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The item serves well as a caricature of most "embedded Linux" stories here. This problem could be solved with a microcontroller that costs at most couple of dimes, with a few K of code. Using Linux (with a multi-meg kernel and umpty-megahertz processor) is an absurd waste of resources for this application, and a offense to decent engineering sensbility.

Is it really a good idea to project an image of I-don't-care bloatware, Linux-uber-alles insensibility, Linux just because it's Linux despite the application?

Atually I quite like that "word", copywrite :) It could be the official caricature for copyright.

In fact one of the characters in the philosophical (and scientific) book of Galileo explaining his heliocentric theories was supposed (allegedly or not, no one knows) to be caricaturing the pope. The character was the one asking simple question, as it is often the fact in a philosophical dialog (He was called Simplifio IIRC) So, a trial was made to forbid his book and every theory it contains. So, it is true that the trial wasn't intented just for theological questions, but only for vatican's politics and that it happened to forbid the propagation of a valid political theory, which makes the grand parent insightful even if slightly biaised if you don't know the facts.

If you're not in the shoes of the offended person, there's no need to mock. If 500,000 people (or even 1000) are like me and holding back on BSD because of the controversial logo, then why not change it?

What "everyone knows" is marketing hype. Everyone non-technical "knows" that Microsoft is the greatest software company around.

Don't you believe it!

Only someone who has used MS-WINDOWS, *and* some of the alternatives, can tell you much about whether MS-WINDOWS is a great product.

Likewise when it comes to what "everyone knows" about the BSDs, or UNIX-like systems, or the GNU/LINUX operating systems, ...

The usual party line about "BSD is the one" is generally given by GNU/LINUX people who have never booted a BSD (but who, unlike MS people, at least have heard of the BSDs), or by someone who has an agenda other than truly informing their audience.

Reality tends to be more complex than slogans and caricatures and marketing.

This is, of course, a very inaccurate characterization of the so-called Sokal Affair. Wikipedia does much better, as usual.

A more accurate characterization is that Sokal, through deliberate fraud,and playing on his legitimate reputation within physics, got the _Social Text_ editors to publish an article that they themselves did not think was of high quality. But the editors felt that allowing a professional physicist to publish positions--which they presumed he was expressing, because he said exactly such--informed by his background in Physics.

It's true that LitCrit professor are not physicists. Nor do/did they claim to be. They deferred to someone who really was in a position to share expert knowledge, and put it in a context of postmodernist theory.

I am a legitimate expert in a number of things, for example. I could certainly get journals or magazines concerned with other subjects to publish my deliberately misleading characterizations of those subjects I know, particularly if they were journals in other areas that had an interest in cross-discipline discussion. So what? You can lie and deceive, and still get published. Big deal!

It's true that Sokal doesn't really understand modern science studies and postmodernism. But the crude caricature he's formed of the area is unlike his simple, traditional and positivistic notions of science. And for whatever reason, it was easier for him to get a big chip on his shoulder than it was to learn about another area of knowledge. Hence the whole affair.

Women in videogames are pretty much 100% fantasy. Waists so thin they can wear a wedding ring as a belt, breasts so huge that no material existing today could truly contain their gravity, and of course, so much jiggle that any real woman would be unable to maintain her balance. Oh yeah, and no depth. They just kill things, or look pretty (or both).

Yes, because MEN in videogames are so realistic! It's not like they have stupidly large muscles or anything, is it? It's not like the veins are basically bursting free of their limbs at all, right? And hey, the men in videogames have so much depth! It's not like they just kill things, right?

Videogame characters are caricatures. Female, male, it makes no difference. The attempt to paint it as some sort of anti-female crusade is just baseless politics. Ignore it.

Considering most political parties (except UKIP but they barley exist) are rabidly pro euro who's spreading the lies? not labour, conservatives, or Lib dems? Don't make the mistake of presuming that because people question the EU that they are rabidly opposed to it, by believing what you want to believe and not asking legitimate questions you allow undemocratic principals to creep in and the EU is undemocratic enough.

Lemme guess you are british right? At least this sounds like exactly the kind of drivel people get spoonfed over on the other side of the channel.

Let me guess your American and presume that any questioning of authority or an idea is rejection of that authority or idea, after all that's the sort off ("get with the programme, suck it up") drivel you get spoon fed across the channel*.

Your statement shows you to be as ignorant and bigoted as the original poster you replied to.

* That statement is as accurate johannesg's original i.e. a not at all accurate caricature perpetuated by ignorance and the occasional appearance of someone who fit's the stereotype perfectly.

You are correct in the interpretation of the OR rather than AND; however, this does not further the opposing argument. Any of the following are considered cartoons according to Webster.

