Maybe I'm being defensive here, but as someone who identifies as a geek, I don't believe that geeks have to be sexually inept or oblivious. For heaven's sake, i've got geek friends who swing. I'm a geek, I dance funny, but I know my way around.
I agree that geek won't go mainstream, though. A watered down co-op version will, and then it will die out. But being a geek means truly enjoying and exploring your intellectual abilities, something that you either do or don't naturally.
Not that this is the right solution, but why don't they just apply the same logic go trademark as to patents: defend it or lose it. In this case, they didn't defend it in time. If this was a trademark issue they'd be out of luck: you can't just pop in years after it's become common usage and ask for it back.
Thanks for sharing. I think there's a fair number of people who don't fit into the standard school system, yet who are very smart and valuable. Some, like you and I, make it anyways. Some don't, in which case it's society's loss.
I just visited Iceland a couple months back, and I have to say that it made me wonder why geothemal isn't more popular.
My favorite iceland moment: I went to the blue lagoon, which is a spa next to a geothermal powerplant. Basically you've got this cloudy blue mineral water in a huge black volcanic rock basin, at one end you've got the spa, where you get in, and the water is probably just over 80 degrees. Then on the other end of the basin you've got geothermal runoff water boiling in. You can get as close as you like to the inlet, but when you get within 30 feet or so you're nearly getting cooked. There's also some silica mud and waterfalls along the sides. The view is dramatic with the industrial steamstacks on one end, a classy spa structure on the other, and the natural volcanic pool in the middle. Highly recommended.
But the point is: you're bathing in powerplant runoff. And it's supposed to be good for you. Now that's pretty amazing: I want that kind of powerplant in my back yard. And looking up in Wikipedia, the largest geothermal installation in the world is actually in California. And it doesn't put out some wussy windmill sized power, we're talking 2000 Megawatts -- that's nuclear plant territory, if I understand correctly.
Reykjavik is reputedly the least polluted city in Europe, and most of the heating and power is provided by geothermal -- they just run hot pipes through the houses. Iceland has some pretty unique geographic properties that lend itself well to the process, but it's hard to believe that this can't be harnessed elsewhere to good effect. I mean, I understand the startup costs are very high. And I understand the technology needs work. But we're talking about a nearly limitless source of energy that is clean, safe, and politically sound. It seems like a pretty wise investment.
Point taken -- I've lowballed on $12K. Though I believe that many cars under $20K score very reasonable safety marks. I know for sure that all the features you mention can be found in cars under $24K because my Prius has them all and everyone says it's overpriced.
Car prices go up much further than $24K, so I think my point is still valid: people spend extra money on cars to stroke their ego. Which is fine. And criticizing Prius owners for spending extra doesn't make any more sense than criticizing everyone who spent extra for their personal brand of ego stroking.
Compared to what? My Prius is at least as fun to drive as any other similarly priced car I've used over the past ten years. Actually, it's more fun to drive than most. Nearly everyone who's hopped in my car notes that it has good acceleration. So I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you're comparing it to muscle cars, well sure, but compared to sedans in the 20K-30K range it is reasonable.
Another take on "fun-to-drive" that may not appeal to you: aside from good handling and accelleration and such, which is what I figure we were just discussing, I've had more fun driving my Prius than any other car I've owned because it's fun for me to see how I can influence the milage. It's actually a bit of a game.
What kind of car can you get new for $12K?
Something like a Toyota Echo. Yeah, I looked that up before posting $12K. There are plenty of similarly priced cars from various manufacturers. You may feel the Toyota Echo is not a reasonable car, but I'm a six foot male, I can fit in an Echo (a six foot male friend has one), it drives quite adequately, and it is very dependable. Ignoring large family or utility issues for the sake of this discussion, nobody needs more than that.
Of course you might want more than that. Most people do. I certainly do: which is why I bought a Prius: I like it. It makes me feel good. Not too many people buy a car based on a hard cost-benefit analysis or an ROI. People buy cars they like. If you've spent $50K on an H1, or $250K on a Ferrari, that's fine: enjoy. That's why we buy cars. You don't need to justify it. Beyond the the $12K mark it's a toy. I just want people to recoginze that I bought my Prius for the same reason.
Hope you like it, it's a pretty nice car. Don't expect more than 40 MPG consistently, though. Per tank I've averaged as high as 47 and as low as 39, but it's usually just over 40.
