Imperial Ambitions is really good, very accessible; as the Amazon review says, one sometimes wishes for a more challenging interviewer (Susan Sontag, RIP!) but it's still a pretty compelling picture of the world & has made me want to do a big Chomsky catch-up (gotta confess I haven't read anything of his for years.)
It's unfortunate that even if people do want to have a religious or spiritual belief, they can't reconcile it with fairly firmly established scientific truth.
On the contrary, it's unfortunate that people have a religious or 'spiritual belief'. The rejection of reality for the teachings of the cult leaders is entirely self-consistent and internally logical. You're missing the point if you think that the particular flavour of hair-splitting rhetoric employed by one sect or another to reconcile reality with their particular flavour of insanity makes a difference. Know your enemy: ignorance and superstition.
Belief in a supernatural being that created you and the rest of the world and now runs it is, without doubt, a species of mental illness. Or cf Goebell's famous comment about "the big lie". Dennett argues that non-human animals aren't properly conscious because they have no speech (simplifying/massively/). I'm getting more and more extreme in my old age but these days I'm starting to think that you and I (dear atheirst read)/are/ the post-humans; the majority of the human race (regardless of the US quotient) seem to be profoundly different from you and I.
I've just read Chomsky's 'Imperial Ambitions', by the way, does it show?:)
I was put out of the car by my parents (actually, a motor-caravan) at the age of about 6, and they drove off and left me. I remember watching the car going off down the road and waiting for it to stop - it was a bit of a choker when it zoomed round the bend at the end of the road without stopping and disappeared from view. When they changed their minds 10 mins later and came back to look for me, I was a couple of hundred yards away across the fields and heading in approximately the right compass direction. This experience made me the man I am today! Ok, admittedly I'm still single at the age of 37 with a hgistory of short & angry failed relationships - the longest lasted 18 months - addicted to three or four separate street drugs as well as on anti-deps that, if I miss taking them for a day, make me so dizzy I can barely walk. But apart from all that... oh wait, I like Marillion too... god, I must be doomed!;)
It makes me sad to see Linus' mind rotting like this but I can't support that attitude in any way. I'm going to be switching my machines to Free and OpenBSD, with the GNU userland if possible.
Now things get interesting. I want a GPL3 OS kernel to run my Free software on. Can the v2 licensed Linux kernels be forked and relicensed under GPL3?
To those of you outside US, stop complaining about Gas prices. If you live in US, the so-called cheap Gas eats up a lot of money due to the distances involved.
Sucks to be on the wrong end of economics and geography, don't it? Which is another way of saying 'reality'. Your lifestyle is going to change wildly in the next century - the only debate now is whether it comes suddenly, with a lot of shooting, or gradually, with a lot of advertising:)
Excellent stuff, except that according to the US Government we've already passed peak oil. Oh, wait - they've pulled that chart. Hey, Dubya must know something that the world's oil experts don't! Perhaps he's found a fat gusher down there in Crawford...
unfortunately, there are precious few with your good sense, and you;'re far outweighed by the drooling masses. I would go into my usual "The US is unstoppably fuxx0r3d, dude, it's an inevitable historical dialectic" but I'm sick of getting modded down by the "teach the controversy" morons.
" just don't see how Americans can be so ignorant as to think that $3/gal is expensive gas. Most of Europe is, what, $8-9/gal converted?"
Yeah, but, European gas has always been sky high. Isn't most of that $8-9/gal over there taxes?
Yeah, but, USian petrol has always been absurdly cheap. Isn't most of that 20e/litre petrol over there due to corrupt subsidising of the free market by a fascist, corporatist state that funds circuses over bread (not to mention environmental protection, health and safety, no health service, no education service,...)? Well pardon me for preferring to live in my weird euroweenie socialistic turrist haven, or whatever you're calling us this week.
The last time I filled up my trusty '88 Nissan Bluebird I paid 98.9p/litre. 'units' makes that 4.54609 * 98.9 = £4.49 / gallon. Cable is 183.60, which makes petrol $8.25, out here in the real world. I don't know what sort of loony tune big rock candy mountain fantasy palace fairyland theme-park you're living in, son, but we're WAAAAYYYYY past the $5 gallon! Wake up and smell the cordite!$5 petrol
Well, minus ten style points for replying to my own post, but I had to point this out... according to this review, the original Spectrum version only sold 1000 copies! Lordy, and I saved my pocket money for weeks and weeks to get my copy. I thought everyone would be as into it as I was.
