zipwitch

7 ms·

1.
by zipwitch 6y ago
"it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the ... middle all the ti
2.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Want this job? Even if it doesn't get to the level of "all employees need to be running OurCorp Headware (tm)", being required to be running Microsoft Headwindows in order to get a job with medical benefits seems ominously pl
3.
by zipwitch 6y ago
"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Here's a piece on the origin of the quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/
4.
by zipwitch 6y ago
As the wikipedia article states, the WISE survey[1] results would have turned up Nemesis or anything like it, and did not. Currently most likely theory for the improbable distribution of objects beyond the Kuiper Cliff is Planet Nine.[2] [1
5.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Yep. Vanilla had a few little bits of actual RPG peeking out here and there. They have long since been buffed out. Cash-extracting skinner box inside a pretty show, with a dash of e-sport and lobby game on the side seems to be a state WoW&#
6.
by zipwitch 6y ago
As someone with a pair of nieces who are Roblox junkies and who did dabble with MUDs back in the day, I can assure you that Roblox has a ton of content that is put together by enthusiastic amateurs. And while it often has heart, soul, and s
7.
by zipwitch 6y ago
That's before taking into account enemy attempts to jam, spoof, or otherwise disrupt your control link.
8.
by zipwitch 6y ago
"Orbit War was a magazine game published by Steve Jackson Games in Space Gamer (Issue 66 - Nov 1983). This release was followed by an expansion published in Space Gamer (Issue 67 - Jan 1984) and later by the boxed edition. It is a simu
9.
by zipwitch 6y ago
>Every decent chemist can produce that stuff. After reading, "Novichok agents: a historical, current, and toxicological perspective"[1] it looks like the only places to have produced such agents are Russian chemical weapon la
10.
by zipwitch 6y ago
I find it interesting that everyone is presuming this is an accident. If something like this were to happen in cyberpunk RPG the players would assume that with a billion dollars on the line the hedge fund had either hired a hacker or subor
11.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Which is a far more convincing argument when someone can point to a well-documented set of predictions, than when they claim "I'm right a lot" and try to get you to fall for an association fallacy. https://en.wikip
12.
by zipwitch 6y ago
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
13.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Here's a small piece on a few of Scott Adams' predictions, discussing how they weren't anything special: http://helvegr.com/2018/09/29/lets-score-the-accuracy-of-sco... Before he pegged my pers
14.
by zipwitch 6y ago
I guess I'm out of sync with the times. For some reason, my first thought on seeing the title was that it would be about some clever new tricks with the ANSI ATM standard.
15.
by zipwitch 6y ago
That lost legion probably is. The ones Publius Quinctilius Varus lost (along with his head) are quite well documented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest
16.
by zipwitch 6y ago
The median age in Afghanistan is ninteen .[1] When the Soviet-Afghan War started in 1979, the population of Afghanistan was 13.41 million. Current population is 38.93 million.[2] Afghans who were 14 or older when that war started make up l
17.
by zipwitch 6y ago
SF author and marine biologist Peter Watts has a trilogy on a very similar premise, where an early "fork" of life (that is actually more efficient than our entire tree of life) got stuck down in the ocean depths at the dawn of t
18.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Mentioning cryptography and magic makes me think of Steganographia written in 1499 by Johannes Trithemius. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganographia "Trithemius' most famous work, Steganographia (writt
19.
by zipwitch 6y ago
The Girardoni air rifle was used in military service from the late 18th through early 19th centuries, and saw civilian use for some time after that. It was a very high-tech weapon for the time, and while finicky and expensive offered some u
20.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Perhaps not less intelligent, but just possessed of a mental framework that was less capable. From a paper describing "the Romulus and Remus hypothesis"[1], "the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to
21.
by zipwitch 6y ago
In SF author Neal Stephenson's latest book, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell there is a hoax to convince people that Moab, Utah has been destroyed by a nuclear weapon. A cyberattack takes the city's communications offline, paid actors de
22.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Possibly politically motivated? Especially if the real motivation is not the BTC scam, but the access to who knows how many DMs for possibly blackmail/propaganda down the line. (And not necessarily just DMs from the known compromised a
23.
by zipwitch 6y ago
From an 1841 speech to the British House of Commons on the dangers of increased copyright times: At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread ou
24.
by zipwitch 6y ago
As an American from birth, and speaking for myself, it's not hating my country. It's frustration and sometimes anger at our failure to do better. I believe that doing better than we are is within our grasp, but we, as a nation, so
25.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Airborne aircraft carriers were pretty cool when they were operating 90 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akron-class_airship
26.
by zipwitch 6y ago
The whole article reads like the punchline for another joke involving Admiral Rickover's famous letter. (We had a thread on this same topic, involving a company mentioned in this article, not three months ago, and a thread on Admiral R
27.
by zipwitch 6y ago
See the paradox of tolerace for why people might not agree with you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
28.
by zipwitch 6y ago
That depends on how many more bonuses their executives need.
29.
by zipwitch 6y ago
Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. They've got more than a few roots in fantasy gaming, which in turn does owe something to Tolkien, but they're unquestionably high fantasy, and they certainly struck me a very diffen
30.
by zipwitch 6y ago
When you say "ripoff of Tolkien" my mind immediately goes to The Sword of Shannara which even when I first read (and enjoyed) it in grade school had me constantly thinking how much it copied Lord of the Rings .

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