I can't believe so few people are aware of this. Way back in high school I remember the little label on the brush warning users not to sniff the polonium. Now I know what will happen.
Most terrorists, politicians, and journalists are woefully ignorant. Supermarkets, Home Depots, and many other common storefronts are rich sources of dangerous materials for those who are alert and do their homework.
Sure, terrorists exist, they are trying to cause damage, and they hit the jackpot on 9/11. Nevertheless, if you create a list of the 50 things in the world that are the greatest actual threats to humanity in terms of human morbidity and mortality, ecological and commercial damage, and general threats to human social well-being, you will find that terrorism is well down on the list.
The War on Terror does not and will not define our generation. Terrorism is an irritating pest that has caused and will continue to cause damage, but it does not merit the creation of a new Cold War-like military industrial complex, nor does it justify vastly subsidizing the petroleum industry, and it most certainly does not merit large-scale reductions in our historically hard-won freedoms and civil rights. The money spent so far on the War on Terror would have been much better spent on rebuilding US infrastructure, subsidizing alternative energy sources, creating water desalination plants, stimulating consumer-oriented tech industries, remediating salinized farmland, etc. There are many, many projects that would strengthen us much more as a nation and as a society than pretending that the War on Terror is some grand and worthwhile project on which to focus all of our attention, mortgage our economic future, and exterminate so many tens of thousands of lives.
In that sense, it is a lie. A deliberate, conscious, and well thought out lie.
It would be sappy and simple-minded to suggest that Larry is living a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, in spite of any claim that he is "happy." Such a person would be living a socially deprived life, and would not have direct experience of a vast panoply of human culture and physical reality. This could affect others in the way he votes, the manner in which he manages his dwelling and its interface with his neighbors, the evolution of his beliefs and their impact on his own life and health (and society's potential need to intervene), and many, many other circumstances.
To believe that access to things on the net is equivalent or even comparable to actual physical experience is ludicrous. It is this adolescent gee-whiz cheesy-scifi mentality that permeates all too much of Slashdot discussions. Grow up, life and the world that surrounds us simply cannot be fully appreciated through a web browser, a game interface, a mobile phone, a digital music player, or even a combination of all of those things, as this Larry story appears to suggest. If you believe otherwise, boy are you in deep shit. Comparable, even, to O'Reilly's grouchy old fart attitude, albeit on the other end of the spectrum.
It may seem absurd, idiotic, an assumed truth, or obvious, but one would need to define what part of reality is being discussed. Even from a physical science perspective, you need to specify what you are discussing, at what level (quantum mechanics? macromolecules? astrophysics? human scale?), and what sorts of things you will measure or observe to answer your questions.
I too am somewhat concerned about all the people walking down the street with their earplugs, oblivious to their surroundings. In O'Reilly's sense, they are partly disconnected from their surrounding human-scale reality. I have occasionally needed to get such people's attention, and it is a pain in the ass. I am implicitly being compelled to take a much more active part in a stranger's life to alert them of danger or of a lost possession, not because of something out of their control, but because they are reveling in their own personal pleasures. I'm not so empathetic about that.
Many have posted about what reality O'Reilly lives in, or what reality his "news" network presents to the world. O'Reilly would likely not accept as valid such questions, even though a cursory examination of his employer's broadcasts does yield quite a bit of information that is skewed, to say the least.
The question "what is reality?" is ages old and not answerable in any absolute sense. It is primarily fodder for interminable Philosophy 101 class discussions, and not always especially interesting or illuminating ones. It is relative to the observers and their shared frame of reference. Ultimately, O'Reilly may be jealous of frames of reference that people find much more interesting and compelling than his own.
Beware, folks, this sounds like disinformation. To make a hornet sized vehicle that can 1) fly for a useful amount of time and distance, 2) be remotely controllable (forget autonomous behavior for the next 20-50 years, at least in that size), 3) gather and store or transmit imagery and sound, and/or 4) attempt to "kill" a target is far beyond current technology.
Don't be so ready to believe the bullshit that they have all sorts of super-powerful super-secret technology. This disinformation is directed at ignorant and gullible political extremists and Third World generals.
I have always wondered how big a production budget the Direct-to-DVD model could support. In principle, an enormous number of small groups around the world have the resources and potential talent to at least produce one-off movies. With distribution such as Netflix, it is not difficult for consumers to find niche productions that may appeal to relatively small audiences. Unfortunately, this may also reduce the size of the production budget that can be supported.