Then the whining School Child, with cassette and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwillingly to databank. . .
*choke*... they don't make 'em like that any more. Mel Croucher, where are you?
...that the Singularity is transparent bullshit that wouldn't fool a first year philosophy undergraduate, does my expression of my opinion, the correctness of which appears self-evident to me, get modded down?
I've used dia a few times for network diagrams, and it's fine for that - somewhat quirky, but no more so than Visio. I'd not heard of Inkscape before, and lots of other posters have mentioned it, so I'll definitely be checking that out. Thanks!
(My specific weird one-off application involves diagrams of Victoria Crater and the opportunity MER rover. I'm a sad Unmannedspaceflight.com addict:)
Re:This is why I don't use GIMP
on
Beginning GIMP
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· Score: 1
The Free Software community understands that there are some people who are so selfish and immoral that they are happy to perpetuate an evil system that oppresses others and will ultimately enslave humanity if not checked, in the greater cause of their own self-interest, laziness, and stupidity.
Come the revolution, revisionist class traitors like you will be the first up against the wall. Blindfold, last fag, pop! pop! pop!
Just as Perl and Apache must have been responsible for interesting many uninformed users in Free / open software, surely Gimp must have been responsible for alienating many people permanently. I'm sure it's great if you're able to spend weeks learning the interface by agonising trial and error, but god help you if you'd just like to hack up a quick diagram. How do you draw a circle? How do you draw a line come to that?! I have no idea how it compares to Photoshop, and no doubt these are not the apps I'm loking for if I want to hack up a quick diagram, but where are the alternatives? I mean, forget Fireworks, MS Paint is better than Gimp.
And BTW I am an experienced developer, one time on MS, then Perl/Apache, then Linux sysadmin, network admin, and now full time security bod running Linux at work and OpenBSD at home and Windows as rarely as possible (mandatory monthly reboot at work to apply latest patches.) I love free software and use it as much as possible, I will usually go without rather than use proprietary software. IAnd I can't stand Gimp. Yes, I eventually worked out how to draw a circle the one time I had enough similar drawings to do, I just googled for "nightmare draw gimp circle". (Try it!:)
I'm wondering what they should really be doing, besides forcing Microsoft to stop doing business in member states as long as they remain noncompliant, perhaps.
I like the Pulp Fiction approach. "Anyone of your motherfuckers moves and I'll execute every last one of you." That's the answer. Blindfold, last fag, pop - pop - pop. And come the revolution I'll be first in line to volunteer.
You think I'm joking. I'm not. I'm serious. Bill Gates should be executed by the state, and in any civilised society he'd have been buried under quicklime in an unmarked mass grave for 10 - 15 years by now.
You're an actor, huh? Shit, I never would have guessed from answers like this if you hadn't come right out and told us...
All of the VO's (the usual subjects) I get to play with ARE my favorites. Every day one of us raises the bar and inspires everyone else, I think. I don't ever want to stop learning or getting better. I learn every day from all my peers. Women and men. Their unique and perfectly defined voice characterizations leave me in amazement.
300 engineers working day and night to provide the API documentation? That suggests that they had no documentation of their own codebase! Holy crap, do the customers know this??
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Imperial Ambitions is really good, very accessible; as the Amazon review says, one sometimes wishes for a more challenging interviewer (Susan Sontag, RIP!) but it's still a pretty compelling picture of the world & has made me want to do a big Chomsky catch-up (gotta confess I haven't read anything of his for years.)
What Hooke was, was desperately unlucky to live at the same time as Newton. Offset his life 50 years either way and he'd be much better known.
On the contrary, it's unfortunate that people have a religious or 'spiritual belief'. The rejection of reality for the teachings of the cult leaders is entirely self-consistent and internally logical. You're missing the point if you think that the particular flavour of hair-splitting rhetoric employed by one sect or another to reconcile reality with their particular flavour of insanity makes a difference. Know your enemy: ignorance and superstition.
