I'm guessing you were too close and the camera can't make a perfect focus that close.

That is an insult!
Nah, kidding. I think you're talking about that line of focus, it happens when you shoot photos very close. My camera can make even closer images than this.
In the manual it is specified that the minimum distance is 1cm, but heh... that's the minimum "practical" distance. In reality, I have successfully focused on the glass of the lens.

So if that mosquito was dead, I could make a picture of its eye.

[EDIT] Also, some of my latest photos:After taking this shot I noticed something funny: you can actually see the landscape in one of the water spheres!This was heavily edited:And here's something sexy:

That's the reason I ALWAYS PRESS CTRL+C on my text before hitting the POST button or MODIFY PROFILE.
I learned it the hard-way too.

I was left dissappointed after I discovered the focus wasn't quite sharp... and chances of getting an insect to stay while you make a picture of it are rare.

Also, the image is a bit cropped.

Well, I installed the new HDD. Installed a fresh windows also, for better performance.

The results blow me:Samsung SpinPoint F3, 1TB, 7200 RPM, 32 mb cache
Compared to my other HDDs, this is a jetplane!

Yes. Sorry for the mistake.

Ok. It is 04:15 am and I just finished watching "The Departure".

I am officially extremely pissed off, and this film is the first to succeed at it. I almost wanted to break something when DiCaprio... well, ain't gonna spoil it. Let's say that was the "semifinal". The surprise was so bad that I can't believe my monitor survived. (because in an instant I realised it's just a film).
The final?
It was SATISFYING.

And that isn't even an accurate approximation. It's not even at best. Not even realistic. At best it's about 90 light-years, when the first regular radio shows began to broadcast.

And that was what the "Schrödingers cat" thought experiment was all about. It can indeed have an effect.

I always thought that was not a serious mind experiment. Somebody shows you a box and asks you: is the cat dead or alive? And then you get this scientific explanation that it can both exist and not exist. But if you look at it, it's only one of the options.
But in REALITY, something happened and there were never 2 possibilities happening at the same time. The experiment is only mind-blowing because it works in the context of rational thinking, therefore requiring a... mind.
I think it's all about the difference between the real, existent Universe and our known part of it.
So, in ancient time Europeans thought the Earth is flat and at the end there's an infinite gap, or probably a path to hell. But there were more lightened people who disagreed. So, there were 2 possibilities. The rest of the continents both existed and not existed at the same time.

Slowly we discovered that the Earth is a planet, and not a flat piece of dirt, and explored the rest of the continents. The real Universe meets the acknowledged one(which is virtual) and annihilates one of the options. That's how I see it.

Now you have to ask yourselves: Where are these non-matter//non-energy types of events having effect upon?( like the event of annihilating on of the options above) Are they stored somewhere? Is something keeping track of this? Does this involve determinism?

I wonder how doctor Manhattan perceives this.

It's hilarious and also tragic.

You believe in aliens? Thought about why nobody contacted us? Or why we didn't find someone out there yet?You'll have to zoom in the image.

The expensive ones deliver true quality.

I don't think you can say it's wrong to write to SSDs. Their purpose is to slowly phase out HDDs in the future.

It's not worth buying cheap SSDs. They have low capacity and very low performance. In your case, 60mb/s writing speed is easily surpassed by hdds.
170 mb/s is a low performance boost for such a pricey device imo.

He's an obese girlyman who has never finished anything he's started in his entire life.

You know, that makes me curios about their sexual relationship.

Wow, came to this thread to post my problem only to find that I posted it not long ago.Yeah, mostly the same error. I tried propper- propper CRASHES during compile. I am not compiling from the execrable hammer interface that shows me pictures from 5 to 5 minutes instead of actual progress anymore. I am using VBCT(an external source compiler, much like muzz's The Compilator, only for source).
The map compiles fine, but it gives me this error when I try to launch it in-game.
I turned the more complex geometry in "func_illusionary" so I could save on ... I even forgot what's the name for the thing, that manages collisions. (CULL ?)

[EDIT] Also, here's a screenshot of what I have until now:I should add that the hammer 3D window is very jerky, with low FPS sometimes( even though I have a good video card- sigh... stupid low quality developer tools)

Archie, are you familiar with that petal effect shape of light on your bumpmaps ingame?

I remember you asked me about this and it happened to me too. Archie must see this too.

or a way to reflect light around you yet be projected as though it just went straight, I guess. Any thoughts?

