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Comment Re:3000BC called... (Score 2, Insightful) 195

This post is remarkably narrow minded. Not all written languages in the world are made of symbols representing consonants and vowels, you know. In Japanese, for example, you use either Kanji (where a character has an associated meaning as well as multiple pronunciations), or kana (where each symbol is composed of a consonant as well as vowel, with a few exceptions). Or take Chinese, where each symbol has a single pronunciation, but also has a meaning attached. I'm not a linguist either by any means (I'm sure any of them reading this are getting rather agitated), but the way these sorts of languages work is beautiful - you can usually guess the meaning of a word you hear because you know the symbols associated with it and thus the meaning. You can't do that in scripts which are just composed of single consonants and vowels, especially when the pronunciation of them changes in every word (think English).

Comment Re:Talk to people who have done it before (Score 1) 148

Warzone 2100 is different because it was the people who owned the copyright who released the code first for other people to work on, not other people asking the owners to release the copyright.

You're right about the remake being good though. It was one of my favourite games back in the day, and I was incredibly surprised to find I could download it and now play it on my mac without any hitches, probably smoother than the original ran in windows.

Comment Re:I wonder how that is compared to the loss from (Score 4, Insightful) 233

Moreover, it makes you wonder who much of a problem Y2K may have actually been if we hadn't of looked for all the problems and fixed them.

Chances are things like this would have only been the beginning if Y2K hadn't have been anticipated and planned for, even if we over-reacted. Maybe we should be giving some people more credit than we do...

Comment Re:It's hard enough dealing with ONE Telstra (Score 3, Informative) 144

Japan is a similarly isolated island country, and yet affordable 1 gbps connections are proliferating in urban areas.

Population density of Japan: 337.6/km2
Population density of Australia: 2.833/km2

Theres a reason that 1gbps connections are available in Japan, but not Australia. For how isolated we are as a country here, its remarkable that we have the internet as good as we do.

Comment Re:So it's a fnacy nmae (Score 1) 1345

Mod Parent Up. I myself am a uni student who has found myself in pretty much the same situation. Its taken me until being about 21 to actually learn how to work, despite years of schooling. Why? Because school was easy enough that I never learned how to work in the first place, and when I encountered something I couldn't immediately figure out, I'd pretend it didn't exist. Its only since I recently started learning a language for personal interest that I've realized what work is, and learned how to do it. I think that if kids (not just smart kids) were extended to a decent level throughout school, and never learned to just coast through it, they'd be a lot better off in the long run.

Comment Its a game. (Score 5, Interesting) 315

No its not. Its a game where you need to try and get the right answer.

To get the right answer, you need to assume :

  • most people don't want to go with the majority
  • a lot of people like answering truthfully
  • most people do like being ironic
  • some people are idiots

Thus, the only remaining option is "The least popular answer".

Comment Re:This won't go over well (Score 1) 138

I find this true as well, especially when I'm working on things that require a bit of creativity.

I spend a lot of time making up mnemonics for memorizing Japanese characters - the only way I've found to really remember them is making up little stories for each. But, if I decide to just sit down and try to make stories for hours, it doesn't usually work. I can be stuck on a character for 10 minutes, then get up to go to the toilet, and figure out a story straight away when I wasn't even trying.

I've found the same thing with coding as well. Sometimes I'll be trying to solve that stupid bug, and spend an hour or so on it. Get up to have a drink, stop concentrating on it, and then it just all makes sense.

While daydreaming constantly obviously wouldn't be productive, I think its fairly certain that spacing your work out and giving your mind a chance to go off on a tangent is probably very good for getting things done that require problem solving and creativity.

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Map of the web 2.0

ocean_soul writes: "Some time ago xkcd webcomic had a map of the internet. Now they have a map of web 2.0 (or, like they call it, the online communities). The surface of each region represents the number of memeberships. The different "countries" aren't just randomly placed on the map, there is a nice compass-rose-shaped island explaining the ordering of communities."
Space

Submission + - SpaceX Celebrates Launch of Falcon 1

iamlucky13 writes: Barely under a year since a fuel leak doomed their first launch, upstart aerospace company SpaceX has cleared the ground a second time with their Falcon 1 rocket. The flight proceeded smoothly until a roll control issue caused premature engine shutdown and loss of telemetry at T plus 5:05. News is currently limited to brief mission status reports. Although the ultimate fate of the rocket and payload are unknown, the company appears pleased with preliminary performance indications. "We in the Washington, D.C. office are celebrating with champagne," said company VP Gwynne Shotwell. "We don't have any information yet from the launch control center, but the Falcon clearly got to space with a successful liftoff, stage separation, second stage ignition and fairing separation."

The flight of the $7 million rocket was to demonstrate its capabilities for DARPA and included two NASA experiments. CEO Elon Musk noted many improvements had been made since the first launch attempt, and has cited similar challenges in the development of other rocket systems. A launch attempt yesterday was scrubbed to resolve telemetry issues with just 62 seconds left. Today's countdown was kept exciting by an automated abort after engine ignition due to marginal chamber pressure. The countdown was restarted after refueling the rocket, with launch at 01:10 GMT from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific.

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