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[Parsely]

I've always disliked Michael Crichton's neo-luddism and fearmongering about new technologies&discoveries (not just biotech, he also railed against DBS, and global warming). With Jurassic Park the joke's on him, though. People ignored his "genetic engineering is evul!" message in favor of the more obvious,  "Dinosaurs fuck yeah!" message.

That really was Crichton's schtick. Sphere was the first of his books that I read, and I rather enjoyed it, prompting me to go out and buy his other books from used book stores. Fast forward about twelve more books, sans ten dollars, and I'm left wondering why the hell I bought them all. I soldiered through the one on global warming (urgh, wasn't even a great novel) and then gave up on the one about abortion. Honestly, I'd be happy just to own Sphere, Andromeda Strain, and Jurassic Park. The rest are probably going to go sit in a box somewhere.

In happier news, I shoveled out the money to nab a prepaid card and pre-ordered Starbound with it. I can't wait for the beta.

I enjoyed Crichton's books. Yeah, they were a little anti-science, but I was more fascinated by the (pseudo)science than the intended message.

The Andromeda Strain was fantastic, I've never read Jurassic Park, but my brother did, and I think I saw the movie for Sphere. What was that one he wrote about nanomachines? I read that one about four years ago. It was pretty neat.

[Sirus]

That was Prey, my personal favorite and first Crichton book.

[Rose]

Prey was awesome, as was sphere.

Really, though, Chricton isn't the only scifi author guilty of doing this:

[Spaghetti7]

http://www.europabarbarorum.com/

It's a mod for Rome: Total War.

Hmm. Had a look at it, but I can't see how it competes with DF on complexity...

[Remuthra]

http://www.europabarbarorum.com/

It's a mod for Rome: Total War.

Hmm. Had a look at it, but I can't see how it competes with DF on complexity...

On some levels it does. It's got full historical accuracy.

[Jervill]

I was unsure of which beer to purchase today...and then I saw that Fulton Brewery had a beer called "Sweet Child of Vine".  As someone who loves puns, that made up my mind.

[FearfulJesuit]

So it looks like I'll be going to Argentina at the end of the month. Time to learn Spanish.

If any of you are Argentines or Uruguayans who have Skype, please send me a message; I'd love to use you for practice. If you live in Buenos Aires we can even meet up and I'll buy you a drink or two as thanks.

[Greiger]

I did my weekly computer shutdown.  Just a routine thing, I usually have the computer on all the time having it do maintenance while I'm in bed at night, but I still need to shut it down now and then.

When I pushed the button to turn it back on it wouldn't start.

I checked the power, checked the power supply type switch, and opened the computer up and checked the power switch itself as well as all power connections.  Then I shorted the two power leads on the motherboard with a screwdriver as a last ditch effort.  No dice.  Motherboard is indicating good power from the supply and so is the power supply light.  My motherboard must be shot.

I panicked.  I need my computer, not only does 90% of my leisure time involve it, I also need it to finish my programming class this semester, and all my classes next semester are online, and paid for.

Fortunately I have some spare parts, I used to work at a computer repair shop after all.  While I don't have a spare motherboard (which likely would need a new CPU anyway) I do have a spare power supply.  Might as well try it.

Computer starts with the spare power supply.  The diagnostic lights were lying, the power supply was shot, not the motherboard.  Even though I now have a micro ATX power supply jerry-rigged up in an ATX case I am somehow extremely happy that things went better than expected.

[Euld]

My computer did something like that once, it blamed the video card or motherboard but after a long while, figured out it was the power supply.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Playing the Conflict: MEPS sequel. It's fun, but damn it's hard.

[Xantalos]

Prey was awesome, as was sphere.

Really, though, Chricton isn't the only scifi author guilty of doing this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Perfect.

EDIT:

Spoiler: Worthy continuation of C&H (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Whoever did this deserves good stuff (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The Internet is awesome (click to show/hide)

[armeggedonCounselor]

That second spoiler. I really like that second spoiler.

[Sirus]

The Internet can be an amazing place. It can also be very dark and scary to such a degree that no flimsy psychological horror game could ever hope to capture it. That makes me happy.

[Mech#4]

I got some "Red Skins" lollies. Man, I haven't had these in ages, they were a staple of birthday party fare.

[armeggedonCounselor]

I feel AWESOME! I just crushed the hardest damn program we've had to write in my Java class all year. It took me two hours of actual problem solving and brainstorming to figure out what I had to do. For reference, every other program I've done this year took less than an hour of actual work, and most of the actual time to write the program (usually an hour and a half or less) was taking the solution I figured out and putting it into Java. But I did it.

Spoiler: Warning! Technical Information Ahead! (click to show/hide)

The part of the program that was a real doozy was the last part. We had to take an image that had been randomized by swapping the last 4 binary digits of each pixel's value with the first four binary digits of its value. (That is, if the pixel had the value of 24 originally (That's 0001 1000), it was given a new value of 129 (That's 1000 0001).)

The solution I came up with was copying the pixel's data into two locations. One of these locations was immediately divided by 16, thus deleting the first four digits of the binary number and shifting the last four into their place (24/16 in integer math = 1; 0001 1000 >> 4 = 0000 0001). The other one first had to be "and"-ed with 15 (that is, anywhere where 15 (0000 1111) and the number (0001 1000) both had a 1, you get a 1, otherwise, you get a 0), then multiplied by 16(so you'd have 0000 1000, multiplied by 16 = 1000 0000). The two values were then exclusive or-d together. Anywhere where the two numbers shared a bit (whether 1 or 0), the end result left a 0, anywhere else, a 1. Thus, from 0001 1000 we got 1000 0001.

Spelling it out now, it seems very simple. Probably, those of you with more programming or mathematics experience would have come up with the solution very quickly. But it was quite the revelation when I figured it out. I was very excited.