1. a preparatory design, drawing, or painting (as for a fresco)

This is a simplification of a drawing for planning purposes.

OR
2 a : a drawing intended as satire, caricature, or humor b : COMIC STRIP

Here we see the traditional definition including satire and humor and the additional item of caricature.

OR
3 : ANIMATED CARTOON

This is entirely self-referential. An animated cartoon may be referred to as a cartoon. That's nice, but it does not tell us anything about the nature of cartoons, only that animated cartoons exist, which we know.

OR
4 : a ludicrously simplistic, unrealistic, or one-dimensional portrayal or version (the film's villain is an entertaining cartoon).

Again, we see the satirical angle, particularly with respect to political and dark humor. Humor does not have to be funny.

So, that leaves zero definitions that imply that all animation is cartoon. As it should be.

-Hope

cartoon Pronunciation Key (kär-tn) n.

....1.
........1. A drawing depicting a humorous situation, often accompanied by a caption.
........2. A drawing representing current public figures or issues symbolically and often satirically: a political cartoon.
....2. A preliminary sketch similar in size to the work, such as a fresco, that is to be copied from it.
....3. An animated cartoon.
....4. A comic strip.
....5. A ridiculously oversimplified or stereotypical representation: criticized the actor's portrayal of Jefferson as a historically inaccurate cartoon.

v. cartooned, cartooning, cartoons
v. tr.

....To draw a humorous or satirical representation of; caricature.

v. intr.
....To make humorous or satirical drawings.

Actually, not al anime is a cartoon. From the webster online dictionary, a cartoon is a "a drawing intended as satire, caricature, or humor". Not all anime is intended to be that way. Some of them are drawn realistically. Would you consider the paintings of Da Vinci cartoons? Of course not. The same applies to lots of anime shows and movies. And since anime is a medium rather than a genre, it would be better to call it animation.

Just my two cents.

but the only Japanese cartoon

Metropolis was not a CARicature tune. It also was an inferior effort (even the century-old original was better).

Paula: Can you grab my purse.
George: Yeah.( reaches for the purse and finds a piece of paper . he looks annoyed.
Monks , next day .George showing Jerry the piece of paper he picked up
Jerry: Yeah! So
George; Don't you see what this is?
Jerry: Yeah! It's a doodle.
George: Yeah!, a doodle of me...look at the size of the nose , the ears, all my features are distorted.
Jerry: Oh!.It's an affectionate caricature.
George: I'm grotesque . I look like a troll.
Jerry: It's just a drawing.
George: Don't you see what this says? How can you possibly like somebody ,if you think they look like this?

I would disagree. You omitted the last part of the statement : "except not live in a prison state". In essence, you seem to be saying that if your cage is comfy enough, that is "free". Think of it a different way: mandelbrot set.

Mandelbrot is too abstract for me. Another answer I considered is that your prison state is an absolute monarchy, where only one has that freedom, since the total freedom of choice of one interferes with the freedom of choice of any other.

Since I do happen to live in a real world monarchy: the metaphor of the golden cage is common here, the monarch being the one person who is categorically denied his freedom of speech by the constitution. The monarch also doesn't vote, cannot choose his own career etc. The subjects cage the monarch, and the monarch is there to be a symbolic caged master because the people never could decide on another master.

One of the things I learned from Ofra Bengio's book "Saddam's Word", is that Saddam's rule was not Orwellian in character. Saddam was there because he was the strongest warlord, and the people are divided. Hitler could never have become a communist. Saddam could easily switch from being a pan-arabic nationalist to being a fake muslim fanatic. Saddam was an absolute monarch.

A Christian Fundamentalist Totalitarian State might seem more free if you happen to be of that mindset.

Indeed. Since freedom interferes with the freedom of others, there is only a limited amount of it that everyone can have at the same time. The trick is to align it with what people generally want. Most people can live with the restriction that they cannot interfere with the physical integrity, and honor and dignity of other people, for instance. Some can't.

To some freedom is a democracy, to others a theocracy, monarchy, or communist state. Others want to be a Nazi executioner. Democracy does not help those who fail to recognize what the viable options are, and fail to recognize who really is their master. Democracy, free market rhetoric, and libertarianism make very strong assumptions about people's autonomy. Liberalism (in the European sense, and including Kuyper's political calvinism) and socialism assume that people first have to be liberated by educating them before they recognize their true interests.

If Kuyper were right, no oppressive empires would have ever been made. You underestimate the power of bread and circuses backed by the threat of force.