Can anyone point me to articles where this is discussed, especially with an eye towards small productions? All of us filmmaker wannabes are dying to know.
I suppose the gist of my post wasn't clear. You are right, of course. My point is that there are many, many forms of spreadsheet out there already. For Bricklin to make another one with great fanfare is pointless, and starts to seem as if he has potential psychiatric issues involving spreadsheets.
I suspect that the heyday of porn on the net is passed. Gone are the days when people posted galleries of every pornographic image known to man and damn the copyrights. It is all pay to play now, except for some rather nasty free and "amateur" stuff, and I seriously doubt that many teenagers are forking over for pornsite subscriptions.
Of course, it depends on what you mean by "young people."
What fraction of slashdot readers, male or female, have spent more than US$100 in the past 24 months on internet porn?
If they do, even the most red-blooded Sun/Java-bashers would have to admit that this is close to the ballsiest thing Sun Microsystems has ever done. It isn't clear what's in it for them, unless they are now 100% confident that they can offer an extremely compelling Java platform on which they can make money.
But can they? Do they? How much of their income is highly Java-related?
Slashdot Mirror
Most terrorists, politicians, and journalists are woefully ignorant. Supermarkets, Home Depots, and many other common storefronts are rich sources of dangerous materials for those who are alert and do their homework.
The War on Terror does not and will not define our generation. Terrorism is an irritating pest that has caused and will continue to cause damage, but it does not merit the creation of a new Cold War-like military industrial complex, nor does it justify vastly subsidizing the petroleum industry, and it most certainly does not merit large-scale reductions in our historically hard-won freedoms and civil rights. The money spent so far on the War on Terror would have been much better spent on rebuilding US infrastructure, subsidizing alternative energy sources, creating water desalination plants, stimulating consumer-oriented tech industries, remediating salinized farmland, etc. There are many, many projects that would strengthen us much more as a nation and as a society than pretending that the War on Terror is some grand and worthwhile project on which to focus all of our attention, mortgage our economic future, and exterminate so many tens of thousands of lives.
In that sense, it is a lie. A deliberate, conscious, and well thought out lie.
To believe that access to things on the net is equivalent or even comparable to actual physical experience is ludicrous. It is this adolescent gee-whiz cheesy-scifi mentality that permeates all too much of Slashdot discussions. Grow up, life and the world that surrounds us simply cannot be fully appreciated through a web browser, a game interface, a mobile phone, a digital music player, or even a combination of all of those things, as this Larry story appears to suggest. If you believe otherwise, boy are you in deep shit. Comparable, even, to O'Reilly's grouchy old fart attitude, albeit on the other end of the spectrum.
I too am somewhat concerned about all the people walking down the street with their earplugs, oblivious to their surroundings. In O'Reilly's sense, they are partly disconnected from their surrounding human-scale reality. I have occasionally needed to get such people's attention, and it is a pain in the ass. I am implicitly being compelled to take a much more active part in a stranger's life to alert them of danger or of a lost possession, not because of something out of their control, but because they are reveling in their own personal pleasures. I'm not so empathetic about that.
Many have posted about what reality O'Reilly lives in, or what reality his "news" network presents to the world. O'Reilly would likely not accept as valid such questions, even though a cursory examination of his employer's broadcasts does yield quite a bit of information that is skewed, to say the least.
The question "what is reality?" is ages old and not answerable in any absolute sense. It is primarily fodder for interminable Philosophy 101 class discussions, and not always especially interesting or illuminating ones. It is relative to the observers and their shared frame of reference. Ultimately, O'Reilly may be jealous of frames of reference that people find much more interesting and compelling than his own.
Don't be so ready to believe the bullshit that they have all sorts of super-powerful super-secret technology. This disinformation is directed at ignorant and gullible political extremists and Third World generals.
Can anyone point me to articles where this is discussed, especially with an eye towards small productions? All of us filmmaker wannabes are dying to know.
I suppose the gist of my post wasn't clear. You are right, of course. My point is that there are many, many forms of spreadsheet out there already. For Bricklin to make another one with great fanfare is pointless, and starts to seem as if he has potential psychiatric issues involving spreadsheets.
Even on the net.
Don't be such a prude, or perhaps feign innocence. Embrace it.
I'm 16 today too! And only for the second time.
OK, OK, it was a great invention, but STOP for your own good!
Of course, it depends on what you mean by "young people."
What fraction of slashdot readers, male or female, have spent more than US$100 in the past 24 months on internet porn?
But can they? Do they? How much of their income is highly Java-related?