Slashdot Mirror

For a great example of redundancy in action, take a look in the mirror. You have individual cells dying by the millions every minute. Your memory is fuzzy at best, your pattern-recognition in your brain frequently sees things that aren't there, and you make stupid mistakes every single day. And that's fine, because the overall system is pretty damned redundant and resilient. A mash of protein goo and calcium deposits able to sustain one of the most complex information systems around, reliably, 24x7, for an average of 70 years or so apiece.

Nice metaphor, I like your style. In fact, I like it enough to post an excerpt to my blog:

Link.

Keep up the good work.

When I was fifteen (I'm now forty-seven), my dad taught me the rudiments of structured programming. He was a programmer himself, for the Star-Tribune.

Something he said has always stuck with me. He said, what usually happens is this: Management issues some directives; the programmers fulfill the directives; the end users try to use the programs -- and things go wrong because the end users were never consulted about what kind of tools they need to do their jobs.

The successful programmer, dad said, is the one who first goes and sits down with the end users, talks to them about their jobs, finds out what they really need -- then integrates this knowledge with Management directives. He called this "going native" (before he was a programmer, he took his degree in anthropology).

Link.

Where do I sign up for your newsletter?

You flatter me, sir or madam; but I'm as un-immune to that as the next man or woman, respectively.

I don't run a proper newsletter, but I do from time to time blurt out a bulk rant or somesuch. To subscribe, send me an email -- karl AT karljones.com -- and I'll sign you up. (Yes, I know this is primitive; and me, a coder, dammit. But then, they say that the carpenter's roof is always leaking ....)

Apart from bulk ranting, I've also been known to conduct conversations by email, although these tend to be sketchy during cycles when my incoming email runs high, which is most of the time.

If you happen to be a Half-Life developer, you may recognize me as the Handy Vandal. I send out a Handy Vandal mailing from time to time, send an email to subscribe.

I also don't run a proper blog (the carpenter's roof ...) but I do irregularly post my musings:

http://www.karljones.com/

Finally, you could make me a Friend in your /. relationship settings -- that way my posts would tend to stand out; and, keep an eye on my post history.

- Karl Gregory Jones

What I've been saying for a while now is we need ...

Good summary. I like it so much, I've posted it to my blog.

-kgj

[Muybridge] was asked to settle a bet on whether all four of a galloping horse's feet are ever all off the ground at the same time.

He did settle the bet.

Yes, all four of a galloping horse's feet are off the ground at the same time -- at the moment when all four hooves are underneath the horse, in their most-inward position.

For more info, see my page of Muybridge trivia and links.

-kgj

Senators should be jailed, GOP party heads should be jailed under RICO as mafia.

Once again, you are right on the money -- accurate and articulate.

Speaking of RICO ... didja know that the Christic Institute used RICO went it went after the ... well, call it the Octopus. Of course, the Christics got themselves shot at, bombed, and bankrupted for their troubles -- but it was a noble attempt at using RICO for busting genuine racketeers.

-kgj

+2 karma points, not to mention you should start a blob, if you have the intestinal fortitiude.

Just doing my part for reason and clear thinking. A well-ordered commonwealth begins with well-orered debate.

Re: starting a blob ... did you mean blog? and if not, what is a blob? If you meant blog, check out my blog-like web site @ karljones.com.

Yes, and also when we hear "to be perfectly frank..." we know were aren't to be hearing frankness.

I also like "make no mistake...". Which means I am using this tired sequence of words to stress what follows.

Of course, there is also the classic (but sadly not likely to be used again) "read my lips" as in "read my lips no new taxes" -- George Bush I who later raised taxes.

My understanding is that the Christic Institute was bankrupted several years ago by Judge King's "frivolous lawsuit" ruling.

There were also extra-judicial pressures: break-ins, car-bombings, and shootings.

I've compiled some notes about Christic, here:

http://www.karljones.com/history/america/christic. asp

h0 h0 h0!! that's so funny...
Get it?! The ship is named after Ronald Reagan and he has alzheimers so he has memory loss.

h0h0h0, alzheimers is so funny, nobody I love is suffering from it so it's sooo funny. h0 h0 h0

Does the ship go to "sleep" while in the middle of critical manuevers?* Will it make runs to Nicaragua to exchange guns for drugs?



*Reagan was known for "napping" in the Oval Office while in meetings with foreing dignitaries.

Thank God somebody did the right thing. Too bad is wasn't my countrymen. After WWII, the United States made a Devil's pact with Reinhard Gehlen -- absorbing Gehlen's spy apparatus into the US spy apparatus. (Or ... was it the other way around?)

This is an extraordinary tale -- thanks for sharing it!

I've quoted you in full on my web site:

http://www.karljones.com/money/artistic_money.asp

The Shockwave Rider is one of John Brunner's best works.

Written thirty years ago, it still holds up today as a first-rate prognostication about our near future. (It's set in some unspecified year between 2005 and 2010.)

But I don't think of Brunner as a cyberpunk, even though he covers much of the same subject matter. It's a question of style: he's too ... dry and wordy, much of the time.

To be sure, sometimes he's poetic in the extreme: Stand On Zanzibar is an ode to diversity of styles. And Shockwave Rider has a wide range of styles, indeed a plethora of inventive literary devices. (I've read SR, oh, nine or ten times, now, I suppose -- and every time I glean some nuggest of meaning.)

But overall, Brunner's strength is narrative, not style: first and foremost, he's a storyteller, not a stylist. (He said that about himself in an interview ... some fanzine back in the eighties, if memory serves.)

BTW: has anyone played his game of Fencing?