http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/busin ... .html?_r=0]New York Times obit
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/26 ... nsky_obit/]Obit at The Register
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

On the border of sleep and waking, I had an idea, which I wanted to write down and decided to share.

Physically, a Pookymoto would be similar to a Sony Aibo only leaning more towards cat than dog - it would have a rumble function to simulate a purr, and at least surface sensors to tell when its being petted, possibly synthetic fur so it feels soft and warm as well. Also an inductance charging "pet bed", or at least a mat that can be put in a pet bed and means of tracking its location at household range to automatically find it for "naps" and possibly low-powered heating system that activates when it's using the wall power, and a function to go back and "rest" instead of starting a new play behaviour if its temperature falls below a certain range. Also integrated: optical sensor specifically tuned to the laser pointer frequency, so it can hunt the little red dot.

The main feature though is that it has only minimal onboard processing power, being controlled via bluetooth or wifi by an app on the user's smartphone or computer, and can be accessed and played with like a normal virtual pet. This lets the onboard hardware be cheap while still allowing for very complex behavior and computation-heavy decision making to be programmed, and for easy propagation (or rollback) of upgrades to that without needing to modify the onboard software.

Ideally both the onboard and control app would include learning functions to deal with irregular and changing terrain (onboard) and play behavior (remote) but that may be too far out on the cutting edge. Various settings for travel speed and general desired activity level/level of owner involvement in play behaviour would be the absolute minimum here.

Integration with games that feature pets would also be possible, though unlikely bar some kind of big money deal with an existing property or creating one from scratch.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

As I write this the first major snowstorm of the 2015-16 winter is bearing down on the Northeast, with our little corner of the Eastern Seaboard positioned to get a fair amount of action.  If the NWS is right, we could have upwards of a foot and a half by end of day tomorrow.
Ah, well, at least I bought snowboots this year.  Frozen toes from shoveling is what I've hated most about winter in the past ten years.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Since the old thread's sunk and was close to 300 replies anyway, time for a new wiki update thread.

To start us off, I've finally added DeputyJones's writeup of the Groombridge 34 system to the wiki, with the necessary links to the main interstellar page and the menubox.

Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

 Materfamilias Extra Dimensionem

Quote:Dr. D: I have deviated from canon : in my timeline, Azarath is not magically restored following Trigon's defeat (The End Part 3, Season 4)
****************

http://notalwaysright.com/toying-with-the-name/49617
Just posting this for the amusement.

The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch ... es/424629/]The Fairy Tales That Predate Christianity

"These results vindicate a view espoused by no less a teller of stories than Wilhelm Grimm—half of the fraternal duo whose names are almost synonymous with fairy tales. He and his brother Jacob were assembling German peasant tales at a time of great advances in linguistics. Researchers were unmasking the commonalities between Indo-European languages (which include English, Spanish, Hindi, Russian, and German), and positing that those tongues shared a common ancestor. In 1884, the Grimms suggested that the same applied to oral traditions like folktales. Those they compiled were part of a grand cultural tradition that stretched from Scandinavia to South Asia, and many were probably thousands of years old."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Part of me is tempted to just simply put a conversation chain to list all those we've lost and will still loose this year.
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/music/topnews/ ... id=SL5MDHP

Some trivial, some disturbing...

The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/18 ... dia_myths/]It's Wikipedia mythbuster time: 8 of the best on your 15th birthday

One of the trivial ones: Of the nearly 300 languages that Wikipedia supports, 65 have no content contributors.

One of the non-trivial ones: Wikipedia has more paid employees doing fundraising now than they had employees in total ten years ago ... and Wikipedia still doesn't pay the actual content contributors anything.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Of all the animals, humans are the only ones who show our teeth and make loud noises as a sign of joy. Odd, is it not?

And yet, it is not really odd at all. When we smile, we bare our teeth at sadness. Laughter, a threat display to ward off indignity, misfortune, and death.

"See! See? I am happy, and none shall take my good mood away!"
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows