Excellent subthread, hmmm mindfulness - there was a snippet on a BBC Radio 4 programme the other day (All In The Mind, the prog covering psychology and psychiatry, I think?) describing ways cognitive practices helped with short term pain relief in people suffering objective physical pain, and also looking at how differing cognitive approaches correlated to outcomes. IIRC stuides also looked at depression. Anyway, 'mindfulness' was mentioned as a straightforward mental tactic used to help people control both physical pain and discomfort, which correlated to better outcomes in physical illness as well as better QoL; and similarly in treatment of depression.
On another tangent altogether, the question of self-awareness and consciousness in the context of AI is an *enormous* field, full of the most wonderfully mind-bending stuff I've read since I first started getting interested in cosmology. Try some Daniel Dennett...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett for philosophy of consciousness, he has a lot of interesting things to say about the quest for AI.
OK, I appreciate the thought:) but... (1) I've actually had relationships before, you know, full on proper living-together type relationships. They've all been fucking disasters in the end, which is (and perhaps I should have made this clearer) why I'm not pursuing this woman at all.
(2), I'm pretty much past the crushing social phobia whereby I was unable to talk to people... it toko years of therapy and antidepressants, admittedly:), but I'm fairly OK in that respect, modulo enforced socialising anyway, which I can't stand.
(3) It's not that I can't talk to her (indeed I have done, many times, indeed worked with her on occasions) - in fact I get the impression she finds it harder to talk to me than vice versa - it's that I choose not to (except for work purposes of course.) There are men where I work with a reputation for lechery, and I have no desire at ALL to be held in contempt by many people in the way that they are.
On my first day in $newjob, during the walk round and wave at people stage, I spotted this absolutely gorgeous geek girl. Looks a bit like Anna Friel... check. Big row of books on RDBMS and.NET on her desk... check. less than immaculate personal grooming (implying a focus on the important things in life rather than trivialities)... check. No current boyf - apparently, check. At this point our eyes met, electricity or chemistry (whichever you prefer) happened, and silent communication occured! Every time I met her for the next few weeks/months, this silent eye-contact stuff happened. (Oh yes, I'm in my late 30s, BTW, so I know the difference between straightforward eye-contact and the "take me, I'm yours" sort.)
Of course, as a true geek, there was SFA I could do about it except slide further and further towards despair as the disappointment and disinterest grew in her with every day that passed without my asking her out for a drink or something. Now, almost a year later, I try to avoid her whenever possible as even a glimpse can push me into a seriously pissed off mood for the rest of the day. Ah well... I've a Linux and BSD based home network to play around on, a bottle of single malt and half an ounce of decent skunk; all far, far more accessible to me than this woman.
So, men, be careful what you wish for unless you're able to do something about it. Women, although the range of intelligent, creative, amusing and sensitive blokes working in the field of IT is great, and they're almost all available, uh... well, forget that. Just get in there and take your pick. We're almost all available, and even allowing for the high prevalence of social inadequates like me, there are still many more desirable single men in this field than probably any other...
exactly. Try it here in the UK you're likely to not only get beeped at, and have headlights flashed at you by other drivers who prefer to avoid having to drive around people not paying attention to the road - you'll be nicked if the cops spot you, because it's illegal. Quite right, too. I'm surprised it's any different anywhere else.
Agreed. Its funny. And its funny because wrapped up in the rant is a kernel of truth that hits too close to home for the Linux zealots.
If you don't care whether or not 'Otto' is happy about Linux, go ahead and tell him to fuck off. But if you're serious about this whole World Domination thing, if you really want to put Micro$oft out of business, then you'll have to learn how to make Otto Stern happy.
it didn't stand out from any number of stupid pieces you'd find on the net or even in print. That's what's really sad here.
One hallmark of brilliant satire is that it's sometimes only obvious once you are aware of it's true nature. Art holds up a mirror to reality. Have you seen 'The Day Today'? (I think there's a similar series running on one of the beeb's digital channels or some similarly obscure slot at the moment, actually, sorry I don't recall the name...)
And the ulterior motive for this "satire", as for the occasional other rants, are still to get a rise out of people, since it's an easy way to gather page hits without having to actually produce anything worthwile.
Trolls are only funny when people take them seriously. Today, Slashdot was the punchline.