This. Imagine a boulder sitting in a stream of water. The flow of the water is affected by the boulder, yet a few meters away, the flow looks the same.

This is what we should achieve with some kind of special equipment that can distort the movement of electromagnetic waves.

Come to think of it, how is glass see-through? What's so special about its composition?

It's just that glass permits visible electromagnetic radiation to pass through it.

Probably going back or forward in time creates paradoxes at a macro-level, but what happens if this is achieved using quantum physics?

How do interactions at a quantum level, a time travel for ex, translate to bigger objects? Such as human-sized ones.

Ah this is such a nice improvement. Thank you, Penguinboy.

Managed to get it working using Ssbump Generator. Was quite pleased.
Tried making the normal map in crazybump first. Was blown away.

What a program. Totally worth the £25 for an educational license.

Sarcasm?

Heh, at least you're not the only person on this site confronting with such problems.
Remember my funny ssbump results?

I think I forgot to add in that thread a screenshot with a similar effect you're experiencing.

Hold onto your panties! It's gonna be implemented in TWHL4!

While we are on the subject, could we PLEASE change the site color scheme, this color scheme isn't all that cool.

The current color scheme is a signature of this community. I'd agree to add the ability to change the color under the control panel, if you don't like this one.
Just look at this map. It is centered around a TWHL color scheme, and it looks awesome.

I agree. This happens because most of the members are probably too lazy to look through the forums and they resume themselves to the first page.

Really? Aphex Twin all the way.

That's a nice atmospheric song, but the downside is that it's mostly a loop played over and over again.

Wait, wait, I have the perfect song.



But seriously now, classic music inspires!

[quote]Oh god i might have stab myself in the arm if we choose one from that list..

)=)=)[/quote]

Excuse me, what's wrong with classic music? It's a universal genre. It's pure music.

May I ask what you need so much damn space for?
I mean, 5 TB is A LOT of space for home computers.

I'd go for a classic song. I suggest we pick one from this list.

Nice transfer speeds Stojke!

Oh and, what the... how come your 1TB HDD has faster( and it's really not by a few numbers!) writing speed than reading Archie? That makes no sense :. Is it fragmented?

Archie, would be nice to include specific hdd info( like I did). I actually want to use this thread as a reference. I'm tempted to buy a new WD Caviar Blue of 1 Tb.

Oh also, too lazy to make another screenshot for the system score(which is really just a crude measurement of the system performance).
But here's my values:

Processor - 6.4
Memory(RAM): - 6.4
Graphics - 6.9
Gaming Graphics - 6.9
Primary Hard-Disk- 5.9

I'd like to see how different hdds perform, and to make it more fun, I thought we could post each of us a screenshot of a small and fast benchmark.

You will have to download and install Crystal Disk Mark.

1.Leave all the options on default (Number of tests:5, Test Size: 1000MB).

2.Choose a partition from your HDD(all of my partitions get defragmented regularly so it doesn't really make a difference). Then click "All".

3.If you have more HDDs( I have one of 160GB and one of 500 GB), be sure to include a second benchmark screenshot with one of the second HDD partitions.

Here's my benchmarks:

HDD1( Western Digital(idk the model, it's from 2007) 160GB, 7200 RPM, 8mb Buffer)HDD2( Western Digital Caviar Blue(2009), 500GB, 7200 RPM, 16mb Buffer)The only actually interesting values are the Write and Read from "Seq". It's self-explanatory what they mean.

In that case it will be impossible to go back in time unless we can invent a true full-spectrum electromagnetic cloak. We would have to go back in time to an area of space so the time machine wouldn't bump into any rogue particles just floating around (because even space has some reallly small amount of hydrogen). We would have to produce an effect of zero gravity around the time machine (because even small amounts of gravity affects something somewhere). Also we'd probably have to figure out how to redirect neutrinos as well. There's probably a ton of other phenomenon we don't even know about that would have to be compensated for.

But as vs49688 stated, we would also have to figure some way of not disturbing the quantum state of the particles at that time. Therefore, we would have to not be able to observe.

I believe time travel is just an utopia. Here's an analogy of what I think: time travel is like an old cassette player, not like a mp3 player: you can't skip, you have to rewind everything back.

It's because stuff like this I slowly refuse to turn back to good threads.

I was lying in bed looking up at the stars thinking "Light takes billions of years to get from there to here." Then I realized "Where the fuck is the ceiling?"

