Gadzookies - Slashdot User

Breaking the Squid Barrier 126

Posted by timothy on Sunday February 14, 2010 @09:33PM from the calimari-for-the-5000 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."

Music By Natural Selection 164

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 21, 2009 @03:57PM from the survival-of-the-grooviest dept.

maccallr writes "The DarwinTunes experiment needs you! Using an evolutionary algorithm and the ears of you the general public, we've been evolving a four bar loop that started out as pretty dismal primordial auditory soup and now after >27k ratings and 200 generations is sounding pretty good. Given that the only ingredients are sine waves, we're impressed. We got some coverage in the New Scientist CultureLab blog but now things have gone quiet and we'd really appreciate some Slashdotter idle time. We recently upped the maximum 'genome size' and we think that the music is already benefiting from the change."

Comment Re:Tbh, these definitions need to be dropped. (Score 1) 362

by Gadzookies on Friday December 18, 2009 @10:41AM (#30487004) Attached to: Revisiting the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG Classes

Grenades are not easy to throw. It takes concentration to lob a grenade and if you're fighting a machine gunner with a 300-500 round belt and a dedicated assist, you have the odds very stacked against you. There is a reason a machine gunner and assistant could take on 20-30 men and stop their forward movement on an open field like in europe. Heavy automatic fire weapons like that carries a huge psychological advantage. And I bet you that I can shoot you with my machine gun before you get a chance to lob that grenade if I'm in a good emplacement.

Crowd control is VERY real. Ever heard of a choke point? How about King Leonidas? Crowd control is everything in battle. Why do people fight in alleyways? Reduced movement/ counter attack options. Choosing field of battle/ Time of battle is key in battles where you are outnumbered/ outgunned.

Also, 4 on 10 is viable in an ambush engagement. Know that your 4 is most likely going to die. However you have a chance of disabling/ wiping out that 10 if you can ambush them. Sometimes it's worth it tactically if that means eliminating a scouting squad without burdening your main force. I wouldn't want to be the guy who makes that call, but it would be doable.

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