Slashdot Mirror

I think it might have been something like a dual DECT/GSM phone.

DECT
GSM

Ironically, one of the objections making the locations of hikers public(e.g. by RFID) is that it would lead to footpads(first definition) in the area.

First off, hikers are already tracked. Before you go on any long distance hike, you should typically sign in at a local ranger station. These are usually where the best drop-off points and parking lots are. Plus, it's just good to be face to face with a ranger before hitting the woods. At least then, they will have a face in memory, just in case you turn up missing.

Dude, read the post.

First, this guy works with a Search and Rescue team. He doesn't need you telling him what hikers should do before setting out.

Second, "should typically"? The people who they're likely to be searching for are the people least likely to do what they should do.

Third, his goal is to know something more than if someone is missing. He wants to know where. That's why he suggested adding these sensors at critical trail junctions.

And by the way...

No offense, just an honest thought on the issue. I grow weary of people searching for technical solutions to mundane things that can be done better through arcane methods.

I do not think arcane means what you think it means.

hence the phrase 'lingua franca' which practically means 'the language that you can use everywhere' but literally means 'the French language,' (in Latin, no less..).

Actually, the sources I've checked suggest that the term is Italian for (second and apparently original definition) "A mixture of Italian with Provençal, French, Spanish, Arabic, Greek, and Turkish, formerly spoken on the eastern Mediterranean coast.". The etymology I can find suggests that it's Italian for "language of the Franks" (by which is meant all Europeans, not just the French).

Weird, I thought it was Latin too, but I can't find any sources to back that up...

I think the word you're casting about for is "hymen."

Google is not the same as a Googol


-Colin

Google is not the same as a Googol


-Colin

Ok well, firstly you probably meant "asymmetrically", not "assymetrically"...and uh...no...your wrong.
Dialup is NOT symmetric, but IS asymmetric.

Ok well, firstly you probably meant "asymmetrically", not "assymetrically"...and uh...no...your wrong.
Dialup is NOT symmetric, but IS asymmetric.

Synergy is a real word. No need to put it in "quotes".

Also, you wouldn't have chosen to use "synergy" unless someone before mentioned it to you. Quit being trendy.

Think for yourself.

Nigritude is also a word.

fyi, ensure is the same as insure (see Webster's entry) for one definition of insure, the one used in the summary.

I notice that there is no comment to the middle ground, testing is a good one to go with and has (sometimes) faster updates to security fixes.

This isn't from personal experience, but I've read that testing is actually the slowest to receive security updates, as patches spend some time in unstable before getting moved to testing. I believe this was in a discussion on debian-devel at one point, as it isn't on Debian Security's FAQ. The consensus was that testing was as slow or slower than unstable when compared to stable

Stable is really meant to be stable, it should work predictably first, reliably second.

Reliably is a basically synonym for predictably:

"1. Capable of being relied on; dependable[...]
2. Yielding the same or compatible results in different clinical experiments or statistical trials."

I would think that "reliable" is one of the major goals of Debian stable.

nigritude: Blackness; the state of being black.

Actually it does.

but really is mute point

The point may be moot, but it is never "mute."

they make an emense profit.

What a fscking tool.

You go to all that effort to BOLD a word, and then you still MISSPELL it. Definitely one of the more egregious spelling errors that I've ever seen on Slashdot.

Here, let me give you a link to the word you're looking for: immense.

There, that wasn't so hard was it?

The problem is that the word "irregardless" breaks all rules about word construction in the English language. The root word is "regard". "regardless" means to have no regard, as per standard English suffixing rules. "irregardless" represents the negation of the word "regardless", as per standard English prefixing rules. So, it must mean to not not have regard for. IOW, it's a double negative, all in one word. It's like someone saying "unthaw" when they really mean "thaw"... it's just - plain - wrong!

Well, I guess we're all going to grammarian hell then, because it turns out that unthaw is _actually_ a word. Well, according to those Princeton sorts.
Unthaw.

Not to be too nitpicky, but didn't you mean gleaned instead of gleemed?