Wow dude, I didn't know thieves can steal a house that fast these days :/

Guys, I always wondered if there will be a way of upgrading my mind so that I can switch from "natural" to "hard-disk inspired access". If I want to switch I just... do it, you know, like you'd move your leg. You don't have to "think", just act. Then I could search through my files, folders, in a tree-like organized structure. Actually there is software for mind mapping(ex: FreeMind, open source I think). We tend to organize information that way, but... it's just that I loose fast the link between the infos. Forgetting the "folders", the absolute path, if you understand what I mean.
I can't picture the whole structure at once.

Also, if randomness generated by a computers is not authentic(well, there is random.org but that's a whole other story), then how authentic is a random number generated by our brain?

I asked that because I've read in the past about chemtrails, kind of a conspiracy theory.

This is not really deep thinking, but I always wondered why some airplanes leave trails while others don't...

Might have worked well in the middle ages, when science and rational thought weren't quite as advanced and ignorant masses were expected to blindly believe pretty much anything they were told if that served to control them, but at this time and age we should know better.

That phrase tickles me.

"Real" gay people don't have a choice; they're born that way

Who told you that? Lady Gaga?

I don't know why, I want to agree, but this idea about people being born gay seems a bit improper to me.

Striker the notion that gays raise more gay kids is incorrect.

I didn't say that. I asked that.

Excuse me, but a question came to mind.

You said that a kid who is raised in a religious family will have more chances of being religious when he'll grow up.

Then how about a kid who is raised by a gay couple, will that kid have more chances of being attracted to his own gender? (or think it's right to do so from the start, since kids have sensitive minds at early ages?)

These are 2 different subjects, but I hope you understand the link.

I dreamed my first calculation ever yesterday. I multiplied 500 by 4.2, the result being something I 'appreciated' around 2000-2200. Which is pretty exact(2100). Actually, that was a currency conversion :P.

But on the opposite extreme, if you leave them out of religion until they're older, then chances are they'd have grown up around a lot of atheist kids who believe religion is bullshit and people who believe it are complete morons, and then they grow up to hate religion.

Good point. There's no favorable situation.

Oh, and I fucking hate dish soap. Why do I have to wash my hands 100 times after I use it huh? It's not fair!

More pics with the tower( still not finished):If the server had some RPG elements( well minecraft is anyway a bit RPG), my building could actually serve as a mall or trading center or something.

I say religious people often get pissed off because they really want to impose their point of view. Also, a lot of them are really annoyed if they're proven wrong.

It's really simple. Act calmly. I'm not really angry anymore on people who try to disprove me because I accept some of the imperfections religion has.
What they have to realize is that a non-belief system is also imperfect. But most of them do realize this.
So, equal-equal situation is much better than a fight right?

Since we're discussing religion(I hope not for long, because I feel it's going to derail soon), here's something... I just heard of today: Church of KopinismPiracy

As I said in the past, (if you search enough you'll find, I don't really want to post the thread link), I think I said that we don't have access to the 4 dimension, where we could see everything inside-out in the 3D world, also being able to manipulate time as we wanted. And probably after the 4th dimension there exists a greater dimension, the 5th dimension, which would be just like 'time' is to our dimension- not accessible, but participating at the changing of 4th dimension events.

Maybe God is the(or in the) 4th dimension. Perhaps this huge Universe is just a crystal ball.
And if God is holding this crystal ball, even though mankind is evil, He somehow managed to take care of Earth in its 4 billion history. Earth, the blue planet, so unique among the billions. Vast, luxurious life that makes this planet a living entity. We search the paradise, but it is here.
I am thankful to that.

If anything, we could get some bad-ass ghost in the shell cyborg implants and bodies so we could talk wirelessly without physically speaking, personally see through cameras across the planet, use robotic limbs as our own, or live forever (as long as machines can keep a brain alive without a supporting organic body) <3

In that sense we could also have virtual reality that literally takes over our senses. That would make video-games and hands-on training awesome. You could learn to paint without actually using paint. Sports might even be fun if the game strategy and control is decoupled from physical prowess. We could be having this conversation "face to face".

I fantasize about this all the time Grim. The problem is, there's a constant battle going in my head on whether this is moral or not. Whether if... yes, God accepts this or not. It would be totally not fair to be "upgraded" and other people would have to struggle at their natural capabilities.

There is a very interesting site, called The Future Timeline. Go have a read there. It's really a lot of speculations when it comes to the far future, but the near future seems possible.

