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Yes I would, Kent.

I see a lot of Luddites (yes, Luddites) who are ready to run for the hills because of the perils of "playing God" (some of the slightly more rational are instead fearing about population growth instead of nebulous mythological concepts).

Back up the truck, Nellie. What we have here is a claim about a procedure that may be the first step on the road towards a treatment that could turn out to have some negative sides. Let's don't any of us panic until we have something to panic about.

Do we really think that a species that can conquer aging (once we do) will let a little thing like population size stop us?
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MailOne

Do Californians use electrical devices that are not computers OR use their computers for non-net activities? Of course not. Then the answer is no, the net is not the cause of their "energy shortage".
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MailOne

"Nothing too meaty here yet - mostly concept art."

Taco intended this as a comment about the site, but it works even better as a comment about the book. Rama (especially the sequels, but even the first book) is the main reason I've stopped reading Clarke. Think about it, what's the plot: Some people explore a big can in space. No conflict. There's mystery, but the solution isn't given so no drama there. No characterization. Nothing except pure "Ooohh" factor.

On the other hand, if the purpose is to attract crowds with special effects, I have to admit there's nothing in Rama that will get in the way of that...
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MailOne

No, I'm not thinking of Wang's Carpets. The story I'm thinking of was on Egan's website. The story is called "Oceanic" as someone else pointed out.

I might have read the story called "Luminous", but I can't find a collection called "Luminous" on Amazon.com. Another odd thing is that Egan's biblio on his website lists "Reasons to be Cheerful" (which I'm sure I've read) as being in "Luminous" (which I know I haven't read) and NOT in "Axiomatic" (which I own). It also lists "Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies" (which I don't recognize the title of) as being in Axiomatic.

Maybe I'll have to write directly to him to find out where I can get these books...
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MailOne

"I always thought that Niven's best work was the stuff he did with Mr. Pournelle."

*shudder* I've never gotten past page 15 of ANY Niven collaboration (or page 5 of anything with "Steven Barnes", scare quotes indicate my skepticism that this name refers to a human rather than an experiment in poor writing skills)
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MailOne

Haven't yet read any Card so I can't say what I think about it.

I agree that early Niven is way better than late Niven, but that's not to say that early Niven is good. Just bearable. Ringworld had no plot, it was just a series of "wonders". Some of his short stories are good, though.

I agree that Teranesia is no "Permutation City" (one of the best books ever, IMHO) but I wouldn't call it trash. I think he should have made it a short story--the idea was good, but there was too much unrelated junk at the beginning and the actual sci-fi aspect wasn't really introduced until near the end. BTW, if you liked "Luminous" (that's the one about the aquatic culture, isn't it?) then you should run out right now and buy his short story collection "Axiomatic".
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MailOne

The plot wasn't just simplistic, it was outright boneheaded. Robots have creating an incredibly complex and rich VR environment just to harvest the electricity from our bodies? Why not just kill the humans and burn the food in a reactor? Or, if you need the humans for something (what?), give them all lobotomies so you can shut off your main power drain: the Matrix.

I will admit the special effects were well done. But like the OP said, they've been done to death now (even before the Matrix was out, I note).
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MailOne

You got your laptop in my notepad!
You got your notepad in my laptop!

Seriously, how useful is this? Pen entry is good on a small device where adding a keyboard would be impossible. But the device is the size of a laptop already (bigger, because they added a notepad). What does the pen entry add, really? It sure ain't speed or accuracy.

The only possible consumer is people who can't type. And even they can only get data into the device. What am I going to do to perform a search or print a report? Write all the specs with pen on paper to get it into the laptop? Why not just hire an assistant that knows how to work a laptop and write notes to him/her--it's the same effect, plus you can have sex on business trips.
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MailOne

I heard about this on the news this morning and I couldn't believe how stupid the requirements (that I heard) were:

1) AOL has to make Instant Messaging work with other versions.

Hey, can you also make sure they keep putting orange lightning rods on the free CD cases? It's about as meaningful as Instant Messaging.

2) TimeWarner's content has to be available to other ISPs.

Leaving aside the question of whether TimeWarner actually produces any "content" worthy of the name, why WOULDN'T they make it widely available. It's widely available now, restricting it to just AOL users just reduces the market share.

I guess my whole argument boils down to this: As people get more technically savvy, AOL's membership is going to decrease, making this all meaningless.
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MailOne

"By definition, no astronomical object other than a black hole can possess an event horizon. The discovery comes from a detailed statistical analysis of a 1992 observation of one of the first black holes ever discovered, Cygnus XR-1, which lies 6,000 light-years from Earth..."

Also "by definition": statistical analysis of data from a black hole will give evidence of a black hole.
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MailOne

I just downloaded Mozilla 0.7 a few hours ago and setup my email with it. I haven't used the feature yet, but it claims to allow multiple outgoing SMTP servers.
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MailOne

I've thought from day one that this "last frontier on Earth" stuff was a bunch of WHOI.
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MailOne

....for my underlings, anyway.

There was no grand scheme, I just liked talking to them (and they to me, I think). Oh sure, every once in a while I'd send an email--if they weren't in that day and I didn't want to forget the question or whatever. But mainly I just stood up and walked over there to find out what was going on.

The informality allows you to learn a LOT more. Facial expressions and body language are often a more accurate report of the actual status. Plus the person (and the people in the nearby area) will bring up other topics that you also need to know about. Furthermore, the conversations were audible to the other programmers, so THEY got an update as well--making us a more close knit team. (the noise/distraction factor wasn't important in this situation).

As a contrasting example, we programmers were almost entirely isolated from the rest of IS/IT, making our interaction with THEM very weak.

So I propose a small refinement to the model: I imagine their "communications" already include email, telephone and scheduled meetings. Now add a factor that measures physical distance to calculate the probability that the boss and employee talk face to face. If the distance is only a few meters, add a bunch of "face time" to the communication list. If the distance is thousands of feet (or more) add little if any "face time".
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MailOne

Can I set the chair to "vibrate" when I get an incoming call?
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MailOne

"If we think someone is keeping a gun in his desk, we want to be able to check it. If someone is harassing people from our email system, we want to be able to verify it. What I don't want, however, is the creation of a police state..."

Wow, it's like you specifically crafted these three sentences to be one of those "famous last words" things.

You can't BOTH have the power to search anyone's desk/computer at any time AND claim they have any privacy. Especially since your two examples already lead us very far down a very slippery slope. "Might be planning murder" to "might be sending nastygrams" leads very easily to "might be looking for another job" and "might be about to blow the whistle".

Here's a privacy policy: We keep the hell out of your stuff. If you break the law, on your own head be it, we assume no responsibility.

Alternatively, you could have an extremely draconian policy--for people who choose to work in the building. Then have an anything-goes policy if you work from home.

BTW, to people who side with the suits and say "but this stuff belongs to company"--shut up, already. The food in the cafeteria belongs to them too, but I'm allowed to bring the waste products home. More to the point, if I am a net drain on the company's resources, the solution is to fire me and hire someone who is a net producer. It's a lot simpler AND fairer.
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MailOne

I have no real opinion about whether $5 billion is too high or not.

However if we are going to discuss it, we have to at least get the facts straight. First of all, the 7 people are trying to make this a class action suit--which spreads the money out some.

Second, at most importantly, the plaintiffs aren't saying that they personally lost $5 billion due to racism at Microsoft. They want that as *punitive* (means "punishing") damages. If all MS was required to do was give each black person $100k (for lost salary, etc) they wouldn't even notice. The idea is to inflict some pain on the corporation to force them to change.
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MailOne

"...and 2% milk. So a low-fat frappucino is redundant - they are ONLY lowfat."

Not with 2% milk they're not. "Lowfat" would be at most 1% milk and more likely skim.
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MailOne

"Ever embed video in a Word 2000 file while drinking a venti half-caf low fat frappucino? You will."

I don't run Windows.
I don't use Word.
I don't drink coffee.
I especially don't drink "frappucino".
And even if I did, it wouldn't be at Starbucks.

So no, I won't be doing this.
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MailOne

I never said there were no good sides to sharing. OBVIOUSLY sharing is good. What I actually said was that "forced sharing...is the antithesis of freedom".

Note the adjective "forced" a property which, in itself, provides none of the benefits you list. Also note that the forced aspect is antithetical to FREEDOM. It may very well be GOOD, but it's not FREE.
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MailOne

"The construction of the Constitution as protecting the citizenry from the governments (state and federal) and from each other came later, after the country began to be run by people who weren't all rich white aristocrats."

Nonsense. The founding fathers had just thrown off the yoke of an oppressive government by means of their own personal guns. And they didn't do it organized into or by state militias like the National Guard, either. The phrase "well-regulated militia" does indicate they were thinking less of individual people holding off evil government forces, but nonetheless they WERE providing for pure civilian entities to "keep and bear arms".
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MailOne

I have to disagree, I stuffed many an envelope when I was a poor student back in '94-'95. Of course, that wasn't my only job duty and I wasn't Working From Home. Nonetheless....

I even asked the boss once, why I (I was working alone) was stuffing envelopes by hand when there are machines that do the same thing. He said something about how people were more likely to open an envelope that had been stamped by a human (actual physical stamp, applied less than perfectly aligned).
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MailOne

"...the argument that guns are to protect you from other citizens is mistaken. The police and FBI do that."

1) As you point out, I still need something to protect me from the police.

2) The existence of the police was not provided for in the Constitution, therefore guns WERE intended to protect you from other citizens.

3) You've missed a case: protection from other citizens or foreigners if the police don't do their job. Consider gun-owning blacks in the South, especially pre-1960.
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MailOne

"...the things I like about America are its Constitution which safeguards certains rights."

"...I am a wee bit uncomfortable at the lack of a National Health Service that is government funded and the Gun laws make me nervous too, but that is only to be expected."

I don't want to be shot anymore than anyone else does. And if I was shot, naturally I'd love to get free health care. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that the two cons you cite are directly related to the main pro.

Sure it'd be great if we all shared--but forced sharing (welfare, national health care, etc) is the antithesis of freedom. Two wrongs don't make a right.

As for guns: in the final analysis, each person has only as much freedom as he or she can personally enforce. Guns (or any other weapon) are an effective means of doing so, which is EXACTLY why ownership thereof is specifically allowed in the Second Amendment. Make all the noises you want about safety, children, Columbine, Wakefield, or whatever--these are no more than the analogue of protected Nazi marches or anti-abortion websites. You've got to take the bad with the good.
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MailOne

Let's keep in mind that Civil Rights (in capitals), while provided for in the Constitution, were never really enforced all that much until the mid- to late-60's. Also keep in mind that politicians are almost always older than 40 and frequently older than 60--making them pre-Civil Rights-era. Just think of the McCarthy era in the 1950's and THEN ask yourself whether freedoms are greater or lesser nowadays.

Also remember that politicians aren't the last word. Joe Lawmaker can pass any law he can get enough votes for....but they are still subject to judgement by the Judicial Branch. There's been a lot of talk about how the Judicial Branch in general and the Supreme Court in particular has been compromised by the election controversy, but on the whole I think the system (the *Judicial* system) works well.

That's not to say I counsel complacence. Don't just sit around saying "it's pretty good, I think I'll stay". The Judicial Branch is passive by design. It can only rule on cases that are brought to it. So go out, find an unjust law and challenge it! Think of it as removing bugs from the legal system.
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MailOne

Do you need special hardware for that belief?

The special hardware comes standard on some humans. Others can have it installed, but only at considerable expense (and the old hardware has to be deinstalled permanently). Most fellatious believers will tell you, however, that the conversion is probably WELL worth it.
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MailOne

They couldn't rescind "the offer"--there was no offer outstanding. You accepted and filled out the paperwork. The company even acknowledged this fact by giving you a start date. You were their employee already. So, the "offer period" was over.

However, read over any copies you got and see what you agreed to. Can they "fire at will"? If so then you will still have no job. OTOH, maybe they have to give 6 weeks notice for which you theoretically could be paid. It all depends on the contract you signed. However since there WAS a signed and acknowledged contract, they could NOT rescind the offer.
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MailOne

"...I really have problems understanding why companies like VA and Redhat are valued as they are."

"...an entire business model based on people's laziness to download the OS and on selling them tech. support contracts?"

First of all, there are no "companies like VA and RedHat". VA is a hardware company, RedHat is software. Two totally different ball games. VA makes money just like Dell/Compaq/Gateway--selling hardware at a slight markup. They have an advantage, though, in that the software they install has no cost.

RedHat's business model is totally different than VA's...AND totally different from what you describe. RedHat isn't trying to make money from users. Haven't you noticed all the "partnerships" and "tools" RedHat has announced in the last year? THAT'S where the money is. RedHat is giving away the blades AND the low-quality/cost razors and then hoping that Big Names will pay Top Dollar for high-quality/cost razors (or razor consultants, or razor-management tools, or razor-branding, etc).
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MailOne

I have watched Star Wars itself more times than I can count and the other two I have seen several times as well. This includes at least one time of sitting down and watching all three in a row AND seeing them as they were re-released in the theater. And I reiterate: The only memorable, longer-than-a-single-scene chunks are in Star Wars.
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MailOne

If only there were some kind of symbolic object the corporation could give the developer to indicate their appreciation. But not some dead trophy-style object--something dynamic and useful. Something where they could keep the value even if they lost the physical medium (via the use of trades, say). In fact, we could expand this usage from corp to developer until everyone could trade these objects to each other in exchange for goods and services. But what'll we call it?
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MailOne

The first part of "Star Wars" was OK, given the date it was created and the fact that little or no REAL scifi had been made into movies at that time. However, everything AFTER, say, the point where Luke discovers his aunt and uncle dead is a blur for me. I remember many many scenes, but I have no idea which movie they go to. This points to a lack of plot cohesion indicative of a bad movie.

So, everything up to that point PLUS a few memorable scenes in the rest of Star Wars, plus a couple of bits of the other two "originals" together make 1/2 of a good movie.
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MailOne

Why would it be a problem if Episode II sucked? That would just put the total count of sucky Star Wars movies at 4.5.
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MailOne

"RPM Package Manager"? Is that anything like "scuba apparatus"?
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MailOne

Just buy the original book by Edwin Abbott (or A. Square)
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MailOne

...drop out of college and go to tech-school.

There are many reasons to prefer CS to CIS.

1) You learn more, much of it useful (no, really). If you want to end up programming, you NEED the stuff (both facts and the way of thinking) a CS degree teaches.

2) You'll prove that you can handle what a CS degree requires--to employers and to yourself.

3) A CIS degree's validity will fade rapidly. A CS degree is like a physics degree--you are learning fundamentals of nature, those things don't change.

That's not to say that you should force yourself through a CS program. If you can't handle it or don't care--don't do it! But if what you want is to Make Money Fast On That Internet Thing, you are wasting your time and money taking a CIS degree at a 4 year, liberal arts college. Just go down to DeVry and take VB and a few accounting classes and you'll be all set.
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MailOne

Here's what you say: "If I'm promoted to IT manager, I'll quit. Now you've lost me either way. If that was your intention, then this discussion is over--I have to go look for a new job, which I will likely find within 30 days. If losing me was NOT your intention, let's begin a reasonable discussion of our differences."

If a reasonable discussion does not begin immediately, start sending out your resume. When you get back a stack of interview requests, go back to Management and show them the physical evidence of the interest in your talents. Go to the interviews. When you get an offer, show it to Management. If they still do nothing, they really want you gone. More likely, though, at some point before you get an offer elsewhere they will get nervous about losing you entirely and start to be reasonable.
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MailOne

In 8th/9th/10th grade I was unpopular (hung out with the losers, didn't go to dances, etc). 11th and 12th grades I was merely neutral (went to some dances, knew a lot of people, but I wasn't a jock or anything). I bring this up not out of relevance, but to show that "I've been there."

My question is: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What I mean by that is: Many geek teenagers exhibit anti-social characteristics, including: poor hygiene, little or no conversation skills and attitudes (for instance know-it-all-ism) that are off-putting. Do adolescents get into computers because they don't get along and don't understand why, so turn to computers (books, D&D, whatever) as something they can understand/master? Or do adolescents who get into computers/whatever use up so much brain capacity with intellectually challenging tasks they can't learn how to interact with others? Or some third thing?

(Please don't get the impression I'm saying you are a smelly, greasy, know-it-all loser--obviously I've never met you. But the lead-in mentioned being a "pudgy loner" and Katz, so I can assume you aren't dating a cheerleader.)
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MailOne

Oh the day when we see a java advocacy response on slashdot that goes farther than "nuh-uh, it is *so* fast"
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MailOne

I tried LeakTracer--works great, but ONLY checks new/delete and ONLY on i386. mpr checks new/delete AND *alloc/free, but doesn't seem to like my multi-threaded app. Neither of these check access violations. I found another one that did EVERYTHING (including telling you where you should put the free/delete) but it required re-writing the app to use their macros.

Powerful vs simple. Pick one.
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MailOne

Just because the experiment doesn't cover all cases doesn't mean the results are flawed. In fact, a "patchwork" of studies that covers all cases with a little overlap is more to be trusted than a single monolithic "definitive" answer-type study.

In any case, how on earth could they get the statistical sample for usage of significantly over 3 years?