Within his own frame of reference, Kuyper, who was a calvinist political leader and philosopher, is still right. He would note that the people cannot free themselves because of their own moral defects. Because the citizens of those oppressive empires weren't true calvinists. To oppress true calvinists indefinitely you would have to take their bible, and that would have to happen first. Human nature as it really is, is not part of his equation. People get the government they deserve. Other types of liberals and socialists would have a similar answer on how to 'safeguard the revolution'. The true marxist revolution will come when a people is ready for it.

You can't escape this problem by having no state. That's not freedom, but a Hobbesian state of nature where anyone can be your master. In Somalia you aren't free, even though there is no state.

*insert Orwellian comment here*

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- George Orwell

Even the Catholic church could never end truth. It is always there to be rediscovered, when the people are ready. At any time, some people will feel oppressed while others feel mostly free to do what they want. Orwell's state exists only as a caricature, that is as much a description of the democratic world we live in as it is descriptive of the Soviet Union, or medieval Europe. We make caricatures of our enemies.

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. -- George Orwell

For people with an Orwellian outlook this site by an intelligent lunatic is wonderful. It explains why democracy, human rights, liberalism, libertarianism, and the free market are totalitarian. To him at least.

Well, the Farscape ref was just thrown in because I wish that was still around... I could have said Firefly or American Gothic or any other show that was cancelled before its time.

As for Stargate - I just don't get the love affair most people have with it. It was fine for the first couple of seasons, but then they just turned into a parody of themselves. R.D. Anderson gave up all pretence at even turning in a performance and started hamming it up without a care in the world (and the writer's actually started writing for that "Acting" style!). The other actor's pretty much became caricatures of themselves too.

I hate to say it, but it is pretty much what happened with Friends. Another show that was wildly popular despite being relatively subpar for its genre, but with one of the biggest budgets. In Friends, by about the 3rd or 4th season, the characters had also become caricatures of themselves and the whole show revolved around their trademark expressions or looks.

When a show does that, it loses my interest. I went from enjoying Stargate enough to forgive them the fact that all human societies throughout the galaxy speak modern American English (apart from seasons 1-2), to actively disliking it, to loathing it everytime I see it start.

Of course, that's just my opinion :) (I understand others love it, and hate Enterprise and Farscape, but I'm trying to provide a little balance to the groupthink).

God, people like you make me want to puke. Your unabashed cynicism, backed up by NOT ONE single reference, but rather a horrid, confusing mess of paranoia and hatred, is like someone punching me in the throat repeatedly every time I read it.

I have a hard time believing that even someone as mind fuckingly insane as YOU can honestly believe that, because you dislike Microsoft Windows, donating money to VACCINATING CHILDREN is somehow ALSO BAD. Good lord, you are a disgusting caricature.

No, we liberals keep loosing elections because, as Plato said

"If you allow the people to choose their rulers they will elect fools and naives"

In this particular case, we seem to have rolled these two undesirable caricatures into one candidate and elected him President.

Sim, Coelha. I saw your site and found a link to her blog there. After that I managed to found you in her Orkut listing. I am Victor Bogado (the funny caricature) on her list.

I searched a little to find the temperature. But I am not sure about if it was a min/max or a mean. Can't remember, I would have put 40C, but I wasn't sure about it, so I checked. As I remember that day was not the hottest one, it was somewhat cloudy and it may have rained. But I wound't trust in my memory if I were you. :-D

I agree with a couple of posts here in that the direction that non-EA sports game producers should take now is more of a fantasy tack. Forget using real stars and real names. Maybe don't even use ALL the real rules. How about getting back to *fun*, folks? Get creative, maybe? Here's one- Invent a networkable baseball game that uses all the modern 3D technology but has invented, larger-than-life characters with a certain amount of personality. (Remember the movie "Major League"?) Hire a good writer to create the characters and scripts maybe, and some B-movie actors to do voiceovers. Perhaps even have players that reflect sports in-jokes, something to grab the baseball fan gamer. (What pulls you in better than a joke about something that you know not everyone knows?) Caricatured players, caricatured game play. Maybe have a guy who can jump 6 feet in the air, or other such "slightly enhanced" human abilities. Let EA handle the "realistic simulation" market.

I would buy this kind of game in a second.

(On a related note, I wish that media producers would stop trying to pander to EVERYONE and would focus on a certain demographic that would then become rabid (and ever-purchasing) fans... I'm thinking, when is the last time a really good, and I mean really creatively good, hard sci-fi movie came out? Make a movie based on a Vernor Vinge novel or something, for God's sakes! But that's just my own lament...)

In "Call of Cthulhu" our beloved leader is described in the following way: It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. from http://www.cthulhu.org/cthulhu/