Read it again. Those three aren't options, they're displayed figures, designed solely to subconsciously influence the buyer's price. They still have a blank box when it comes to actually choosing how much to pay.

As someone who is looking to get himself into a similar situation (I'm a linux/programming geek, my girlfriend is a language geek), I find it very strange to not only find such topics being openly discussed on /., but finding information that's helpful? Honest? About something other than boobs? I'm shocked. Let me know when the real /. is back. Until then, I'll bookmark this, and download it after a couple days in case it "disappears" to save face.

As for my (significantly insignificant, IANAMP) two cents, I must agree with several people above - your significant other has to be someone that you are completely honest with, and someone that can be completely honest with you, no matter what. That's the only way it's going to work. It's not going to be all happy all the time, but neither is life.

I patched this bug at my school once. They had handles on both sides of the one-way doors in the lounge. Early one morning, I took a screwdriver to them and removed the "pull" handles, stashing them in my room. No one (including security/maintenance) noticed for a few weeks, or if they did, they were pleased by it. The general consensus was basically good riddins. Eventually though, security noticed (and started banging on the remaining handles with their maglites, as if it would do anything). I got fined, and my patch was reverted. Some people just don't understand.

Yep - my family had a late 80's Toyota Camry with problems. Long story short, we ended getting up two more of similar vintage and consolidating the three iffy cars into two fairly reliable ones. When we went to start the second car, we only had the key to the first. On a lark, we went to try it anyway, and it started right up. We still just use one key for both cars, and my key to the first one actually opens the trunk of the second one, when its own key doesn't. Keys are an exercise in security by obscurity/effort.

Wow, that is stunning. And it reminds me of Larry Niven's description of the Tanith spaceport from Brenda. I was just reading N-Space the other day, and the picture reminded me of this passage:

The wrecked ships that had haloed the planet after the Battle of Tanith were long gone. Shuttle #1 descended through a sky that seemed curiously empty. What had been the Tanith spaceport still glared like a polished steel dish. Seen from low angle the crater became a glowing eye with a bright pupil. ... A new port had grown around the crater's eastern rim. Terry and Charley, riding as passengers while Sharon flew, picked out a dozen big aircraft, then a horde of lighter craft. The crater must make a convenient airfield. The gleaming center was a small lake. Have to avoid that.

Considering it was published in 1988, it beats Blizzard even existing by three years. It's highly improbable, but it's fun to think that the artist was inspired by the story, anyway.

Actually, it does. I was just reading about this from another link in a comment hereabouts.

If his only goal was to get true random numbers, then yes, your solution would be fine.

As it is, however, his goal was to convince his users that the dice rolls they're getting are truly random, and not just some magical formula in the computer (which is what they will see any algorithm as, no matter how much you reassure them otherwise). For that purpose, building a giant machine that rolls a bunch of dice and takes pictures of them is the only way to do that.
It's not the ultimate solution for generating random numbers, no. But for generating believable dice rolls (to the average human, not a math PhD), not much can top it. Not only that, but it's pretty entertaining, and was surely a lot of fun to get up and running.

No! This is Slashdot, you can't just go around doing real math and/or chemistry! It gets people all antsy, and then they start rioting...it just isn't a good idea.

On a sidenote, I've always been confused as to why chemists feel the need to use a ridiculous word like "stoichiometric" for such a simple concept as "ratios", which is already a weird enough word. Science is confusing enough without stunts like that, thankyouverymuch.

Best quote from the piece:
"This is only the first step in newspapers by computer. Engineers now predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers and magazines by home computer, but that's a few years off. So for the moment at least, this fellow [showing an elderly newspaper street vendor] isn't worried about being out of a job."
They were about 30 years off of their "a few years" estimate, but it is still eerie actually hearing such a prediction from nearly three decades ago voiced by a newsperson.

But it's malware that sings! That right there makes the difference.

Hey, on Amazon, for only USD$500 more, you can get one specially platinum-wrapped, with a free listening hat! What a steal! If you really want quality, you can even get one pre-burned in for a mere $2500! I'm glad that these great engineers have shared their valuable insights with us, so we can benefit from increased network throughput. The world should thank them.

Hmm, actually turns out it was an overbar. You learn something new every day, eh?

I'm willing to bet that it was a hyphen, actually.