You can have an alternative implementation of ext2 that wouldn't have to use GPL'd code from Linux. I saw ext2/3 drivers for Windows and I'm pretty sure that at least some of the non-GPL OSs out there (Mac? BSDs? Solaris?) can read/write ext2.
However, you can't reimplement ZFS under any other license (CDDL is licensing some of the patents that cover the ZFS only to the users of the original implementation or its derivatives). I'd say it's *BOTH* GPL's and CDDL's fault (what's more, Sun chose CDDL exactly because it's GPL-incompatible).
I guess most of the hardware (including GSM, sound, etc) hasn't been reverse-engineered yet, and even then you'd need some GUI and actual userspace apps that'd talk to the drivers (or HAL, or however the stack is organized). Booting an OS vs having an usable OS are two VERY different things -- something I've learned while trying to write my own.
> I would hope we've moved beyond the place where we're still > relying on biological organisms to harbour our consciousness.
What, you mean you don't like the body you're in? I do like mine, and all the opportunities its possession gives.
> I would like to believe that we advance to the point where we > just don't see any reason to devote any of our unlimited energy to it.
(infinity - some) == infinity
I'd even say, (infinity - a_shitload) == infinity.
And I'm certainly sure you'd find a reason to want to see trees, grass, blue sky and flowers.
> (...) are probably easier to create than planet wide terraforming operations.
I'm certainly sure they are. But in my opinion, it would be a little like having sex with an acid-coated alien while wearing an acid-proof condom.
By the way, some time ago I've read a book that was supposedly written by an actual alien. Among many other things, he stated that terraforming was such an easy task for them that they've done so with two of the planets in their solar system, and when their homeworld was later destroyed by a meteor, people from the colonies had no trouble restoring its natural environment to its previous glory. If it is going to turn out that the author of the book was really an alien, then I think we've got this matter settled. (inconveniently, the book was written in Polish (which is my native language), but if you'd like to take a look at it anyway -- http://smn.klm.net.pl/kosmita3.pdf )
I believe that things sometimes seem fuxx0red from our perspective because they were intended as a lesson for us, and it's not the things that go wrong but our perception of them. Sometimes I even stop asking myself all the silly questions about the meaning of life, universe and everything, and just try to appreciate the moment, think of everything as being right here and right now solely to make me happier. And I think that this is what actually could bring me closer to the answer.
...is that *we* are the "intelligent designers", who are constantly, 24/7, unconsciously creating the world we're facing (as in "what you think becomes what happens to you"). At least my own experience seems to prove that to me. Sadly, it's something that is virtually impossible to objectively measure -- assuming the theory to be true, when you want it to be false, it would turn up to you to be false (and a paradox -- that would prove it to be true for that certain circumstance).
What keeps bothering me, is that again and again, it actually turns out to be true for me.
Well, the sad thing is that the moment you incarnate, you usually forget why did you do that (and everything else), and unless you find a way to remember that (tip: meditation), you're doomed to run in circles until you're dead again. There's *always* a reason why did you chose to incarnate, and from my own experience I can tell you that it is usually to learn to enjoy the life, to evolve spiritually, or to help someone else with one of these things. Of course you shouldn't believe me, but try and check it out by yourself.
Epiphany (Gnome's default web browser) used to try to be "engine agnostic", supporting both Gecko and WebKit, but the developers said that maintaining an abstraction layer over the two engines provided nothing but unnecessary overhead and maintenance overkill (so they've dropped Gecko and the abstraction layer).
I wish Lunascape the best, but I guess they're a little overoptimistic about the idea of abstracting *three* different engines. It'd be like an abstraction of a cat, a fish and a guerrilla.
If I REALLY fuck something up, I reincarnate a few years earlier in the past (spirits can freely travel in time prior to incarnation and consciously choose the right time, place and body) and unfuck everything. Otherwise I don't really bother and simply enjoy my next life. In case reincarnation suddenly stops to work -- I don't care, because, I'm like, dead. And by definition, dead people can not care at all.
Some of the asteroids in the belt have natural satellites of other asteroids. The resulting tidal forces would've destroyed them in a few millions of years, so the asteroid belt couldn't have been there much longer than that.
Related: "The Bell", a nazi project from the WW2, and Iapetus, Saturn's artificial satellite that could've been used as a weapon (pay attention to its shape -- it's *not* spherical!).
Let me repeat, in simple words: assuming they exist (the existence of aliens is plausible, isn't it?), we do not know a shit about their supposed tech (except for that it must be way more advanced). They could've mastered things we haven't yet dreamed of, and unless you know the final truth about the nature of the universe (and if you'd claim so, I'd call bullshit on your claim), you can't deny they couldn't.
I'm both a (hobbyist) programmer and a (hobbyist) artist (I play guitar, draw comics, etc). Programming was always a kind of art to me, because coming up with a good solution to a problem often needs a lot of creative thinking. The copyright law applies to both programs and other works of art.
