Zzz - Slashdot User

Comment Re:about digital.. (Score 1) 399

by Zzz on Sunday May 15, 2011 @10:41AM (#36133060) Attached to: HDMI Brands Don't Matter

IIRC, 21dB SNR giver a raw bit error rate of about 1 in 10E10. (that would in the order of magnitude be one flipped bit in 100 hours of cd quality audio playback). 1960's audio tape has already about 60 dB SNR, and keep in mind the log scale. Go figure.

How Will Contemporary War Games Affect Veterans? 288

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 04, 2010 @01:10AM from the serious-business dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Recently, video game developers have begun to make games about current conflicts the world over. Many veterans and current military personnel now take an active role in the video game community. Are game companies running the risk of walking into a public relations disaster when making games about current wars? More importantly, how will veterans react to playing games about a conflict in which they have participated? From the article: 'To portray conflict in a way that not only accurately depicts the acts of war, but does so in a manner that takes into account the sacrifices of soldiers within some sort of moral framing is a complicated matter. Now add to this the idea that such depictions are essentially created as entertainment and to make money. It is certainly mind numbing when looked at from a social perspective. ... Now try and apply this dynamic to a more recent conflict such as the Vietnam War or the current conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Considering that the latter wars are still in progress, the ability for a game developer to accurately gauge the morality of such a conflict is limited at best. To make a game that takes these factors into account while trying to create something that is both entertaining and capable of mass appeal among the gaming community is near impossible.'" We caught a glimpse of this last year with the reactions to Six Days In Fallujah.

Comment Re:do scientists actually call it Darwinism? (Score 1) 951

by Zzz on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @05:15AM (#26809779) Attached to: Darwinism Must Die So Evolution Can Live

We do actually speak of Newtonian mechanics, for what it's worth. Probably more than anyone in science actually speaks of Darwinian evolution. So we've sort of already done what this guy is asking for, it seems?

Why Newtonian mechanics? Simple:

If it is very small: use quantum mechanics
If there are a lot of little things to describe: use statistical mechanics
If it travels very fast: use relativistic mechanics
And so on.

The non-quantum, non-statistical, non-relativistic, etc... version was the first to be formally described. Calling it Newtonian is the simple way of distinguishing it from the more complex variants. Among physicists, you would refer to classical mechanics, which also refers to its historical status.

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