything. That's what we want people to keep their minds occupied with after all, otherwise some of them might actually start thinking for themselves and asking uncomfortable questions, innit...
...what exactly is it about a piece of (even significantly complex) software that makes it the privilege of "nation states" only? A couple of guys in front of a bunch of computers day in and day out for years is simply called "pretty much any software project you can think of" - sure, it's not something a "hobbyist" would afford but why would it be beyond the financial clout of any vaguely large-ish business...? It's not like even complex malware requires a dozen supercomputers to write or something...! Okay, so these probably are pretty smart guys, but are you really saying running them would be more expensive than running, say, a football team (a popular pastime these days even among well-off individuals, FFS!)...?
I have to say I'm quite surprised they didn't go with a SWATH ship - its whole point is that it is as immune to rough seas as one can possibly get in the 21st century - and the layout seems to naturally fit the requirement for a wide, flat vessel (well, maybe they aren't watching as much Discovery Channel as they should)... Paris, 'cos we are just about on the same level of expertise on this stuff.
...if you want to upgrade to a new version (every six months) then it's a complete reinstall from scratch...
Yeah, that's what kept me away from it too - I do not "reinstall" OSes, I have way to much customization put into anything and everything I use to ever consider redoing it, so if smooth upgrade is not an option, it's a no-go.
So you're going out of this gravity well, out to Jupiter, into its huge gravity well, then back out of that hauling a huge load of gas, return to Earth
Good grief man, why would you say that?!? We'll beam the energy back from Jupiter directly - we just need to go there once, find the Monoliths, push the Big Red Button (or whatever they have as starter), then sit back and enjoy all the warm sunshine from the ignited second sun...
Rule 1 : The robots(cars) should never be in such a position in the first place. They should have previsional awareness such that the scenario can always be avoided [...]
Hiding behind that is pure, unadulterated, military grade bullshit. It effectively amounts to declaring that in today's equivalent all it takes for a driver to never be in an accident is drive with due caution. Sure, driving cautiously is always a great idea and cars should definitely try emulating it, but if I really have to explain how ludicrously delusional that statement is, I don't think we have sufficient common base for any sort of argument over the issues involved.
Didn't the customer used to be right in the good marginally-less-shit old days?
Maybe it did, maybe it didn't; but sometime during the last century those in charge finished figuring out that you only matter if you're in the thick and tall part of the bell curve - the rest can safely be kicked in the nuts repeatedly and as often as they feel like it, it won't matter for their bottom line. The immediate conclusion being of course that your choices are to stick with the rest of the herd or give up the luxury of having a preference / conviction / personality / spine etc. - 'Brave new world' and all that jazz, be a good little clone...
If there needs to be a wire (symbolic or real) connected to my hardware in order for me to play that is not related to the transport of the required amount of electricity, they can take their game and shove it where the sun don't shine - simple as that. Nothing to do with "other players" - they're irrelevant for me.
I certainly hope they're closely paying attention, and ditch any online-only ideas they might have been secretly considering (as officially they're firmly supporting their single-player promise). Anyway, here's my mad_as_hell_KS_backers++...
It's like leaving your house with a house-sitter and then complaining that they fixed the gutters, cleared the drains, set all the clocks to the right time, etc.
No, it's like expressing your displeasure about the house-sitter boarding up the main door considering he has no real need to leave and that the small inconvenience of you not being able to get back in is far outweighed by the greatly enhanced protection against a potential zombie apocalypse...
If you ask me which of the two I would consider as a partner or want making decisions on my behalf in government or teaching my (imaginary) children, well, that's an easy one.
Absolutely so: definitely neither. Now go ahead and downvote away, it's ok - I'll still prefer to associate with people who don't voluntarily forego the use of their brains.
" They were all, without exception, remotely controlled vehicles"
Indeed, that was one of my pet peeves for quite a while. Must we really water down everything until it becomes meaningless? *Sigh* I guess a bunch of actual bots bonking around inside a maze or somesuch autonomously was not deemed "dramatic" enough for a TV show...
It doesn't orbit in the way you seem to think - the gravity's too weak. It flies a series of dog-legs around the comet, with a powered course change between each one.
Umm, no. It does actually orbit, exactly the way he seems to think (now). It did indeed have a weird path around a comet earlier, but since September it apparently is on a rather classical sort of orbit. See details here...
Thanks, that just addressed a question I had that all the official sources or coverage failed to explain - namely why with '1/n' amount of the expected energy incoming the probe can't just simply wake up every 'n' days instead of being on all the time. I guess things just can't be kept appropriately heated in the mean time...
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