For example, it is said that by the next century bicentennials will appear. People born after the 60' will have the chance of living much longer, due to improved medicine. And who knows, by the time we'll be 100 some rejuvenation techniques will be invented.
I mostly fantasize though not about being able to live longer, but about being able to manipulate information much faster. I always was a very curious person, so I'm almost crazy about this idea, being able to retain lots of information, learn quickly and process quickly.
Well, I also watched Limitless, maybe that fueled my crave for this...

But at the end I start thinking "Hmm, not everybody is going to be able to access these things, 'la vie' will not be in 'rose', and the morality...

[EDIT] I also thought that in the future probably cryogenic storage of living bodies will be available. Could we use that to put ourselves to a long sleep( which won't feel "long' at all, probably just like a normal sleep) and 'skip' time? Which brings us to the next question: what is actually 'the passing of time'? If we can "skip" some to the future, can't we do this backwards? Or are we stuck on half of the arrow that represents time...

I am not in denial. I wasn't talking about acceptance here.
Please, let's stay as subtle as we can on sensitive subjects like this.

Perhaps in our thinking nature we're not putting ourselves the correct questions. We always search for reason, because we make everything out of a reason.

But maybe the grand scheme of all things serves no purpose, no reason. Or it might, but in another context, not understandable to us.

You know that us Christians say that God exists from infinity, to infinity? It makes no sense to my logic, but... probably my logic is not good.

Scotch, the Universe is not infinite. Something else is infinite... but we don't knowobserved that 'something else'.

Madcow, that' not what I meant. You have to read my entire post to understand.

You know what boggles my mind about electromagnetism?

I'm sure you heard about the Perpetuum Mobile mechanism. This has nothing to do with electromagnetic waves, but the concept somewhat applies.
Say you generate an electromagnetic wave. Probably a radiowave, or an x-ray, or probably even a gamma-ray(which are the strongest). This wave is going to travel... well, infinitely. At least until it encounters something that can totally absorb it, else it will reflect and continue its travel.

I haven't learned very much my physics lesson about electromagnetic waves this year, but I remember they maintain this "motion" because they're basically composed of 2 types of energies: magnetic and electric. I don't remember this part, but in its motion, the magnetic field generates an electric field until it's depleted, then the electric field generates a magnetic field and so on. I might be wrong about this, but it's what I remember.

How can this happen? How come it doesn't loose its energy?

At the beginning of the 20th century, when astronomy started being more popular and researched, Hubble discovered (I think he is the one, I might be wrong again) that objects in the sky(stars, galaxies, nebulas) which are travelling away from us emit a redshifted light( the light tends to be reddish). The objects that travel towards us ar blueshifted.
At first, scientists couldn't explain this, but in 1929 Fritz Zwicky offered a possible explanation: the light, after having travelled such a great distance, has become 'tired', essentially loosing some of its energy.

He was proven wrong.

It's all about the Doppler effect, those objects travel at such high speed that the wavelength is lengthened. Or shortened, if they travel towards us. You can very easily observe the Doppler effect with sound sources. Know the ambulance sound? Pay attention next time one passes near you guys, and you'll know what I'm talking about.Actually this discovery has participated at the validation of the Big Bang theory. In about the 50', scientists predicted that the Universe, having cooled down to a low enough temperature, must had emitted at about 300.000 years a type of radiation that's nowadays called "cosmic background radiation". Now, that light exists even today, but it is so old that because of it's traveling and expansion of the spacetime web, it has become microwave radiation.
COBE, a satellite launched in the 90', proved this to be right.

Now imagine this: that energy has been emitted billions of years ago( probably 15, more or less) and it still exists. And that "energy" is actually something that is continuously generated out of... nothing(maybe).
It will only get "fainter", but never disappear.

I need somebody to explain this to me, it still boggles my mind.

[EDIT] Oh btw, Zeeba, religious people participated numerous times in science. Big Bang, for example, was a theory invented by a catholic priest.
I myself am an Orthodox(not a strong believer, but I prefer to know there's a 'Designer'), but I feel like this theory reconciles really well with God.

Nope, everybody perceives the same colours, with minor difference. And colors don't actually exist, it's just reflected light from a specific part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

how come we can think about thinking, but it's near impossible to think about thinking about thinking? and when you think about processors that can emulate processora that can emulate processors that .... which is, at the end, a product of our mind.

well, I'm in the countryside making a hay stack. this is some ezxellent time for deep thinking.
I often try to think about what's beyond space-time... becase our Universe, as big as it is, is not infinite.