What wrong with you people?! don't you know irony or satire when you see it? Oh,... wait. No 'Private Eye' in the land of free speech... Just think of it as IT journalism by Monty Python. I'm really looking forward to seeing the "FotW" and what the Register cha;ps have to say about this mass sense-of-humour failure. Let's just say that I think they might just be ever-so-slightly slightly taking the piss out of the Slashbots...
You know, I think this inability to distinguish irony from sincerity explains a lot about the success of Dubya in hoodwinking Americans into voting for him. He'd've got nowhere in Europe, because he's obviously a clown - obvious to anyone equipped with a sense of humour or of irony, anyway.
Lordy, lordy, I'm alnmost lost for words. None of you seem to have realised that the piece is what we in the UK call "satire". That's right, someone's making it up in order to try to be amusing or humourous. Does the name not give that away?! God only knows what the American readership are going to make of Verity Stob...
You have repeatedly filed rambling, pointless essays to this Bugzilla bug. Over and over again, it has been explained to you that the "comments" "speculation" and "ideas" you proffer are of no use. They are merely absorbing disk space, bandwidth, and the time & energy of people reading the bug. Several people have made concrete suggestions about how to continue assisting the developers, even mini-how-to's on memory profiling tools and debuggers! The problem with your catch-all bug has been explained. The way to contribute usefully has been explained. You are now simply wasting people's time and energy. Perhaps it would help to imagine that everyone in mozilla are lazy, stupid idiots who don't care about the energy people like you have expended. If that suggestion helps you to FORGET IT AND MOVE ON!!!!!!!!!! -- please, be my guest.
Disclaimer - though I did some minor QA & bug logging in pre Mozilla 1.0 days, I'm now just an interested observer. Indeed, that was the first bugzilla bug I've read all the way through for months if not years. Actually I think that's a testiment to how damn good the programmers, bug filers, testers, designers, lizard wranglers and so on are. I use Ffx 1.5 at home on an elderly PII/233, on Linux, with 320Mb of RAM. I *always* leave my Firefoxen[sorry] to run until they crash, for the purpose of submitting some sort of Talkback data if at all possible. I make liberal use of tabs (though I don't have multiple F/fx windows - 1 is enough for me.) The last three or four times I had to restart Firefox were after reboots caused by power outages (I'm rural! the power lines are still overground for miles around, and we get a lot of storms...) and me dicking around with other stuff on the box - kernel compiles, very newbish fiddling with kernel modules and the like. I also use it on Windows at work without problems. In fact I use the nightly builds on there (1.6a) which updates every few days, automatically.
Oh come on, have you actually looked at the 'how to install' guide? download the tgz, type "gzip -zxvf firef [hit tab to complete filename], press enter. type cd firefox-1.5xxxxxx [ tab completeion again]. type./firefox
And surely you can work out how to make a new icon and point it at the executable.
Oh, I do feel lucky, believe me, I do. But c'mon, look on the bright side, Canada has so much that we haven't got! Canada has so much, hu, space... and Vancouver's supposed to be pretty good (it must be, if I've heard that here in rural England), and, and.. leaky old submarines!
Actually I've always had a soft spot for Canada since doing a school project on the subject at the age of 9 or 10. I got so into it I remember spotting a car with a Canadian plate whilst on holiday in France, leaping out and taking a picture of it. Lord, I remember Pierre Trudeau. (I also STR his wife... or did I dream it?) And the big empty northern squares look well cool on the map. And the Rockies always appealed. And... Neil Young, man! (Oh, wait. Bryan Adams). Also IIRC isn't Richie Hawtin Canadian? (I've got a knackered old tape of some utterly sublime album of his & a collaborator (FUSE) from the early 90s that's got a minute or so of sampled-and-chopped-up interview snippets... "What was it that inspired you, two years ago?" "Uh... Windsor." "Detroit."
Oh, and Dave ('Cerebus') Sim, one of the strangest & saddest stories from comics history.