Once a girl (who was a cello player) asked me, why do I play guitar. I was very surprised by this question... I never really thought about it before. "Because I like it? Because it's a great way of expressing myself?" She told me that I'm the first guy she has ever seen that was skilled in computers *and* played an instrument. Now you state that "programming and art are usually mutually exclusive". C'mon, am I really of such a rare kind?
> I once programmed a simple MUD game (...) > (...) > I only bothered to add about 15 locations (...)
Yay, mine had 9, but had support for alternate realities, teleports, ground of varying height (hills, etc) and big open spaces ("you can see a tall tower on the north-east" -- created procedurally). My sister was supposed to add more content but I've lost interest in the project before it seriously took off from the ground.
I don't believe the world we live in is what we think it is, I never believe in anything that isn't plausible, and I only believe in something if there's a clear evidence (unless my own experience suggests the evidence is not good enough), or in something that I have experienced myself. I don't give a damn what someone else thinks of my own experiences, because, well, they're MY experiences and not that someone else's.
But... wait a moment.
I have just pointed to an evidence of the existence of a non-material part of the human (or any other living being's) body, which could fit into some definition of a soul. Someone had a sig over there: "if an evidence disproves the Bible, the evidence is false" -- well, it seems that you can replace the word "Bible" with any "scientific" dogma of your choice (like the nonexistence of a soul) and the statement would still be 100% correct.
Slashdot Mirror
> If you need a function that does two things, you can't use lambda anymore.
wtf? of course you could!
lambda x,y: (spam(x), meth(y)) [-1]
yeah, less readable etc but works. And yes, Python is even capable of executing interesting, obscure one-liners:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1022735&cid=25689627
> (...) That's a disadvantage for 99% of internet users.
> NAT blocks direct access to your computer from the internet (...)
No, you DO NOT want a NAT. You want a properly configured firewall.
It'd give you the same advantages with NO disadvantages.
You can have an alternative implementation of ext2 that wouldn't have to use GPL'd code from Linux. I saw ext2/3 drivers for Windows and I'm pretty sure that at least some of the non-GPL OSs out there (Mac? BSDs? Solaris?) can read/write ext2.
However, you can't reimplement ZFS under any other license (CDDL is licensing some of the patents that cover the ZFS only to the users of the original implementation or its derivatives). I'd say it's *BOTH* GPL's and CDDL's fault (what's more, Sun chose CDDL exactly because it's GPL-incompatible).
I guess most of the hardware (including GSM, sound, etc) hasn't been reverse-engineered yet, and even then you'd need some GUI and actual userspace apps that'd talk to the drivers (or HAL, or however the stack is organized). Booting an OS vs having an usable OS are two VERY different things -- something I've learned while trying to write my own.
What happened to "because it's fun"?
> I would hope we've moved beyond the place where we're still
> relying on biological organisms to harbour our consciousness.
What, you mean you don't like the body you're in? I do like mine, and all the opportunities its possession gives.
> I would like to believe that we advance to the point where we
> just don't see any reason to devote any of our unlimited energy to it.
(infinity - some) == infinity
I'd even say, (infinity - a_shitload) == infinity.
And I'm certainly sure you'd find a reason to want to see trees, grass, blue sky and flowers.
> (...) are probably easier to create than planet wide terraforming operations.
I'm certainly sure they are. But in my opinion, it would be a little like having sex with an acid-coated alien while wearing an acid-proof condom.
By the way, some time ago I've read a book that was supposedly written by an actual alien. Among many other things, he stated that terraforming was such an easy task for them that they've done so with two of the planets in their solar system, and when their homeworld was later destroyed by a meteor, people from the colonies had no trouble restoring its natural environment to its previous glory. If it is going to turn out that the author of the book was really an alien, then I think we've got this matter settled. (inconveniently, the book was written in Polish (which is my native language), but if you'd like to take a look at it anyway -- http://smn.klm.net.pl/kosmita3.pdf )
> I think we have more than enough biological strangeness
> to us to pretty much discount any intelligent designing.
IMO, just because you can't see a purpose, doesn't mean that the creator didn't see one. Or the evolution, or both (or maybe they're the same?).
> Since we can't get outside our universe to see if there are other universes
And how do you know that? 640k of ram, anyone?
Then I guess it's our job to sort it out.
I believe that things sometimes seem fuxx0red from our perspective because they were intended as a lesson for us, and it's not the things that go wrong but our perception of them. Sometimes I even stop asking myself all the silly questions about the meaning of life, universe and everything, and just try to appreciate the moment, think of everything as being right here and right now solely to make me happier. And I think that this is what actually could bring me closer to the answer.
