Of course they care what the rest of the world thinks.
China desperately wants to be seen in a glorious light by the rest of the world. That's why they are indulging in this whole charade, hoping that we will take the show at face value and not ask questions about the man behind the curtain. They have whitewashed everything that might be considered negative (pollution/environmental issues, internet and censorship issues, social unrest and suppression of dissent, forging of competitors' documents, all the way down to the little girl who's teeth weren't straight enough, the list goes on...) like they have whitewashed past blemishes to their national image (pet food poisoning, tainted medicine, lead paint on kids toys, etc) in a desperate bid to make themselves look better. Ironically, as a consequence they have risked further alienating the western people they were hoping to impress.
God, I am so thankful for those who have the courage to expose these crass manipulations for what they are. I hate to say it, but they have way more guts than I do.
He's talking about real-world apps running on large SMP hardware, not some thousand-node HPC cluster. Scaling a single instance of an OS over 30, 60, 100 or more cpus in a single box is tricky business, and Linux doesn't do it as well as Solaris does. Maybe Linux is more stable than it used to be, but Solaris has a proven track record of top-notch stability and uptime. Top500,org is interesting, but irrelevant to the GPs point.
Yeah, but "more out than put in" is shorthand here for "more power generation from the fusion than power needed to start and maintain the reaction", not "find a loophole in the laws of thermodynamics"
(increasingly so when Russia and China start to get low on oil)
Russia has impressive reserves, and they are leveraging them to become a world leading energy producer. China is already oil-poor, and their need is one of the big factors driving demand (and therefore price) way up. They are also looking into lots more nuclear power, and they are chewing into their coal reserves quickly.
Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour
on
Grokking SCO's Demise
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· Score: 1
While I'm in favor of stamping out CP, I also realize that when LE crawls through smut in search of pedos, it pleases the "won't someone think of the children" crowd, which helps support the police by putting politicians in place who increase police spending. Chasing phishers is less appealing to the public, and doesn't gather the same level of votes for tax-n-spend politicians at the polls. I imagine that it is also much harder for police to do from their local jurisdiction, since those type cases can often involve actions in different towns, counties, states, and countries.
Funny, I never thought about it before, but training a good skeptic is (I would imagine, anyway) like training a good ninja. It actually takes time, discipline, insight, and focus to learn.
Anyone can become a cynic and attack everything, arriving nowhere, believing every tinfoil hat argument that suits him. It's hard to become a true skeptic, which is probably why there are (or at least seem to be) so few of them around.
If they had any damn sense, they would ask him to engage in misdirecting the competition. He could claim to be taking up knitting, or needlepoint, or horticulture. Maybe stamp collecting. Fine hobbies to those who are interested, but I wonder what the excitement factor would be to the game version. Let some crappy knock-off company sink their R&D into that!
Perhaps Americans and non-Americans alike should bear in mind that/. is more casual conversation than fine literature, and overlook the odd typo, searching instead for the actual content in a post. Have you any thoughts on his point? Or is it just easier to whore for karma by bashing Americans?
sm62704 - Good to read you again. You've got a point about the media. How do we deal with an untrustworthy media? As much as I hate to admit it, I think the parent touches on the root of it when he references education. Literacy and more science education would help, but the real key IMHO is a detailed education in history. What generally passes for history education is actually a summary of an idealized point of view about what happened on a bunch of dates.
Real history education begins with researching the original sources, or as close as you can come. It continues with the realization that you will have to deal with divergent points of view and contradictory evidence. It forces you to challenge what you had assumed or been taught before, as you search for a deeper, hidden truth. You confront propaganda, and its pervasive role in history.
No one is immune to being fooled, but it's a lot harder to fool someone who has been taught to question the face value of things, and how to compare different sources to learn more.
Please don't take offense; I wasn't trying to equate the the Simpsons with Hitler.* I referenced them because he referenced them is his post. I felt he was relying on poorly founded generalizations, and was trying to point out that stereotypes fail.
* Your joking reference to "The Hitlers" is simultaneously hilarious and chilling, BTW. (Visualize a Homer-shaped Hitler with mustache, comb-over and stern gaze goose-stepping into a [insert hilarious sight gag here] and going "D'oh!" in a German accent.) Of course, Homer is a well-intentioned goof and lovable, therefore the perfect character. Hitler rounds out the 20th century's triumvirate of evil, along with Stalin and possibly Mao, and therefore doesn't really seem worthy of a hit prime time comedy series.;)
The nuts reference was several things. 1) I didn't have time for a detailed and thoughtful post, so I wrote what came to mind. 2) Yes, partly, it was a meta-joke. I laugh as much as anyone when I see someone kicked in the balls, especially if it a cartoon person on the Simpsons, even though some inner part of me cringes even when a cartoon character gets it (been there in real life, which leads me to... ) 3) Actual ball-kicking isn't really funny, at least for the recipient, thus my point about not taking the Simpsons as an indicator of actual truth.
Not only that, guess who had the ARPANET contract? BBN. I dealt with them for years, and they are a very capable organization. Chances are they can deliver what they say.
IANAL, but I don't believe that a warrant is needed if the officers involved believe there is an imminent danger. (For example, if they see through an open window that someone is passed out on the floor, they can enter right away) Apparently there was a significant question in their minds about the safety of the chemicals. 1500 vials and jars all over the furniture and floors is way more than the "kid's chemistry set" image the blog and summary would like us to believe. I'm not a chemist any more than I am a lawyer, but it doesn't seem like that was the most responsible way to store his stuff.
FWIW, Marlboro is not some hick podunk town whose officials have nothing to do but harass people. That being said, Massachusetts is the ultimate nanny state, and I think it's stupid that his chemicals will not be returned to him. If there was belief of imminent danger, I'd guess that officials were within their rights to test them, but if all they found was nothing more dangerous than household cleaners, everything should have been returned.
I wouldn't claim anything based on pop culture. That's part of my point. Pop culture around here promotes the use of memes like "In Soviet Russia, (insert something here) YOU!" That doesn't mean that we actually believe the joke. It means that the reference is understood by many.
GP - The parent's post is an oversimplified and narrow-minded load of crap. Almost nobody I speak to on the topic (and I travel widely in the US, or at least I used to... ) holds those views. While everyone I know holds Nazism in contempt (as you apparently do), I can't recall the last time I met someone who couldn't differentiate between German citizens, and Nazis & Hitler supporters.
Parent - Pop culture humor is just that - pop culture humor, and should not be taken as more than that. Living your life by the teachings of of prime time TV is the surest way to get the US judged by the rest of the world in a similarly narrow and unkind light. German != (Nazi) && American != (Homer Simpson, GWB, etc.)
It seems to me that judging a whole people (Germans, US, or Jews) by a stereotype is a tad Nazi-ish in itself.
If money is just "what you use to get stuff" then there is little reason to buy. However if money is "a tool to effect the world around you"... I wonder if there is a relationship between disposable income and piracy?
Unrelated to gaming, but related to income & commerce... my stepdaughter once worked for a coffee shop and made good money in tips, even though the neighborhood was mostly made up of college kids, a few middle-class young professionals, and a lot of low-to-middle income urban families.
The shop's owner opened another location in a nearby suburb full of McMansions, but had a hard time getting her original staff to work shifts there, mostly because the wealthier clientele were 1)- rude as hell, and 2)- cheap as hell.
Her analysis was simple: people who don't have much money know its importance, and are willing to spend it where they see value. Others who have much often exude a sense of entitlement, as if they deserve even more.
Actually, it is a brand new HP. Recent model, etc. I didn't research it ahead of time. I originally got it to work with my office laptop (XP, per official IT policy), and tried connecting the Linux box to it over the network for giggles and grins.
I get what you are saying, though. I believe that people who don't give Linux a chance don't know what they are missing. It generally works far better than new users expect.
And I did something like that for my mother before I moved half way across the world and she did just fine. 1999 worked as "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" in that situation
Using Linux is not nearly as bad as most people make it out to be.
My new HP all-in-one prints and scans great with my Ubuntu box, and required minimal, easy setup. OTOH, the several XP boxes on my home network were a pain to connect to the HP, and have constant problems with the darned thing, despite it being specifically designed for working in a Windows home network environment.
My old Epson printer? Works like a charm on the Ubuntu box. All the digital cameras in the house work with Ubuntu, including a couple acquired this year. Can I connect a camcorder via firewire? Check. Again, it works, and does so with little or no screwing around. Ditto for using an old DLink wireless networking card I had laying around. Configuring it under Windows is slightly annoying, but it works. Under Linux? No kludge. Just works.
People with little or no computer experience might actually be better candidates for Linux than experienced Windows users, because they aren't already used to doing things differently.
It wont fix obesity directly, but it could help build the muscle mass needed to burn off excess calories as part of a proper diet & exercise program. In conjunction with healthy lifestyle changes, I could see this benefiting a lot of people.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they care what the rest of the world thinks.
...) like they have whitewashed past blemishes to their national image (pet food poisoning, tainted medicine, lead paint on kids toys, etc) in a desperate bid to make themselves look better. Ironically, as a consequence they have risked further alienating the western people they were hoping to impress.
China desperately wants to be seen in a glorious light by the rest of the world. That's why they are indulging in this whole charade, hoping that we will take the show at face value and not ask questions about the man behind the curtain. They have whitewashed everything that might be considered negative (pollution/environmental issues, internet and censorship issues, social unrest and suppression of dissent, forging of competitors' documents, all the way down to the little girl who's teeth weren't straight enough, the list goes on
God, I am so thankful for those who have the courage to expose these crass manipulations for what they are. I hate to say it, but they have way more guts than I do.
He's talking about real-world apps running on large SMP hardware, not some thousand-node HPC cluster. Scaling a single instance of an OS over 30, 60, 100 or more cpus in a single box is tricky business, and Linux doesn't do it as well as Solaris does. Maybe Linux is more stable than it used to be, but Solaris has a proven track record of top-notch stability and uptime. Top500,org is interesting, but irrelevant to the GPs point.
Yeah, but "more out than put in" is shorthand here for "more power generation from the fusion than power needed to start and maintain the reaction", not "find a loophole in the laws of thermodynamics"
(increasingly so when Russia and China start to get low on oil)
Russia has impressive reserves, and they are leveraging them to become a world leading energy producer. China is already oil-poor, and their need is one of the big factors driving demand (and therefore price) way up. They are also looking into lots more nuclear power, and they are chewing into their coal reserves quickly.
Well said, friend. I wish I had points to give.
While I'm in favor of stamping out CP, I also realize that when LE crawls through smut in search of pedos, it pleases the "won't someone think of the children" crowd, which helps support the police by putting politicians in place who increase police spending. Chasing phishers is less appealing to the public, and doesn't gather the same level of votes for tax-n-spend politicians at the polls. I imagine that it is also much harder for police to do from their local jurisdiction, since those type cases can often involve actions in different towns, counties, states, and countries.
Thanks for the link.
Funny, I never thought about it before, but training a good skeptic is (I would imagine, anyway) like training a good ninja. It actually takes time, discipline, insight, and focus to learn.
Anyone can become a cynic and attack everything, arriving nowhere, believing every tinfoil hat argument that suits him. It's hard to become a true skeptic, which is probably why there are (or at least seem to be) so few of them around.
If they had any damn sense, they would ask him to engage in misdirecting the competition. He could claim to be taking up knitting, or needlepoint, or horticulture. Maybe stamp collecting. Fine hobbies to those who are interested, but I wonder what the excitement factor would be to the game version. Let some crappy knock-off company sink their R&D into that!
Sorry. Apparently I'm overly prickly today and didn't get it. My bad. Time for decaf.
Perhaps Americans and non-Americans alike should bear in mind that /. is more casual conversation than fine literature, and overlook the odd typo, searching instead for the actual content in a post. Have you any thoughts on his point? Or is it just easier to whore for karma by bashing Americans?
sm62704 - Good to read you again. You've got a point about the media. How do we deal with an untrustworthy media? As much as I hate to admit it, I think the parent touches on the root of it when he references education. Literacy and more science education would help, but the real key IMHO is a detailed education in history. What generally passes for history education is actually a summary of an idealized point of view about what happened on a bunch of dates.
Real history education begins with researching the original sources, or as close as you can come. It continues with the realization that you will have to deal with divergent points of view and contradictory evidence. It forces you to challenge what you had assumed or been taught before, as you search for a deeper, hidden truth. You confront propaganda, and its pervasive role in history.
No one is immune to being fooled, but it's a lot harder to fool someone who has been taught to question the face value of things, and how to compare different sources to learn more.
Please don't take offense; I wasn't trying to equate the the Simpsons with Hitler.* I referenced them because he referenced them is his post. I felt he was relying on poorly founded generalizations, and was trying to point out that stereotypes fail.
;)
* Your joking reference to "The Hitlers" is simultaneously hilarious and chilling, BTW. (Visualize a Homer-shaped Hitler with mustache, comb-over and stern gaze goose-stepping into a [insert hilarious sight gag here] and going "D'oh!" in a German accent.) Of course, Homer is a well-intentioned goof and lovable, therefore the perfect character. Hitler rounds out the 20th century's triumvirate of evil, along with Stalin and possibly Mao, and therefore doesn't really seem worthy of a hit prime time comedy series.
The nuts reference was several things. 1) I didn't have time for a detailed and thoughtful post, so I wrote what came to mind. 2) Yes, partly, it was a meta-joke. I laugh as much as anyone when I see someone kicked in the balls, especially if it a cartoon person on the Simpsons, even though some inner part of me cringes even when a cartoon character gets it (been there in real life, which leads me to ... ) 3) Actual ball-kicking isn't really funny, at least for the recipient, thus my point about not taking the Simpsons as an indicator of actual truth.