A nice story! (Incidentally - you don't mention if you're still in town, but if so, did you know that a pub mentioned in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Golden Lion, is still open on Tabard St in Southwark? I only heard this mentioned on the radio the other day, but the next chance I get to visit London I'll be seeking it out. Preferably on a cold, drizzly Tuesday afternoon, with a stack of stuff to read:)
BTW, I hope you realise that we do this not as an evil trick, but as a small gesture of assistance towards our fellow men & women. The nice thing is that the inital pangalactic gargleblaster effect of your first ale experience doesn't go away... so far, anyway, after 20 years' experimentation. (I'm just about to tuck into my regular evening pint of Spitfire to see whether it's happened yet:)
This box is running Mandrake GNU/Linux 2.6.8 with WindowMaker, P2/233Mhz. However the machine is now (after 8 years loving upgrades:) totally pimped up with three HDs (a whopping 40Gb) and 320Mb RAM. I've also upgraded to a Matrox videocard, circa 1999. Firefox 1.5 runs fine, xscreensaver makes Windows users jealous, and all is well in the world. The only thing I can't run on it is SETI@home, cos the new Boing! crap refuses to install on anything older than a couple of years. I suppose I understand why, but it's still bloody annoying to have those hard-won units & my account zapped.
Try replacing bash with zsh for while. (Read the docs, of course, so you know what features are there to try out.) After a while you'll wonder how you did without it.
Alternatively IIRC Dave Korn has been quoted as saying they've removed Perl from all the machine in his lab because Ksh does it all. Hmmmmm.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I could remember more detail or point at a "listen again" streaming link... ah hell, *reaches for google* here's the streaming link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?ra dio4/allinthemind ...and the program's at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/allinthemind.s html
IIRC this bit is in teh first 10 mins or so. I could be wrong, I was half-asleep as you can see ;)
On another tangent altogether, the question of self-awareness and consciousness in the context of AI is an *enormous* field, full of the most wonderfully mind-bending stuff I've read since I first started getting interested in cosmology. Try some Daniel Dennett ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett for philosophy of consciousness, he has a lot of interesting things to say about the quest for AI.
Thanks, I'm here all week.
(2), I'm pretty much past the crushing social phobia whereby I was unable to talk to people... it toko years of therapy and antidepressants, admittedly :), but I'm fairly OK in that respect, modulo enforced socialising anyway, which I can't stand.
(3) It's not that I can't talk to her (indeed I have done, many times, indeed worked with her on occasions) - in fact I get the impression she finds it harder to talk to me than vice versa - it's that I choose not to (except for work purposes of course.) There are men where I work with a reputation for lechery, and I have no desire at ALL to be held in contempt by many people in the way that they are.
Well, er... yes. What's your point?
Of course, as a true geek, there was SFA I could do about it except slide further and further towards despair as the disappointment and disinterest grew in her with every day that passed without my asking her out for a drink or something. Now, almost a year later, I try to avoid her whenever possible as even a glimpse can push me into a seriously pissed off mood for the rest of the day. Ah well... I've a Linux and BSD based home network to play around on, a bottle of single malt and half an ounce of decent skunk; all far, far more accessible to me than this woman.
So, men, be careful what you wish for unless you're able to do something about it. Women, although the range of intelligent, creative, amusing and sensitive blokes working in the field of IT is great, and they're almost all available, uh... well, forget that. Just get in there and take your pick. We're almost all available, and even allowing for the high prevalence of social inadequates like me, there are still many more desirable single men in this field than probably any other...
*sigh*
Return to earth? Look, you stupid bastard, your arm's off!
exactly. Try it here in the UK you're likely to not only get beeped at, and have headlights flashed at you by other drivers who prefer to avoid having to drive around people not paying attention to the road - you'll be nicked if the cops spot you, because it's illegal. Quite right, too. I'm surprised it's any different anywhere else.
Oh yeah, and who's going to backhaul all those bits up to the nearest IX - the packet pixies?
ROTFLMFAO!
No, wait, c'mere! There's Moore!
Tough day at work? Yep, I know that feeling.
One hallmark of brilliant satire is that it's sometimes only obvious once you are aware of it's true nature. Art holds up a mirror to reality. Have you seen 'The Day Today'? (I think there's a similar series running on one of the beeb's digital channels or some similarly obscure slot at the moment, actually, sorry I don't recall the name...)
Trolls are only funny when people take them seriously. Today, Slashdot was the punchline.
You know, I think this inability to distinguish irony from sincerity explains a lot about the success of Dubya in hoodwinking Americans into voting for him. He'd've got nowhere in Europe, because he's obviously a clown - obvious to anyone equipped with a sense of humour or of irony, anyway.
