You assume that the New York Times and other 'content creators' are doing us a favour by allowing us to read their work 'for free'. It's actually the reverse. We are doing them a favour by reading their articles (or listening to their music). Attention given to 'content', and *not* the content itself, is the currency of today's world (as pioneered by advertising on 'free media' - such as television). If someone wants to engage my attention by writing something, then 1) it better be good and 2) it better be offered freely with *no strings attached* otherwise i'm not there. End of story.
While you may have been lucky and escaped the Sobig.E virus, unfortunately it appears that you have been infected with the 'affective disorder' virus.
This cunning virus sniffs all your outgoing email and replaces 'affect' with 'effect' and vice versa. So while we know that you wrote "We got lucky this time and were not affected...", this malicious virus made it appear on slashdot as though you are 'affectively disordered'.
Daniel, my other post under your comment was of course a trollish parody of english-centrism. In truth I love the plurality of languages on the planet (I'm a linguistics student) and I very much appreciate people who provide summaries or translations of foreign language articles like yourself.
I'm sick and tired of articles about interesting things happening in Germany being written in German. Every German I've ever met spoke perfect English, so why can't you guys just drop the parochial attitude and start publishing all your stuff in God's Own Tongue?
p.s. Is it true that the reason that Germans have no sense of humor is due to the fact that part of their ancestry includes Black Forest trolls?
i've read both close to the machine and cryptonbloodywhateveritwascalled. ullman's book was well written and insightful. stephenson's book would be close to the worst book i've ever finished. i cannot imagine why you would categorise the two together, unless it's because of this 'us geeks' nonsense.
'us geeks' indeed - care to step out side an urge to run with a pack and think for yourself for a minute?
For every person making a vote based off of research, analysis, and careful consideration of the candidates, you have a guy like this flipping the coin and cancelling out your vote.
elitist nonsense - pluribus assumes he has a monopoly on careful consideration and rational anaylsis
1) Gravity isn't a "big insurmountable". Mars gravity would be just fine for colonists.
Gravity is insurmountable. It is directly related to the mass of the planet. While simulation of gravity by "centrifugal force" may be possible in space-craft it is not remotely practical for planet exploration and habitation. Most medical problems experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts are directly related to weak gravity conditions.
2) The "solvable" extreme pressure and heat also exists on Jupiter. "Solvable" != economically feasible. How exactly do you propose to "solve" these problems?
There are two types of planets in our solar systems, small rocky planets and gas giants. Bringing in Jupiter as an analogue to Venus is just plain silly
Solved in the short term by structures that are structurally engineered to resist extreme pressure and heat on the outside while maintaining liveable conditions on the inside. As I noted, the Earth's oceans constitute a valuable test environment for such structures, as does space itself.
Solved in the long term by climate engineering and terra-forming. This is more achievable than changing the mass of the planet.
3) Venus is not "much more interesting". It's a dead rock. Mars, from the standpoint of history, is much more interesting.
Highly debatable. For evidence of life on Venus see the recent New Scientist story "Venus' Atmosphere Implies Life" discussed here on slashdot.
4) You're an idiot.
The puerile mindset of the poster demonstrated by this ad hominem attack immediately reduces the respect paid to any counter-argument the poster may choose to put up. I was highly reluctant to pay respect to such a comment by replying. I won't do so for any future replies from this poster.
sorry, i was prob. being too pedantic, as i guess that your term "female samurai" was meant as shorthand ofr 'female member of a samurai house or family"
your throat-slitting information is backed up by this quote:
Seppuku - Ritual suicide: the act of killing one's self by slitting open his belly. Possibly first carried out by Minamoto Yorimasa in 1180, seppuku came to be the 'official' manner of suicide for a samurai, and was prohibited for all other classes. In time, seppuku came to take on religious connotations, but in essence the exceedingly painful manner of dying it brought was a mark of grime pride to the samurai-a final test of his bravery. By the 16th Century a 'second' (or KAISHAKU) had been added to the ritual, to limit the amount of suffering the samurai who was to die would experience. When a female member of a samurai house committed seppuku, she almost always did so by slitting her own throat.
to my (limited) knowledge there was no tradition of female samurais as such - i.e. warriors - although there might have been the odd historical exception
why venus should be the focus of colonisation efforts, not mars
gravity is the big insurmountable - venus's gravity is much closer to earth than mars
extreme pressure and heat are problems that are solvable with engineering - and we have the bottome of the earth's ocean as a practice environment
venus is a much more interesting planet
finally, make love (venus) not war (mars)
Re:The Language of Shakespeare in danger
on
SCO SCO SCO!