For the n-th time, "wattage" isn't a word...

Playing devil's advocate.

Rediculous just doesn't cut it.

humor

"Burbs" is English, you idiot. It's actually now a slightly old-fashioned colloquial/affectionate shortening of "suburbs" and is usually spelled with contraction apostrophe, e.g. "'burbs". This of course doesn't make the poster "cool", actually the opposite, it puts the poster in probably around my more "uncool" age group or older (28+). The fact that you don't know the word means tells me you're probably a teenager, and/or your English is actually weak: not only is "burbs" in the English dictionary, but you would almost certainly know the word if you did much reading.

similar

Falling for the flamebait... :-)

"dude...learn some english. ok?"

burb also 'burb ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bûrb) n. Informal - A suburb: "when the condos get so dense out in those 'burbs that the deer have to run right through hot tubs" (Russell Baker).

Grammer criticism on /.? Are you kidding me? Especially from an AC using improper caps, improper use of elipses, incomplete sentances, incorrect spacing, improper abbreviations, and sentance fragments. BTW: dude is also an informal noun.

"Just because you use the word "Burbs" does not make you a cool guy on slashdot."

Hmmmm, not sure how the use of "burbs" could be confused as an attempt to be "cool". Besides, there is no +mod for cool anyways. Of course, an AC may not be familiar with mod options.

Also, do you think someone attempting to become a "cool guy" would have an account on /., read an article on anthropomorphizing Mars rovers at space.com, and then post an insightful comment about the article? C'mon!

"Will your keyboard break down if you add Su?"

No. However, I am conditioned to avoid the use of su whenever possible. I use sudo instead.

"Also, avoid that bold lettering."

Ooops! Agreed! However, the excessive use of bold probably saved you a small amount on your electric bill since fewer bright white pixels had to be rendered on your display. Multiply that by zillions of /.ers and I should get a Nobel prize for energy conservation!

Falling for the flamebait... :-)

"dude...learn some english. ok?"

burb also 'burb ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bûrb) n. Informal - A suburb: "when the condos get so dense out in those 'burbs that the deer have to run right through hot tubs" (Russell Baker).

Grammer criticism on /.? Are you kidding me? Especially from an AC using improper caps, improper use of elipses, incomplete sentances, incorrect spacing, improper abbreviations, and sentance fragments. BTW: dude is also an informal noun.

"Just because you use the word "Burbs" does not make you a cool guy on slashdot."

Hmmmm, not sure how the use of "burbs" could be confused as an attempt to be "cool". Besides, there is no +mod for cool anyways. Of course, an AC may not be familiar with mod options.

Also, do you think someone attempting to become a "cool guy" would have an account on /., read an article on anthropomorphizing Mars rovers at space.com, and then post an insightful comment about the article? C'mon!

"Will your keyboard break down if you add Su?"

No. However, I am conditioned to avoid the use of su whenever possible. I use sudo instead.

"Also, avoid that bold lettering."

Ooops! Agreed! However, the excessive use of bold probably saved you a small amount on your electric bill since fewer bright white pixels had to be rendered on your display. Multiply that by zillions of /.ers and I should get a Nobel prize for energy conservation!

You guys seem to have forgotten the definition of an athlete. Define Athlete Who's dumb now? Playing counter strike does not require physical activity. All it requires is hand-eye coordination and Jolt Cola.

Correct spelling : Eunuch

"...US secondary schools are so malfunctional..."

"If you are a serious student, you can come away with a good education from almost any school."

I believe the second statement I quoted can be said of the first statement I quoted, as well.

I would argue that US secondary schools are ALSO supposed to teach you how to think & learn and that college is a higher level addition to that process.

And that your sentiment regarding 'serious students' can also be applied to 'malfunctional' US secondary schools.

BTW, 'malfunctional' is not a word.

Here's the etymology of gauntlet.

Word History: The spelling gauntlet is acceptable for both gauntlet meaning "glove" or "challenge" and gauntlet meaning "a form of punishment in which lines of men beat a person forced to run between them" but this has not always been the case. The story of the gauntlet used in to throw down the gauntlet is linguistically unexciting: it comes from the Old French word gantelet, a diminutive of gant, "glove." From the time of its appearance in Middle English (in a work composed in 1449), the word has been spelled with an au as well as an a, still a possible spelling. But the gauntlet used in to run the gauntlet is an alteration of the earlier English form gantlope, which came from the Swedish word gatlopp, a compound of gata, "lane," and lopp, "course." The earliest recorded form of the English word, found in 1646, is gantelope, showing that alteration of the Swedish word had already occurred. The English word was then influenced by the spelling of the word gauntlet, "glove," and in 1676 we find the first recorded instance of the spelling gauntlet for this word, although gantelope is found as late as 1836. From then on spellings with au and a are both found, but the au seems to have won out.

Out of date.

reverberating ululation - is it a safety device, or a great name for a band? It's a dessert topping and a floor wax.

reverberating ululation - is it a safety device, or a great name for a band? It's a dessert topping and a floor wax.

Why do people insist on putting -i at the end of every word that has a singular form ending in s? The plural of iris isn't irii. The plural of axis isn't axi. The whole purpose of the -es plural is that you are supposed to use it when a word ends in s. Why must people emply this queer new form? It just makes them sound like pompous douches -- or is it douchi?

It stems from octopus, one of those trivial things where people know that the plural of which is octopi (or octopuses). They then generalize this to assume that every word that ends in "us" can be pluralized by replacing "us" with "i".

Your logic of always appending "es" to a word ending in "s" is wrong. The plural of "phallus" is "phalli" (or "phalluses"). The plural of "torus" is "tori" -- "toruses" is actually 100% wrong. The plural of "modus" is "modi" -- "moduses" is also wrong. The plural of "corpus" is not "corpuses", it's "corpora". "abacus" ... "abaci" or "abacuses". "cactus" ... "cacti" or "cactuses". And the plural of "genus" isn't "genuses", it's "genera".

Or is it the flexibility that I can have it server SMB and NFS and NFS4 over TCP and perhaps AFS?

Oh I know,it's that I can easily upgrade it to be able to do these things.

If you're going to toss defs at us, don't take parts out of context. I used this and got:

1. Full of health and strength; vigorous.
2. Powerfully built; sturdy. See Synonyms at healthy.
3. Requiring or suited to physical strength or endurance: robust labor.
4. Rough or crude; boisterous: a robust tale.
5. Marked by richness and fullness; full-bodied: a robust wine.

Now using the marketing term, I'd suggest that it's a handy little closed box (eg, I can't get to a shell that I know of) that can be used for low performance file service. This is fine for a small network. They have a great niche.

AS for "being portable to carry files" I'd suggest that the 40GB firewire drive I can put in my pocket and attach to the Mac is equaly useful. If less costly. And more "robust" in that, attached to a Mac or any firewire computer, it's as flexible as all un*x boxes.

Or is it the flexibility that I can have it server SMB and NFS and NFS4 over TCP and perhaps AFS?

Oh I know,it's that I can easily upgrade it to be able to do these things.

If you're going to toss defs at us, don't take parts out of context. I used this and got:

1. Full of health and strength; vigorous.
2. Powerfully built; sturdy. See Synonyms at healthy.
3. Requiring or suited to physical strength or endurance: robust labor.
4. Rough or crude; boisterous: a robust tale.
5. Marked by richness and fullness; full-bodied: a robust wine.

Now using the marketing term, I'd suggest that it's a handy little closed box (eg, I can't get to a shell that I know of) that can be used for low performance file service. This is fine for a small network. They have a great niche.

AS for "being portable to carry files" I'd suggest that the 40GB firewire drive I can put in my pocket and attach to the Mac is equaly useful. If less costly. And more "robust" in that, attached to a Mac or any firewire computer, it's as flexible as all un*x boxes.

Is this a tax on ignorance? On lack of tech skills? Is this fair?

