Well, my first computer with any Microsoft software on it was my fourth computer. What bought computing to the masses (in the UK at least) was cheap hardware -- the Amstrad 1512/1640 in the UK, although Acorn and Tandy/Radio Shack gave them a tough run for their money in the early days (Commodore and Atari were seen more as games machines here)..
But climate gate WAS something. Science consists of observable phenomena, and a theories on what that would mean, and experiments that test that theory with more observable phenomena.
Correct.
When the gatekeepers of climate change are shown to actively punish and censor those who do not agree with their findings, control what journals can publish, stone wall others from being able to have the data (related to observable phenomena) to be able to duplicate what they have found. Then even going beyond this and destroying that data and sticking with "you will just have to believe us." Then that is not science.
Correct. But absolutely none of that happened in Climategate. All that happened was that some journalists didn't understand how they were reconciling two datasets -- specifically, that they were quite correctly preferring direct measurement to indirect measurement.
If you watch the report (yes, yes, I know) you will find that they do face deportation. The GPS tags are presumably to make sure the authorities can find them when the ticket is arranged, and is probably cheaper and more humane than keeping them incarcerated.
There's scope for a further diplomatic row, though, about whether the US did all it could to prevent the scam. Others have said that the students should have checked that the university was legitimate, but it was listed on the SEVIS database as legitimate which is about as much of a check as they could realistically do from India. I bet the US government will get its taxes from the fake university before the students get their money back, so the government will be seen to be benefiting from the scam.
While there have been a few changes in the last 400 years, none have been as dramatic as changes made in previous periods.
We now teach the English language in this crazy notion of schools everyone can attend which was unheard of as the language was transforming from old to middle English, and middle to modern English.
And the English I was taught in school is not the English my children were taught in school. I was taught a lot of complexities of grammar that are now considered unnatural and unnecessary. And that's ignoring the fact that most language use is phatic, not ideational (I've seen estimates as high as 90% of language use being phatic), and many phatic uses do require changes in lexis for established items within a language community.
I could go on and on about things like the Great English Vowel Shift, which accounts for what appears to be strange spelling of some modern words but is really spelling related to older pronunciations
Not so much the great vowel shift, because that tended to carry the spellings with it (the sound represented by 'a' changed, but the new sound was still represented by 'a'), although it does account for a lot of the difference between vowel sounds in different parts of the UK. Most of the spelling inconsistencies were due either to differences between the languages that influenced English or due to the printers deliberately obfusticating the spellings so that only they could do it right. There's a case for de-obfusticating those spellings and bringing the foreign spellings into English form, something Webster went part-way with in the USA but which hasn't really happened in the UK to the same extent.
However, I doubt that's necessary as I'm sure you did quite a bit of research before making your comment.
Does a first-class honours degree in English language count as "quite a bit of research"?
I understand (although I am not a lawyer etc.) that certain things normally illegal are legal when acting under the orders of a uniformed police officer. If the officer carrying out the order is not uniformed then that situation might arise. (I don't think murder is one of those things, though.)
I'm not convinced it's getting worse, actually. It's just that we're now seeing a lot of stuff written by people who wouldn't have written anything before, or if they did we wouldn't have seen it. Writing with misspellings and homophone substitution is an improvement in literacy compared to not writing at all.
Most of them. Certainly the Skype one is; it trashes the look of websites by putting the skype icon next to almost any string of numbers whether it's a phone number or not, and it's completely unnecessary for using Skype.
During the Tudor and Stuart periods (1485 - 1714), the Stationers were legally empowered to seize "offending books" that violated the standards of content set by the Church and State; its officers could bring "offenders" before ecclesiastical authorities, including the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.
You do understand the distinction between censorship and copyright, don't you?
Indeed. They're the ones who originally promoted the whole idea of copyright. They wanted to keep control of the Bible, stop people from making unauthorized copies.
[citation needed]
I always understood the Statute of Anne to be about protecting the vested interests of publishers sympathetic to the crown. And anyway, Queen Anne was a protestant, not a Catholic, so Catholic lobbying is unlikely to have been effective.
There's no such thing in technology as "100% reliable". It needs to be as safe as the current system (because it offers potential benefits in time and fuel efficiency) -- probably rather safer to overcome resistance to handing over responsibility for safety (most people will accept more risk if they perceive that they control the risk ourself than they will accept if they perceive somebody else to be controlling the risk). But not "100%" reliable.
However, I don't know why you think I need to "learn to see past some of [my] prejudices" and I can't see where I called "our benefit system 'generous'". Maybe that was somebody else.
It was aimed more at PhotoBoy, who seems to think that having mobile phones and computers means that they're taking the piss. I bought a mobile phone a couple of months ago for 99p (about US$1.60); it was locked in to a rather poor tariff, but for calling toll-free DWP numbers and for emergency contact it would be fine.