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· Score: 1
That exact analogy had also occured to me.
Allowing corporations 'ownership' of software is as ridiculous as alloing 'ownership' of language. When we use software on a computer we are as much immersed in it's mode of expression as we are as when we use language in the real world. To allow an organisation 'ownership' of this expressive medium is immoral.
Not that even language has been immune from this immorality. Look at trademarks and other such language landgrabs.
imagine the ultimate cellphone - one that charges the battery every time it rings/vibrates, hence promising extended talktimes, and giving operators all the more reasons to get their customers to use their devices.
what an orgy of double-entendres! - for those who can think of other ways to make use of vibrating cellphones, you might like to read about purring kitty, recently developed software to make your cellphone vibrate at length and at call
There is a rather major difference between the situation you describe in the 70's and the situation now - in those days the source code was still controlled by the hardware manufacturer (IBM, Amdahl etc), and any patches you submitted became part of their 'intellectual property' (to use that corporate-mindset word).
Now major software such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, Samba, MySQL etc are under licenses that effectively keep access to the codebase open and free from any ultimate control by one single entity, i.e. the 'hostage' situation has been defused.
Run screaming from any real responsibility to another human being.
predictable, clichéd response
at the risk of replying to some sort of troll-bot let me point out that being responsible might entail:
noticing that the world is already a pretty crowded place
thinking very seriously about whether you want children before you do it rather than five years down the track - parenthood is a lot more 'real' than marriage. Remember that as a male, you will not just be making your partner a mother but yourself into a father. Think about all that role entails and whether you really think you'll be good at it. This means looking seriously at your own track record in nurturing and being there for other people, not just romantic delusions about how good you will be for 'my kids'.
Slashdot Mirror
Linus :
Curious mathematical idea, but lovely rhetoric.
Annoyed by your goody-two-shoes post.
Here's why your thinking is mediocre and wrong.
You assume that the New York Times and other 'content creators' are doing us a favour by allowing us to read their work 'for free'. It's actually the reverse. We are doing them a favour by reading their articles (or listening to their music). Attention given to 'content', and *not* the content itself, is the currency of today's world (as pioneered by advertising on 'free media' - such as television). If someone wants to engage my attention by writing something, then 1) it better be good and 2) it better be offered freely with *no strings attached* otherwise i'm not there. End of story.
While you may have been lucky and escaped the Sobig.E virus, unfortunately it appears that you have been infected with the 'affective disorder' virus.
This cunning virus sniffs all your outgoing email and replaces 'affect' with 'effect' and vice versa. So while we know that you wrote "We got lucky this time and were not affected...", this malicious virus made it appear on slashdot as though you are 'affectively disordered'.
nice comment dan
Daniel, my other post under your comment was of course a trollish parody of english-centrism. In truth I love the plurality of languages on the planet (I'm a linguistics student) and I very much appreciate people who provide summaries or translations of foreign language articles like yourself.
More details (in German): heise.de
I'm sick and tired of articles about interesting things happening in Germany being written in German. Every German I've ever met spoke perfect English, so why can't you guys just drop the parochial attitude and start publishing all your stuff in God's Own Tongue?
p.s. Is it true that the reason that Germans have no sense of humor is due to the fact that part of their ancestry includes Black Forest trolls?
comprehensive (although not updated for 2003)
links page to articles in the media on
Professor Alan Snyder and the Centre for the Mind here
please.
i've read both close to the machine and cryptonbloodywhateveritwascalled. ullman's book was well written and insightful. stephenson's book would be close to the worst book i've ever finished. i cannot imagine why you would categorise the two together, unless it's because of this 'us geeks' nonsense.