I've had a 2004 Prius since November 2003. I'm very pleased with my car, and I'll keep it for many years to come, I think. One thing that keeps coming up is that I didn't save any money. What I don't understand is why that focus is applied to the hybrid and not other cars? You can pretty much get a fully functional, well engineered car today for around $12K. So every dollar you spend over that is just for personal taste. When someone buys a $60K BMW, I don't hear people saying "You know, you didn't save any money".
I guess the idea that you might save money with a hybrid casts the image that most people who buy them are out to save money. I'm not. At $24K, the Prius is only a bit more expensive than other cars of it's quality -- but like a BMW purchaser, I would have bought it for even more. BecasuseI think it's cool. I like the idea of using as little oil as I can while still living a convenient and comfortable life. I like the idea of polluting as less. And most of all, I like the idea of voting (with my dollars) for changing technology in automobiles.
So, just want to point out that not everyone who buys a Prius is doing it for a financial reason -- probably not more than with any other car.
I agree in theory, but in practice it seems that the floods have already convinced them that "good" DRM is okay. Well, not with me, but that doesn't matter that much to them anyways.
And buying CD's is a bit of a vote for a dying industry anyways. I buy CD's too, but it's pretty hard to enjoy life without voting for something you hate these days. The way everything is all commercialized and conglomerated. Ah well!
Then use JHymn to unlock the tunes. I don't pirate music, I use it all by myself. But I would not buy from the iTunes music store if JHymn wasn't available. I've already had problems with songs not authorizing on my computers for one reason or another, and it is just about the most annoying thing.
In fact, the latest iTunes patch broke JHymn, and I'm not buying any more from Apple until JHymn has a way to get around their latest tricks.
That doesn't really answer the AAC on different platforms problem... does it? I don't know -- I only listen on my Mac at the moment. But I can always rerip them to mp3 if I have to for a small quality penalty. A bit annoying, but I'm also betting AAC will be common enough in the next few years...
An excellent point. I am strongly in favor of school improvements. And they run much deeper than this high-profile debate. Maybe we'll see those improvements someday.
Quite seriously: I heard plenty of both evolution and intelligent design growing up, with an agnostic scientific father and a highly religious fundamentalist Christian mother. And like most kids in my situation I chose what made the most political sense at the time. In my case it was fundamentalist Christianity -- that side of the family was much more intense and proactive.
During school, I denounced evolution regardless of their teachings, and argued with friends, teachers, and my dad's side of the family. But I still learned critical thinking and by the time I was 19 and on my own, I proclaimed myself an athiest and started to grok the evolutionary, organic nature of our world.
Not that such is the ultimate goal -- go with whatever works for you. But I don't buy that school makes or breaks critical thinkers, and I don't think that hearing conflicting (even idiodic) ideas poisons the mind. Any of the kids in Kansas who are going to believe in ID are going to do so regardless of what the curriculum says. Ditto for evolution.
And I don't even think the blow to science matters. Education is pretty much a mess anyways. It's not like we ever taught critical thinking in school. Or even basic logic. It's mostly memorization, without even the context to make use of the info. Most people seem to pick up any useful knowledge on their own.
Cheers.
(PS - I'm a high school drop out who went on to a fairly successful tech career... my opinion on the matter might be a bit skewed;) I got lucky. No disrespect to the teachers who bust their humps for insulting pay -- education is a noble goal, it just doesn't seem to be working that well the way we do it now.)
Never said I was trying to convince anyone of anything. I just want to collect people's opinions. Learning about the world and all. I design software, so it's helpful to me.
Care to give a brief explanation as to why? Lots of people don't like Apple, or bemoan the lack of certain bits of software, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who didn't like OSX itself.
So... is it ok if I steal a new Pontiac Aztec off the lot?
Look folks: physical artifacts are not the same as intellectual property. As much as we institute laws to make them work the same in the free market (and to good effect sometimes), they simply are not the same and all the lousy analogies in the world won't make it so. Stealing your food is not the same as stealing a recipe. Fucking your wife is not the same as jerking off to her memory. I'm not saying intellectual property is meaningless... far from it... but it is not the same as physical property.
If everyone can calm down for a moment, I think there's a mixture. My dev team is roughly split on alcohol-- 5 non drinkers, 4 drinkers. And though I think most of us are okay with caffiene nobody seems to have an major addiction... just a soda or tea once in a while. I think only one or two of us drink coffee with any regularity. One of us even smokes cigarettes. And maybe even a couple of us have tried pot.