I've just read Chomsky's 'Imperial Ambitions', by the way, does it show? :)
GWOT? I think you mean The War Against Terror (TWAT).
I seriously doubt it's taunting is up to much, unless it can ad-lib stuff about your parents being rodents or having the odour of elderberries.
I was put out of the car by my parents (actually, a motor-caravan) at the age of about 6, and they drove off and left me. I remember watching the car going off down the road and waiting for it to stop - it was a bit of a choker when it zoomed round the bend at the end of the road without stopping and disappeared from view. When they changed their minds 10 mins later and came back to look for me, I was a couple of hundred yards away across the fields and heading in approximately the right compass direction. This experience made me the man I am today! Ok, admittedly I'm still single at the age of 37 with a hgistory of short & angry failed relationships - the longest lasted 18 months - addicted to three or four separate street drugs as well as on anti-deps that, if I miss taking them for a day, make me so dizzy I can barely walk. But apart from all that... oh wait, I like Marillion too... god, I must be doomed! ;)
...Orwell was proved right
It makes me sad to see Linus' mind rotting like this but I can't support that attitude in any way. I'm going to be switching my machines to Free and OpenBSD, with the GNU userland if possible. Now things get interesting. I want a GPL3 OS kernel to run my Free software on. Can the v2 licensed Linux kernels be forked and relicensed under GPL3?
Sucks to be on the wrong end of economics and geography, don't it? Which is another way of saying 'reality'. Your lifestyle is going to change wildly in the next century - the only debate now is whether it comes suddenly, with a lot of shooting, or gradually, with a lot of advertising :)
Excellent stuff, except that according to the US Government we've already passed peak oil. Oh, wait - they've pulled that chart. Hey, Dubya must know something that the world's oil experts don't! Perhaps he's found a fat gusher down there in Crawford...
unfortunately, there are precious few with your good sense, and you;'re far outweighed by the drooling masses. I would go into my usual "The US is unstoppably fuxx0r3d, dude, it's an inevitable historical dialectic" but I'm sick of getting modded down by the "teach the controversy" morons.
The last time I filled up my trusty '88 Nissan Bluebird I paid 98.9p/litre. 'units' makes that 4.54609 * 98.9 = £4.49 / gallon. Cable is 183.60, which makes petrol $8.25, out here in the real world. I don't know what sort of loony tune big rock candy mountain fantasy palace fairyland theme-park you're living in, son, but we're WAAAAYYYYY past the $5 gallon! Wake up and smell the cordite!$5 petrol
*choke*... they don't make 'em like that any more. Mel Croucher, where are you?
But then, I was only fourteen... I hadn't discovered Vaughan Williams then. (Though I knew some works by his famous nephew, John...)
Let's find out.
(My specific weird one-off application involves diagrams of Victoria Crater and the opportunity MER rover. I'm a sad Unmannedspaceflight.com addict :)
Come the revolution, revisionist class traitors like you will be the first up against the wall. Blindfold, last fag, pop! pop! pop!
And BTW I am an experienced developer, one time on MS, then Perl/Apache, then Linux sysadmin, network admin, and now full time security bod running Linux at work and OpenBSD at home and Windows as rarely as possible (mandatory monthly reboot at work to apply latest patches.) I love free software and use it as much as possible, I will usually go without rather than use proprietary software. IAnd I can't stand Gimp. Yes, I eventually worked out how to draw a circle the one time I had enough similar drawings to do, I just googled for "nightmare draw gimp circle". (Try it! :)
I like the Pulp Fiction approach. "Anyone of your motherfuckers moves and I'll execute every last one of you." That's the answer. Blindfold, last fag, pop - pop - pop. And come the revolution I'll be first in line to volunteer.
You think I'm joking. I'm not. I'm serious. Bill Gates should be executed by the state, and in any civilised society he'd have been buried under quicklime in an unmarked mass grave for 10 - 15 years by now.
You remind me of a well-loved old UK TV show, 'Give Us A Clue'. The maestro of the show was undoubtedly Lionel Blair...
300 engineers working day and night to provide the API documentation? That suggests that they had no documentation of their own codebase! Holy crap, do the customers know this??
Chris Morris, eat your heart out.