'us geeks' indeed - care to step out side an urge to run with a pack and think for yourself for a minute?
insertion perhaps?
nice post - i've thought about the topic using the same terminology - pimps and whores - for a while now - you fleshed out the argument well
Gravity is insurmountable. It is directly related to the mass of the planet. While simulation of gravity by "centrifugal force" may be possible in space-craft it is not remotely practical for planet exploration and habitation. Most medical problems experienced by cosmonauts and astronauts are directly related to weak gravity conditions.
There are two types of planets in our solar systems, small rocky planets and gas giants. Bringing in Jupiter as an analogue to Venus is just plain silly
Solved in the short term by structures that are structurally engineered to resist extreme pressure and heat on the outside while maintaining liveable conditions on the inside. As I noted, the Earth's oceans constitute a valuable test environment for such structures, as does space itself.
Solved in the long term by climate engineering and terra-forming. This is more achievable than changing the mass of the planet.
Highly debatable. For evidence of life on Venus see the recent New Scientist story "Venus' Atmosphere Implies Life" discussed here on slashdot.
The puerile mindset of the poster demonstrated by this ad hominem attack immediately reduces the respect paid to any counter-argument the poster may choose to put up. I was highly reluctant to pay respect to such a comment by replying. I won't do so for any future replies from this poster.
sorry, i was prob. being too pedantic, as i guess that your term "female samurai" was meant as shorthand ofr 'female member of a samurai house or family"
:
your throat-slitting information is backed up by this quote
Seppuku - Ritual suicide: the act of killing one's self by slitting open his belly. Possibly first carried out by Minamoto Yorimasa in 1180, seppuku came to be the 'official' manner of suicide for a samurai, and was prohibited for all other classes. In time, seppuku came to take on religious connotations, but in essence the exceedingly painful manner of dying it brought was a mark of grime pride to the samurai-a final test of his bravery. By the 16th Century a 'second' (or KAISHAKU) had been added to the ritual, to limit the amount of suffering the samurai who was to die would experience. When a female member of a samurai house committed seppuku, she almost always did so by slitting her own throat.
from here
to my (limited) knowledge there was no tradition of female samurais as such - i.e. warriors - although there might have been the odd historical exception
as opposed to female samurai?
why venus should be the focus of colonisation efforts, not mars
That exact analogy had also occured to me.
Allowing corporations 'ownership' of software is as ridiculous as alloing 'ownership' of language. When we use software on a computer we are as much immersed in it's mode of expression as we are as when we use language in the real world. To allow an organisation 'ownership' of this expressive medium is immoral.
Not that even language has been immune from this immorality. Look at trademarks and other such language landgrabs.
nice posts
now, how's the hamlet coming along?
This graph shows MS stock has slid 3-4% over just the last week versus the DOW and NASDAQ.
Well, I don't know the exact breakdown, but I believe that it is a rather over-complex system, but which seems to work well...
...[Highly detailed answer]...
...[more highly detailed answer]...
...As I say, I don't really know the specifics, but that's more or less how it works.
~ ~ ~Tell me, have you ever noticed people chewing off their own arms in boredom when you do know the specifics? Or sinking in to a catatonic trance?
No really, that was fascinating, and you have confirmed all my preconceptions about german people :)
what an orgy of double-entendres! - for those who can think of other ways to make use of vibrating cellphones, you might like to read about purring kitty, recently developed software to make your cellphone vibrate at length and at call
cool pic, thanks
the equation can be found here
(link found on page with java demo linked to in parent comment - thanks!)
There is a rather major difference between the situation you describe in the 70's and the situation now - in those days the source code was still controlled by the hardware manufacturer (IBM, Amdahl etc), and any patches you submitted became part of their 'intellectual property' (to use that corporate-mindset word).
Now major software such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, Samba, MySQL etc are under licenses that effectively keep access to the codebase open and free from any ultimate control by one single entity, i.e. the 'hostage' situation has been defused.
and I said they were, where exactly?
your condescending arrogance makes itself known.
Nice idea. And by the way, at this point the term still belongs completely to you.
Anyone feel like doing a bit of googlewashing?
predictable, clichéd response
at the risk of replying to some sort of troll-bot let me point out that being responsible might entail :