Unfortunately the welfare services also conflate "chavs" and "seriously disadvantaged" people. It would be discrimination to distinguish between the deserving poor and the undeserving, and the State cannot be seen to discriminate.
The state can't be seen to discriminate (much) between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, but it can be seen to discriminate between those who are genuinely poor and those who are taking the piss.
For what it's worth, those on benefits pretty much have to have mobile phones, because they need them to deal with the Department of Work and Pensions. I went with somebody to the job centre earlier this week to try to sort out a change of circumstances relating to their job-seeker's allowance, only to discover that it can't be done in person, only by telephone. A pay-as-you-go telephone is probably the most cost-effective way to do it (it was about a 30 minute call, and the number was free from most mobile phone networks). That person also has a MacBook, left over from better times, which he uses to search for jobs using free wifi hotspots. He doesn't have a car, but if he had one he would be reluctant to get rid of it because most of the jobs he finds advertised either require a car for the job or are in locations that are hard to get to by public transport.
If you look past the relatively few high-visibility "chavs" and actually get to know some of the many who are genuinely struggling you might learn to see past some of your prejudices. When a friend has been embarrassed at you calling round because they've got no food at all in the house, because their benefits haven't been paid for a month, because two branches of the Department of Work and Pensions can't talk to each other, and they haven't eaten for three days, and by the way, they're diabetic (yes, that happened to me last year), you might be a bit slower to call our benefit system "generous", and might realise that our benefit system isn't quite as the Daily Mail pretends it is.
The problem is that a one hit wonder gets annoying after a few weeks of overexposure. Remember when Titanic was in theaters and EVERY radio station played 'My Heart will go on' sometimes at the same time?
Um... you might find Celine Dion annoying, but with 9 US and 12 UK top-ten hits she's hardly a "one-hit wonder".
Slashdot Mirror
Well, my first computer with any Microsoft software on it was my fourth computer. What bought computing to the masses (in the UK at least) was cheap hardware -- the Amstrad 1512/1640 in the UK, although Acorn and Tandy/Radio Shack gave them a tough run for their money in the early days (Commodore and Atari were seen more as games machines here)..
But climate gate WAS something. Science consists of observable phenomena, and a theories on what that would mean, and experiments that test that theory with more observable phenomena.
Correct.
When the gatekeepers of climate change are shown to actively punish and censor those who do not agree with their findings, control what journals can publish, stone wall others from being able to have the data (related to observable phenomena) to be able to duplicate what they have found. Then even going beyond this and destroying that data and sticking with "you will just have to believe us." Then that is not science.
Correct. But absolutely none of that happened in Climategate. All that happened was that some journalists didn't understand how they were reconciling two datasets -- specifically, that they were quite correctly preferring direct measurement to indirect measurement.
If you watch the report (yes, yes, I know) you will find that they do face deportation. The GPS tags are presumably to make sure the authorities can find them when the ticket is arranged, and is probably cheaper and more humane than keeping them incarcerated. There's scope for a further diplomatic row, though, about whether the US did all it could to prevent the scam. Others have said that the students should have checked that the university was legitimate, but it was listed on the SEVIS database as legitimate which is about as much of a check as they could realistically do from India. I bet the US government will get its taxes from the fake university before the students get their money back, so the government will be seen to be benefiting from the scam.
And everybody on Facebook knows all of their "friends" by sight, don't they? And all photos on Facebook are correctly tagged...
That isn't your dpi. If you have 2560 x 1600 on a seven inch netbook screen it will be high dpi. If you have it on a stadium display it won't be.
While there have been a few changes in the last 400 years, none have been as dramatic as changes made in previous periods.
We now teach the English language in this crazy notion of schools everyone can attend which was unheard of as the language was transforming from old to middle English, and middle to modern English.
And the English I was taught in school is not the English my children were taught in school. I was taught a lot of complexities of grammar that are now considered unnatural and unnecessary. And that's ignoring the fact that most language use is phatic, not ideational (I've seen estimates as high as 90% of language use being phatic), and many phatic uses do require changes in lexis for established items within a language community.
I could go on and on about things like the Great English Vowel Shift, which accounts for what appears to be strange spelling of some modern words but is really spelling related to older pronunciations
Not so much the great vowel shift, because that tended to carry the spellings with it (the sound represented by 'a' changed, but the new sound was still represented by 'a'), although it does account for a lot of the difference between vowel sounds in different parts of the UK. Most of the spelling inconsistencies were due either to differences between the languages that influenced English or due to the printers deliberately obfusticating the spellings so that only they could do it right. There's a case for de-obfusticating those spellings and bringing the foreign spellings into English form, something Webster went part-way with in the USA but which hasn't really happened in the UK to the same extent.
However, I doubt that's necessary as I'm sure you did quite a bit of research before making your comment.