As for your third flaw--it isn't even a valid point! Unless it is your claim that people who are "potentially developing" tumor or have undiagnosed tumors are somehow over-represented in the mobile-phone-using group? On the contrary, I would expect that the group that owns the mobile phones is also the same groups that can afford the quality doctors who would find serious health problems early on. In other words, I would expect mobile phone usage to have a mild correlation to people who FIND OUT they have brain cancer--the people who can't afford the phones also can't afford the doctors.
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MailOne

I agree with this post. Find out why you are being pressured to use Exchange. If its for NT zealotry and you are resisting it because of Unix zealotry, you're in a tough (and not particularly smart) position.

Identify what features the people in power want from Exchange, and find a Unix alternative. Groupware calendaring? Shared addressbooks? If the benefits of a solution under Exchange outweighs the cost of converting to NT (hardware AND retraining AND licences), the security implications, and the support headaches that Exchange tends to bring, then go with Exchange. If the Unix alternative (MailOne or HP's OpenMail are a couple) will cause fewer problems and cost less, go with that.

Don't forget that your job is to pick the right tool for the job.
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Even if we restrict "modern" physics to Einstein, that's 100 years, not "50 to 75". Let's face it, the reviewer gave us no reason to care about the review and got all his physics wrong. I give it a 5/10.
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MailOne

I haven't gone through the website to see if the details are any good, but the main idea is pure gold. Not in the sense of being good--who knows if 3D UIs will take off. But they are absolutely right (and nearly alone) in understanding that a 3D UI is more than 6 windows on a rotating cube just like a GUI is more than tiled DOS windows.

I've been so frustrated trying to get this idea across that I taught myself a little OpenGL so I could try to implement something...trouble is, all I have is a vague vision, no concrete plan.
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MailOne

I can understand people who think Windows is easier to use than Unix/Linux---I don't agree, but I understand their confusion.

What I don't understand is people who claim that programming under Windows is easier. It just plain isn't true. There are so many "technologies" and "strategies" that you never know how X accesses Y this month. The environment is so unstable and unpredictable that you need a vast array of "test machines" ready to take a clean image so you can figure out if the problem is your program or the underlying (supposedly abstract) operating system. The tools are so feeble (or so localized) that they are virtually useless for any generalized task. I could go on.

Suffice it to say that I got a CS degree in the early 90's from a school that was smart enough to have a lab full of Sparcs. After school I did Windows programming and, having forgotten the "it just works" atmosphere of school, thought that unexplained crashes and hourly reboots were just par for the course. Now I've been programming on Linux exclusively for a full year and it's been heaven. Months go by before I boot my desktop...the servers rarely if ever get rebooted. The "API" is stable, simple and well-documented. It's easy!
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MailOne

I live in NH but apparently all my news stations are broadcast from MA. Interesting results in a Congressional seat:

Democrat (Kennedy, duh): 74%
Republican: 13%
Libertarian: 12%

Wow! That's the kind of numbers that get parties and issues noticed!
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MailOne

I multitask well. In fact, I'm not happy if I have only one "average" task to work on. Depending on the difficult of the task, I can generally handle up to about 4. It doesn't often happen that I reach that limit, but when I *do* (or when one task becomes "non-average" to the extent that I have to drop to single-tasking mode) my technique is: Say no. Better yet, don't even be around to ask.

When I am in the above situation, I sit and concentrate, accepting no input from the outside world. Example: I was working on several tasks at once and the CEO came over and asked a question about the documentation. His question indicated that there might be a serious problem--but I was already working on an "emergency". I said "Freeze. Don't touch anything." (he was doing the docs). Half an hour later, after finishing some tasks, saving my state and checking on his problem, I got back to him.

It's all about knowing how much you can handle and then saying "no" to everything else.

If you aren't like me, though, this won't work. What if you work slow on one task at a time? Your boss isn't going to like it if he can give you one task per month and otherwise has to remain silent around you. Then you have to learn how to multi-task (or simulate it).

[rant] Why is it that apparently intelligent people have no understanding of task-switching? Nearly everyone understands that you can't just do tasks in a random order--you need prioritization. But almost no one understands that you need to prioritize by task importance AND task size. For instance, I'm NEVER to busy to answer a question about how to fix the NT server ("reboot it"). Think of yourself as a process--you have to operate quickly, but you also have to avoid blocking other threads. That sometimes means you have to do work that isn't really yours.[/rant]
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MailOne

I find it hard to believe that FascDot has not squeezed in with a plug for MailOne...

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