Lordy, lordy, I'm alnmost lost for words. None of you seem to have realised that the piece is what we in the UK call "satire". That's right, someone's making it up in order to try to be amusing or humourous. Does the name not give that away?! God only knows what the American readership are going to make of Verity Stob...
though well intentioned, you are an idiot.
You have repeatedly filed rambling, pointless essays to this Bugzilla bug. Over and over again, it has been explained to you that the "comments" "speculation" and "ideas" you proffer are of no use. They are merely absorbing disk space, bandwidth, and the time & energy of people reading the bug. Several people have made concrete suggestions about how to continue assisting the developers, even mini-how-to's on memory profiling tools and debuggers! The problem with your catch-all bug has been explained. The way to contribute usefully has been explained. You are now simply wasting people's time and energy. Perhaps it would help to imagine that everyone in mozilla are lazy, stupid idiots who don't care about the energy people like you have expended. If that suggestion helps you to FORGET IT AND MOVE ON!!!!!!!!!! -- please, be my guest.
Disclaimer - though I did some minor QA & bug logging in pre Mozilla 1.0 days, I'm now just an interested observer. Indeed, that was the first bugzilla bug I've read all the way through for months if not years. Actually I think that's a testiment to how damn good the programmers, bug filers, testers, designers, lizard wranglers and so on are. I use Ffx 1.5 at home on an elderly PII/233, on Linux, with 320Mb of RAM. I *always* leave my Firefoxen[sorry] to run until they crash, for the purpose of submitting some sort of Talkback data if at all possible. I make liberal use of tabs (though I don't have multiple F/fx windows - 1 is enough for me.) The last three or four times I had to restart Firefox were after reboots caused by power outages (I'm rural! the power lines are still overground for miles around, and we get a lot of storms...) and me dicking around with other stuff on the box - kernel compiles, very newbish fiddling with kernel modules and the like. I also use it on Windows at work without problems. In fact I use the nightly builds on there (1.6a) which updates every few days, automatically.
Half way down someone spells it out to him... it's 400 pages open at once, some being PDFs. How does IE fare with 400 windows open?
Hey, me too! Great new feature, isn't it?
I think you just answered your own question...
And surely you can work out how to make a new icon and point it at the executable.
Actually I've always had a soft spot for Canada since doing a school project on the subject at the age of 9 or 10. I got so into it I remember spotting a car with a Canadian plate whilst on holiday in France, leaping out and taking a picture of it. Lord, I remember Pierre Trudeau. (I also STR his wife... or did I dream it?) And the big empty northern squares look well cool on the map. And the Rockies always appealed. And... Neil Young, man! (Oh, wait. Bryan Adams). Also IIRC isn't Richie Hawtin Canadian? (I've got a knackered old tape of some utterly sublime album of his & a collaborator (FUSE) from the early 90s that's got a minute or so of sampled-and-chopped-up interview snippets... "What was it that inspired you, two years ago?" "Uh... Windsor." "Detroit."
Oh, and Dave ('Cerebus') Sim, one of the strangest & saddest stories from comics history.
And Jane Sibbery.
BTW, I hope you realise that we do this not as an evil trick, but as a small gesture of assistance towards our fellow men & women. The nice thing is that the inital pangalactic gargleblaster effect of your first ale experience doesn't go away... so far, anyway, after 20 years' experimentation. (I'm just about to tuck into my regular evening pint of Spitfire to see whether it's happened yet :)
This box is running Mandrake GNU/Linux 2.6.8 with WindowMaker, P2/233Mhz. However the machine is now (after 8 years loving upgrades :) totally pimped up with three HDs (a whopping 40Gb) and 320Mb RAM. I've also upgraded to a Matrox videocard, circa 1999. Firefox 1.5 runs fine, xscreensaver makes Windows users jealous, and all is well in the world. The only thing I can't run on it is SETI@home, cos the new Boing! crap refuses to install on anything older than a couple of years. I suppose I understand why, but it's still bloody annoying to have those hard-won units & my account zapped.
Alternatively IIRC Dave Korn has been quoted as saying they've removed Perl from all the machine in his lab because Ksh does it all. Hmmmmm.