Does a first-class honours degree in English language count as "quite a bit of research"?
I understand (although I am not a lawyer etc.) that certain things normally illegal are legal when acting under the orders of a uniformed police officer. If the officer carrying out the order is not uniformed then that situation might arise. (I don't think murder is one of those things, though.)
You missed the "unless the officer should have had reason to reject the order" bit.
So I take it you still speak the English of Beowulf? After all, theodcyninga [1] are still theodcyninga (although there are not as many about).
[1] The "th" should be a thorn, but /. doesn't seem to be able to render that.
It adapts to a changing environment. That's evolution.
Sure, now if we could just get the little darlings to find the "Shift" key occasionally and maybe toss in a period or comma now and again ...
Oh, please, no! Txtspk serves a purpose, but please not 1337!
Actually they can spell just fine, just not the variety of English that we use. This is how language evolves.
I'm not convinced it's getting worse, actually. It's just that we're now seeing a lot of stuff written by people who wouldn't have written anything before, or if they did we wouldn't have seen it. Writing with misspellings and homophone substitution is an improvement in literacy compared to not writing at all.
Most of them. Certainly the Skype one is; it trashes the look of websites by putting the skype icon next to almost any string of numbers whether it's a phone number or not, and it's completely unnecessary for using Skype.
During the Tudor and Stuart periods (1485 - 1714), the Stationers were legally empowered to seize "offending books" that violated the standards of content set by the Church and State; its officers could bring "offenders" before ecclesiastical authorities, including the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.
You do understand the distinction between censorship and copyright, don't you?
Compared to what I'm getting. And remember I'm on slashdot.
That was censorship, nothing at all to do with copyright.
I think every kind of phantom is bad
You're clearly not an audio technician.
Indeed. They're the ones who originally promoted the whole idea of copyright. They wanted to keep control of the Bible, stop people from making unauthorized copies.
[citation needed]
I always understood the Statute of Anne to be about protecting the vested interests of publishers sympathetic to the crown. And anyway, Queen Anne was a protestant, not a Catholic, so Catholic lobbying is unlikely to have been effective.
There's no such thing in technology as "100% reliable". It needs to be as safe as the current system (because it offers potential benefits in time and fuel efficiency) -- probably rather safer to overcome resistance to handing over responsibility for safety (most people will accept more risk if they perceive that they control the risk ourself than they will accept if they perceive somebody else to be controlling the risk). But not "100%" reliable.
Fuck the elite. Fuck the lords, Fuck the Kings, Fuck the dictators
Are they all cute?
However, I don't know why you think I need to "learn to see past some of [my] prejudices" and I can't see where I called "our benefit system 'generous'". Maybe that was somebody else.
It was aimed more at PhotoBoy, who seems to think that having mobile phones and computers means that they're taking the piss. I bought a mobile phone a couple of months ago for 99p (about US$1.60); it was locked in to a rather poor tariff, but for calling toll-free DWP numbers and for emergency contact it would be fine.
Unfortunately the welfare services also conflate "chavs" and "seriously disadvantaged" people. It would be discrimination to distinguish between the deserving poor and the undeserving, and the State cannot be seen to discriminate.
The state can't be seen to discriminate (much) between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, but it can be seen to discriminate between those who are genuinely poor and those who are taking the piss.
For what it's worth, those on benefits pretty much have to have mobile phones, because they need them to deal with the Department of Work and Pensions. I went with somebody to the job centre earlier this week to try to sort out a change of circumstances relating to their job-seeker's allowance, only to discover that it can't be done in person, only by telephone. A pay-as-you-go telephone is probably the most cost-effective way to do it (it was about a 30 minute call, and the number was free from most mobile phone networks). That person also has a MacBook, left over from better times, which he uses to search for jobs using free wifi hotspots. He doesn't have a car, but if he had one he would be reluctant to get rid of it because most of the jobs he finds advertised either require a car for the job or are in locations that are hard to get to by public transport.
If you look past the relatively few high-visibility "chavs" and actually get to know some of the many who are genuinely struggling you might learn to see past some of your prejudices. When a friend has been embarrassed at you calling round because they've got no food at all in the house, because their benefits haven't been paid for a month, because two branches of the Department of Work and Pensions can't talk to each other, and they haven't eaten for three days, and by the way, they're diabetic (yes, that happened to me last year), you might be a bit slower to call our benefit system "generous", and might realise that our benefit system isn't quite as the Daily Mail pretends it is.
Appending "tard" to words that describe people you don't like makes you look like a douchetard.
FTFY.
The problem is that a one hit wonder gets annoying after a few weeks of overexposure. Remember when Titanic was in theaters and EVERY radio station played 'My Heart will go on' sometimes at the same time?
Um... you might find Celine Dion annoying, but with 9 US and 12 UK top-ten hits she's hardly a "one-hit wonder".