;)
Or something like that.
Not only that, guess who had the ARPANET contract? BBN. I dealt with them for years, and they are a very capable organization. Chances are they can deliver what they say.
The Simpsons and pop culture also support the idea that we all find it funny when someone gets kicked in the balls.
IANAL, but I don't believe that a warrant is needed if the officers involved believe there is an imminent danger. (For example, if they see through an open window that someone is passed out on the floor, they can enter right away) Apparently there was a significant question in their minds about the safety of the chemicals. 1500 vials and jars all over the furniture and floors is way more than the "kid's chemistry set" image the blog and summary would like us to believe. I'm not a chemist any more than I am a lawyer, but it doesn't seem like that was the most responsible way to store his stuff.
FWIW, Marlboro is not some hick podunk town whose officials have nothing to do but harass people. That being said, Massachusetts is the ultimate nanny state, and I think it's stupid that his chemicals will not be returned to him. If there was belief of imminent danger, I'd guess that officials were within their rights to test them, but if all they found was nothing more dangerous than household cleaners, everything should have been returned.
I wonder what he was working on.
I wouldn't claim anything based on pop culture. That's part of my point. Pop culture around here promotes the use of memes like "In Soviet Russia, (insert something here) YOU!" That doesn't mean that we actually believe the joke. It means that the reference is understood by many.
Banning the Chinese athletes from the games is a far cry from awarding or withholding the honor of hosting the Olympics.
GP - The parent's post is an oversimplified and narrow-minded load of crap. Almost nobody I speak to on the topic (and I travel widely in the US, or at least I used to ... ) holds those views. While everyone I know holds Nazism in contempt (as you apparently do), I can't recall the last time I met someone who couldn't differentiate between German citizens, and Nazis & Hitler supporters.
Parent - Pop culture humor is just that - pop culture humor, and should not be taken as more than that. Living your life by the teachings of of prime time TV is the surest way to get the US judged by the rest of the world in a similarly narrow and unkind light. German != (Nazi) && American != (Homer Simpson, GWB, etc.)
It seems to me that judging a whole people (Germans, US, or Jews) by a stereotype is a tad Nazi-ish in itself.
If money is just "what you use to get stuff" then there is little reason to buy. However if money is "a tool to effect the world around you" ... I wonder if there is a relationship between disposable income and piracy?
Unrelated to gaming, but related to income & commerce ... my stepdaughter once worked for a coffee shop and made good money in tips, even though the neighborhood was mostly made up of college kids, a few middle-class young professionals, and a lot of low-to-middle income urban families.
The shop's owner opened another location in a nearby suburb full of McMansions, but had a hard time getting her original staff to work shifts there, mostly because the wealthier clientele were 1)- rude as hell, and 2)- cheap as hell.
Her analysis was simple: people who don't have much money know its importance, and are willing to spend it where they see value. Others who have much often exude a sense of entitlement, as if they deserve even more.
People who learned by rote will resist change no matter what it is. If they learned on Linux, they would resist changing from that to Windows.
Actually, it is a brand new HP. Recent model, etc. I didn't research it ahead of time. I originally got it to work with my office laptop (XP, per official IT policy), and tried connecting the Linux box to it over the network for giggles and grins.
I get what you are saying, though. I believe that people who don't give Linux a chance don't know what they are missing. It generally works far better than new users expect.
And I did something like that for my mother before I moved half way across the world and she did just fine. 1999 worked as "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" in that situation
Nice. Where did you go from/to?
Using Linux is not nearly as bad as most people make it out to be.
My new HP all-in-one prints and scans great with my Ubuntu box, and required minimal, easy setup. OTOH, the several XP boxes on my home network were a pain to connect to the HP, and have constant problems with the darned thing, despite it being specifically designed for working in a Windows home network environment.
My old Epson printer? Works like a charm on the Ubuntu box. All the digital cameras in the house work with Ubuntu, including a couple acquired this year. Can I connect a camcorder via firewire? Check. Again, it works, and does so with little or no screwing around. Ditto for using an old DLink wireless networking card I had laying around. Configuring it under Windows is slightly annoying, but it works. Under Linux? No kludge. Just works.
People with little or no computer experience might actually be better candidates for Linux than experienced Windows users, because they aren't already used to doing things differently.
It wont fix obesity directly, but it could help build the muscle mass needed to burn off excess calories as part of a proper diet & exercise program. In conjunction with healthy lifestyle changes, I could see this benefiting a lot of people.
Nobody really knows what happens to microscopic black holes. There is no experimental evidence.
Maybe there will be soon?