Comment We owe you a lot (Score 1) 344
Sad to hear of Roblimo's passing. This site from around 2000 to 2003 taught me a lot and made me feel -- for lack of a better phrase -- like a tech insider.
Comment Re:Level Complete (Score 1) 9
And, oh yeah, I met the Winamp guy!!1!
Comment Level Complete (Score 1) 9
Fun times were had and now I have a bad-ass shirt. (Even got to play some Punch-Out and Joust.) Thanks are due our non-robotic editorial overlords for sponsoring the party. See you again for the 20th?
Comment Re:the right kind of jerk (Score 1) 700
Though the prose is repetitive and often corny, I was galvanized to become a much more efficacious jerk by reading "The 50th Law" -- advice from the "48 Laws of Power" guy based on the life and career of 50 Cent.
Comment Re:I just tried to do this on my Blackberrry (Score 1) 547
I accidentally sex from a bunch of people at once...is this dangerous?
[Sorry.]
[Sorry.]
Comment Re:Oklahoma and Southern Kansas Slashdot Readers (Score 1) 3
Though I can't make it to this, I spent time in Ponca City and toured the Mansion, and based on that experience -- and Hugh seeming like a cool guy -- I am willing to bet this is worth the drive for people in the region.
NYC Drops $722M On CityTime Attendance System 306
theodp writes "New York City is reportedly paying 230 consultants an average annual salary of $400K for a computer project that is seven years behind schedule and vastly over budget. The payments continue despite Mayor Bloomberg's admission that the computerized timekeeping and payroll system — dubbed CityTime — is 'a disaster.' Eleven CityTime consultants rake in more than $600K annually, with three of them making as much as $676,000. The 40 highest-paid people on the project bill taxpayers at least $500K a year. Some of the consultants have been working at these rates for as long as a decade."
Home-Built Turing Machine 123
stronghawk writes "The creator of the Nickel-O-Matic is back at it and has now built a Turing Machine from a Parallax Propeller chip-based controller, motors, a dry-erase marker and a non-infinite supply of shiny 35mm leader film. From his FAQ: 'While thinking about Turing machines I found that no one had ever actually built one, at least not one that looked like Turing's original concept (if someone does know of one, please let me know). There have been a few other physical Turing machines like the Logo of Doom, but none were immediately recognizable as Turing machines. As I am always looking for a new challenge, I set out to build what you see here.'"
Comment Those 1985 .com names are getting snapped up (Score 1) 102
Wasn't BBN.com the second domain name ever to be purchased? (Was reading the article about Symbolics.com earlier.)
Comment Oh...the browser (Score 0, Redundant) 278
I'm probably not the only one who was startled that the Chrome OS would be on Sony laptops. Oh, well.
Comment Rolling Thunder (Score 1) 1120
Great music, nice action, but the difficulty was set too high, especially in that any collision with enemies hurt you (even touching the bad guy's hat with your toe).
Comment A bit like home yet unmistakably new (Score 1) 1120
The guy who programmed this is a frickin' genius. To this day, Alternate Reality is more lifelike in many ways than just about any FRPG out there. And on an Atari 800!
Comment Gambling on physiology != meaning of parenthood (Score 2, Insightful) 847
It's great that your kids turned out well, and I don't doubt that the surprises were thrilling. But how can you deny other parents the chance to give their children whatever advantages they can, as they see them?
On the issue of the forces we do not understand, yes, they are out there. We do not understand everything yet. But we understand a great deal more than we did 200 years ago, and it is a fair guess that we'll make a comparable amount of progress in the next 40 or so. Then genetics will not hold great mysteries for us. We will be on to something even more profound, like how matter came to be or why light has a speed limit or how many universes there are...
On the issue of the forces we do not understand, yes, they are out there. We do not understand everything yet. But we understand a great deal more than we did 200 years ago, and it is a fair guess that we'll make a comparable amount of progress in the next 40 or so. Then genetics will not hold great mysteries for us. We will be on to something even more profound, like how matter came to be or why light has a speed limit or how many universes there are...
Comment Cubism (Score 1) 399
It's no surprise that after spending a huge amount of time, effort and money on developing the black magnesium 12" cube to house the NeXT -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Computer --, that he would want to try again with a cube design, even if a much cuddlier one. The G4 Cube was a cool design, imo.