And yes, we're REAL programmers, as everyone seems to like to claim (in fact we just won the fastest downloading retail site, though Akamai helps there).
And, here's the amazing part: we all do good work and we all get along. TMTOWTDI, as they say.
Um, a lot of the rhetoric back and forth on this point is speculation and unverifiable. But there's one fact that stands out:
Mosquitos are now resistant to DDT.
So, uh, obviously we used plenty of it, environmentalists or not, to kill off all the non-immune mosquitos. So we did as much with DDT as we could. Whether Rachel Carson's book had any effect on our usage pattern is still debatable, but the fact regarding DDT is that it wouldn't have mattered anyways. It had a very short useful lifespan, which we used up.
So all the environmentalist haters can keep on hating -- if DDT was useful maybe ol' Rachel would have screwed it up. But it wasn't that useful as we now know, so I don't think we can actually pin any lives on her.
If it was, then Gates would have donated the money anonymously
Why? Is there any disadvantage to doing it openly? Assuming it was pure philanthropy, what would possibly be his motivation to make it anonymous? It just doesn't matter. So there's no way to know if that was a consideration.
Now, I'll go on to assume publicity was a consideration because in general people like to be recognized for their good deeds. And this is a good deed. And what is wrong with being recognized for that? If people can be recognized for their bad deeds (who wants those to be anonymous) then it should be the same with good deeds. It's only fair.
Why are we so cynical now that even a good act is labeled self-serving if the person could get even a pat on the back for it? Oh Bill! You selfish bastard! You did something nice publicly! People might actually talk well of you!
It's weird how bitter we all seem. People just love to hate.
Cheers.
PS - I'm a Linux and Mac user, so no motive here other than to give credit where credit is due. Oh wait! I'm trying to look generous and forgiving! That must be my ulterior motive! I'm such a self-serving bastard!
By putting so many regulations and restrictions on how H1B's can work, they've created indentured servitude. And surprise surprise this lets companies underpay them, which in turn allows them to undercut American labor much more effectively. Because of their fear of fair competition, they've encouraged the exact behavior they were seeking to avoid.
I'm personally of the opinion that we should open the borders wide, and let all residents be legal aliens. Like it was before the xenophobia early last century. Like back when poor immigrants came over and built the country and economy we so love today. Yes, it'll be ugly for a bit, and some native born people would have to compete with foreign born people, but survival of the fittest, right?
That's an interesting point... if you're going to show violence, you should show the consequences. It's probably better to show the suffering and destruction than to pretend it's all a game. In general I think people work it out in their heads so it doesn't matter that much, but it's funny that perhaps in an effort to clean things up they're actually creating something more dangerous: a "safe-looking" version of violence.
It's an intersting question. I think it's possible to analyze "the brain" and to immitate it. We've done this to an extent with neural nets (though we don't even understand fully how they work).
As to the more philosophical question of analyzing one's self... you definitely can, but not objectively. As any analysis changes the way you see yourself, which changes the analysis.
Really? I would have thought that the majority was the reasoning bit... it seems that even tiny brains are very good at the muscle/organ control tasks. I don't imagine our physical controls are much more difficult than any other two legged creature. And in fact simpler than some: I've always thought it's amazing that birds with their small brains have an incredible physical understanding of three dimensional movement... movement that baffles me when I play flight simulator games and such:)
Slashdot Mirror
under-developed (read:adolescent) sexual identity
Maybe I'm being defensive here, but as someone who identifies as a geek, I don't believe that geeks have to be sexually inept or oblivious. For heaven's sake, i've got geek friends who swing. I'm a geek, I dance funny, but I know my way around.
I agree that geek won't go mainstream, though. A watered down co-op version will, and then it will die out. But being a geek means truly enjoying and exploring your intellectual abilities, something that you either do or don't naturally.
Cheers.
Not that this is the right solution, but why don't they just apply the same logic go trademark as to patents: defend it or lose it. In this case, they didn't defend it in time. If this was a trademark issue they'd be out of luck: you can't just pop in years after it's become common usage and ask for it back.
Cheers.
Thanks for sharing. I think there's a fair number of people who don't fit into the standard school system, yet who are very smart and valuable. Some, like you and I, make it anyways. Some don't, in which case it's society's loss.