...is that *we* are the "intelligent designers", who are constantly, 24/7, unconsciously creating the world we're facing (as in "what you think becomes what happens to you"). At least my own experience seems to prove that to me. Sadly, it's something that is virtually impossible to objectively measure -- assuming the theory to be true, when you want it to be false, it would turn up to you to be false (and a paradox -- that would prove it to be true for that certain circumstance).
What keeps bothering me, is that again and again, it actually turns out to be true for me.
> If we could produce a device that converts all those
> waves into sound, we would be listening to a chaotic mess.
It is just my own opinion, but I think that it'd rather be a progressive rock masterpiece.
> Why terraform a planet when you can just change the settlers to easily survive on it.
Why not, if you have the right tech to do that?
Would you rather risk a planet (that isn't habitable anyway), or experiment on living beings?
Well, the sad thing is that the moment you incarnate, you usually forget why did you do that (and everything else), and unless you find a way to remember that (tip: meditation), you're doomed to run in circles until you're dead again. There's *always* a reason why did you chose to incarnate, and from my own experience I can tell you that it is usually to learn to enjoy the life, to evolve spiritually, or to help someone else with one of these things. Of course you shouldn't believe me, but try and check it out by yourself.
Not related to plugins, but still on topic:
Epiphany (Gnome's default web browser) used to try to be "engine agnostic", supporting both Gecko and WebKit, but the developers said that maintaining an abstraction layer over the two engines provided nothing but unnecessary overhead and maintenance overkill (so they've dropped Gecko and the abstraction layer).
I wish Lunascape the best, but I guess they're a little overoptimistic about the idea of abstracting *three* different engines. It'd be like an abstraction of a cat, a fish and a guerrilla.
I have an easier solution.
If I REALLY fuck something up, I reincarnate a few years earlier in the past (spirits can freely travel in time prior to incarnation and consciously choose the right time, place and body) and unfuck everything. Otherwise I don't really bother and simply enjoy my next life. In case reincarnation suddenly stops to work -- I don't care, because, I'm like, dead. And by definition, dead people can not care at all.
Works fine for me so far.
You can use their JS engine independently.
Disagree.
Some of the asteroids in the belt have natural satellites of other asteroids. The resulting tidal forces would've destroyed them in a few millions of years, so the asteroid belt couldn't have been there much longer than that.
Related: "The Bell", a nazi project from the WW2, and Iapetus, Saturn's artificial satellite that could've been used as a weapon (pay attention to its shape -- it's *not* spherical!).
ARGH
s/couldn't/could have/
Let me repeat, in simple words: assuming they exist (the existence of aliens is plausible, isn't it?), we do not know a shit about their supposed tech (except for that it must be way more advanced). They could've mastered things we haven't yet dreamed of, and unless you know the final truth about the nature of the universe (and if you'd claim so, I'd call bullshit on your claim), you can't deny they couldn't.
Actually, the number of physical mammoths is still zero.
However, we are reconstructing the source code, and when we succeed, we can compile as many mammoths as we need.
> those skills are usually mutually exclusive
I'm both a (hobbyist) programmer and a (hobbyist) artist (I play guitar, draw comics, etc). Programming was always a kind of art to me, because coming up with a good solution to a problem often needs a lot of creative thinking. The copyright law applies to both programs and other works of art.
Once a girl (who was a cello player) asked me, why do I play guitar. I was very surprised by this question... I never really thought about it before. "Because I like it? Because it's a great way of expressing myself?" She told me that I'm the first guy she has ever seen that was skilled in computers *and* played an instrument. Now you state that "programming and art are usually mutually exclusive". C'mon, am I really of such a rare kind?
> I once programmed a simple MUD game (...)
> (...)
> I only bothered to add about 15 locations (...)
Yay, mine had 9, but had support for alternate realities, teleports, ground of varying height (hills, etc) and big open spaces ("you can see a tall tower on the north-east" -- created procedurally). My sister was supposed to add more content but I've lost interest in the project before it seriously took off from the ground.
There are a few bugs in your code. list.remove(L, value) is modifying list in place, not returning a copy, thus:
Rewards = ['baby','necklace','iPhone']
Rewards.remove(McGuffin)
Reward = c(Rewards)
There's a TypeError in the dialogue, I have changed the second line to:
%s in the %s! If you can bring it back
Open source ftw.
Your sig: +1, Agree Wholeheartedly
I don't believe the world we live in is what we think it is, I never believe in anything that isn't plausible, and I only believe in something if there's a clear evidence (unless my own experience suggests the evidence is not good enough), or in something that I have experienced myself. I don't give a damn what someone else thinks of my own experiences, because, well, they're MY experiences and not that someone else's.
But... wait a moment.
I have just pointed to an evidence of the existence of a non-material part of the human (or any other living being's) body, which could fit into some definition of a soul. Someone had a sig over there: "if an evidence disproves the Bible, the evidence is false" -- well, it seems that you can replace the word "Bible" with any "scientific" dogma of your choice (like the nonexistence of a soul) and the statement would still be 100% correct.