No more so than failing to buy high-return stocks is a tax on people who don't do financial research. By the same logic as the original poster: Just becaue you aren't getting something doesn't mean it's being taken from you.

tax
n.
2. A fee or dues levied on the members of an organization to meet its expenses.

www.dictionary.com

post humously

As a leading independant [sic] consultant in the IT industry

You might become the leading independent consultant if you learned how to spell... ;-)

Sorry!

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=administr ate

Robust.

" Powerfully built; sturdy. "

"When I got here three years ago, there were circa 1,000 processors here, of which four ran Linux," he said. "Now there are circa 2,000 processors, and maybe 64 of them don't run Linux."

Ahh.. so what he's saying is that when he got there, they had abacuses (abaci?), and now they have Pentium-IIs?

circa: in approximately: born circa 1900

My question (of course), is how the hell did they get an abacus to run Linux?

I would say I at least attempted to address both of these ideas. That you are obviously unhappy with my attempt doesn't mean I missed the point, and I certainly wasn't trying to be patronising.

I think that the disagreement here hinges at least partly on the meaning of the word "rational". I was implictly referring to something approaching meaning 3 here. I would infer that you favour a definition of "rational" closer to the one implied by "rational economic man" - something along the lines of always doing whatever will maximise one's own personal gain.

In this "rational economic man" sense of rational, you would by definition do whatever was of most benefit to you. If you use this definition of rational, the original scenario is simply a question begging exercise: this thought experiment is (presumably intentionally) constructed where there is all carrot and no stick involved in throwing acid into someone else's face. So "rational economic man" certainly would throw the acid and take the money. But this does not mean that a real human being, acting rationally (in the sense of using logic and reason) would do so.

You seem to miss the point that even though as an intellectual exercise I can predict the effect of universalizing my own actions, there isn't in fact any mechanism by which my decisions are universalized.

This isn't a point that I've missed - it's something I would actively disagree with. There is a mechanism by which decisions are universalised, and it is the precise reason that the scenario we are discussing is a thought experiment rather than a common real-life situation. People do not exist in a social vacuum where they interact with strangers once and can choose to act in any way they like, free of consequences. The demands of your life often require that you interact with people you've met before, and in all likelihood will meet again. Because interactions are conducted with knowledge of previous behaviour, your reputation is important, and most people who are not psychopaths will cast adverse judgements on those who defect, and will treat them less favourably in the future.

In game theory this is why the iterated prisoner's dilemma is a much better guide to real-world behaviour than the simple prisoner's dilemma.

Being able to see that we would all be better off if we all behave in a way that could be applied universally is a rational reason to behave that way. This is not affected by the fact that in some instances (particularly such as this unrealistic example) universalisable behaviour might not be the best way to maximise our own personal benefit.

What I am getting at is that there is no a priori reason that we should always act as if our own personal interests are always more important than the interests of others. This is what I was talking about when I said "everyone is I/me". In practice of course we are frequently the best defenders of our own interests, but this does not mean that applying logic and reason to the situations we might find ourselves in will always result in disregarding the effect that our actions will have on others.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=irony&r=6 7

Check the definition of deracinated-it has nothing to do with race, instead deracinated means:
1. To pull out by the roots; uproot.
2. To displace from one's native or accustomed
environment.

Serendipity

Speed of time? Excuse me, but can I get some of what you're smoking? How would you define a concept like that?

Speed is defined in physics as "Distance traveled divided by the time of travel", so that would make time a derivative of it's self?

I guess nobody has four, which is why there is a word for it.

1. Absence of any form of political authority.
2. Political disorder and confusion.
3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

IT IS NOT *THEFT*!!!

It is copyright infringement. Plain and simple. I have not walked into the studio and taken the physical property of the artist. Still think its theft? Dictionary.com:

To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.

Copyright infringement doesn't meet all of those conditions. When I download something, I have not removed "every part of the property" -- you still have your copy, and so does the artist, the studio, etc.

So please, stop spreading the propoganda. It's not theft.