Cheers.
Wonderful! I'll have to give that a shot next. I'm sure it does wonders for the skin :)
I just visited Iceland a couple months back, and I have to say that it made me wonder why geothemal isn't more popular.
My favorite iceland moment: I went to the blue lagoon, which is a spa next to a geothermal powerplant. Basically you've got this cloudy blue mineral water in a huge black volcanic rock basin, at one end you've got the spa, where you get in, and the water is probably just over 80 degrees. Then on the other end of the basin you've got geothermal runoff water boiling in. You can get as close as you like to the inlet, but when you get within 30 feet or so you're nearly getting cooked. There's also some silica mud and waterfalls along the sides. The view is dramatic with the industrial steamstacks on one end, a classy spa structure on the other, and the natural volcanic pool in the middle. Highly recommended.
But the point is: you're bathing in powerplant runoff. And it's supposed to be good for you. Now that's pretty amazing: I want that kind of powerplant in my back yard. And looking up in Wikipedia, the largest geothermal installation in the world is actually in California. And it doesn't put out some wussy windmill sized power, we're talking 2000 Megawatts -- that's nuclear plant territory, if I understand correctly.
Reykjavik is reputedly the least polluted city in Europe, and most of the heating and power is provided by geothermal -- they just run hot pipes through the houses. Iceland has some pretty unique geographic properties that lend itself well to the process, but it's hard to believe that this can't be harnessed elsewhere to good effect. I mean, I understand the startup costs are very high. And I understand the technology needs work. But we're talking about a nearly limitless source of energy that is clean, safe, and politically sound. It seems like a pretty wise investment.
Cheers.
Point taken -- I've lowballed on $12K. Though I believe that many cars under $20K score very reasonable safety marks. I know for sure that all the features you mention can be found in cars under $24K because my Prius has them all and everyone says it's overpriced.
Car prices go up much further than $24K, so I think my point is still valid: people spend extra money on cars to stroke their ego. Which is fine. And criticizing Prius owners for spending extra doesn't make any more sense than criticizing everyone who spent extra for their personal brand of ego stroking.
Cheers.
Because Hybrids are not fun to drive.
Compared to what? My Prius is at least as fun to drive as any other similarly priced car I've used over the past ten years. Actually, it's more fun to drive than most. Nearly everyone who's hopped in my car notes that it has good acceleration. So I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you're comparing it to muscle cars, well sure, but compared to sedans in the 20K-30K range it is reasonable.
Another take on "fun-to-drive" that may not appeal to you: aside from good handling and accelleration and such, which is what I figure we were just discussing, I've had more fun driving my Prius than any other car I've owned because it's fun for me to see how I can influence the milage. It's actually a bit of a game.
What kind of car can you get new for $12K?
Something like a Toyota Echo. Yeah, I looked that up before posting $12K. There are plenty of similarly priced cars from various manufacturers. You may feel the Toyota Echo is not a reasonable car, but I'm a six foot male, I can fit in an Echo (a six foot male friend has one), it drives quite adequately, and it is very dependable. Ignoring large family or utility issues for the sake of this discussion, nobody needs more than that.
Of course you might want more than that. Most people do. I certainly do: which is why I bought a Prius: I like it. It makes me feel good. Not too many people buy a car based on a hard cost-benefit analysis or an ROI. People buy cars they like. If you've spent $50K on an H1, or $250K on a Ferrari, that's fine: enjoy. That's why we buy cars. You don't need to justify it. Beyond the the $12K mark it's a toy. I just want people to recoginze that I bought my Prius for the same reason.
Cheers.
Hope you like it, it's a pretty nice car. Don't expect more than 40 MPG consistently, though. Per tank I've averaged as high as 47 and as low as 39, but it's usually just over 40.
Cheers.
Um... did you even read my post? I don't care if it costs twice as much. It's about getting something you like. Same as with every car. Cheers.
I've had a 2004 Prius since November 2003. I'm very pleased with my car, and I'll keep it for many years to come, I think. One thing that keeps coming up is that I didn't save any money. What I don't understand is why that focus is applied to the hybrid and not other cars? You can pretty much get a fully functional, well engineered car today for around $12K. So every dollar you spend over that is just for personal taste. When someone buys a $60K BMW, I don't hear people saying "You know, you didn't save any money".
I guess the idea that you might save money with a hybrid casts the image that most people who buy them are out to save money. I'm not. At $24K, the Prius is only a bit more expensive than other cars of it's quality -- but like a BMW purchaser, I would have bought it for even more. BecasuseI think it's cool. I like the idea of using as little oil as I can while still living a convenient and comfortable life. I like the idea of polluting as less. And most of all, I like the idea of voting (with my dollars) for changing technology in automobiles.
So, just want to point out that not everyone who buys a Prius is doing it for a financial reason -- probably not more than with any other car.
Cheers.
I agree in theory, but in practice it seems that the floods have already convinced them that "good" DRM is okay. Well, not with me, but that doesn't matter that much to them anyways.
And buying CD's is a bit of a vote for a dying industry anyways. I buy CD's too, but it's pretty hard to enjoy life without voting for something you hate these days. The way everything is all commercialized and conglomerated. Ah well!
Cheers.
Then use JHymn to unlock the tunes. I don't pirate music, I use it all by myself. But I would not buy from the iTunes music store if JHymn wasn't available. I've already had problems with songs not authorizing on my computers for one reason or another, and it is just about the most annoying thing.
In fact, the latest iTunes patch broke JHymn, and I'm not buying any more from Apple until JHymn has a way to get around their latest tricks.
That doesn't really answer the AAC on different platforms problem... does it? I don't know -- I only listen on my Mac at the moment. But I can always rerip them to mp3 if I have to for a small quality penalty. A bit annoying, but I'm also betting AAC will be common enough in the next few years...
Cheers.
An excellent point. I am strongly in favor of school improvements. And they run much deeper than this high-profile debate. Maybe we'll see those improvements someday.
Cheers.
Strangely, even with my barely over five digit slashdot ID, I had never heard of this. Wacky! Seems like a great and successful hoax.
Cheers.
Quite seriously: I heard plenty of both evolution and intelligent design growing up, with an agnostic scientific father and a highly religious fundamentalist Christian mother. And like most kids in my situation I chose what made the most political sense at the time. In my case it was fundamentalist Christianity -- that side of the family was much more intense and proactive.
;) I got lucky. No disrespect to the teachers who bust their humps for insulting pay -- education is a noble goal, it just doesn't seem to be working that well the way we do it now.)
During school, I denounced evolution regardless of their teachings, and argued with friends, teachers, and my dad's side of the family. But I still learned critical thinking and by the time I was 19 and on my own, I proclaimed myself an athiest and started to grok the evolutionary, organic nature of our world.
Not that such is the ultimate goal -- go with whatever works for you. But I don't buy that school makes or breaks critical thinkers, and I don't think that hearing conflicting (even idiodic) ideas poisons the mind. Any of the kids in Kansas who are going to believe in ID are going to do so regardless of what the curriculum says. Ditto for evolution.
And I don't even think the blow to science matters. Education is pretty much a mess anyways. It's not like we ever taught critical thinking in school. Or even basic logic. It's mostly memorization, without even the context to make use of the info. Most people seem to pick up any useful knowledge on their own.
Cheers.
(PS - I'm a high school drop out who went on to a fairly successful tech career... my opinion on the matter might be a bit skewed
Never said I was trying to convince anyone of anything. I just want to collect people's opinions. Learning about the world and all. I design software, so it's helpful to me.
Cheers.
I personally don't like OSX
Care to give a brief explanation as to why? Lots of people don't like Apple, or bemoan the lack of certain bits of software, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who didn't like OSX itself.
Cheers.
So... is it ok if I steal a new Pontiac Aztec off the lot?
Look folks: physical artifacts are not the same as intellectual property. As much as we institute laws to make them work the same in the free market (and to good effect sometimes), they simply are not the same and all the lousy analogies in the world won't make it so. Stealing your food is not the same as stealing a recipe. Fucking your wife is not the same as jerking off to her memory. I'm not saying intellectual property is meaningless... far from it... but it is not the same as physical property.
Cheers.
If everyone can calm down for a moment, I think there's a mixture. My dev team is roughly split on alcohol-- 5 non drinkers, 4 drinkers. And though I think most of us are okay with caffiene nobody seems to have an major addiction... just a soda or tea once in a while. I think only one or two of us drink coffee with any regularity. One of us even smokes cigarettes. And maybe even a couple of us have tried pot.
And yes, we're REAL programmers, as everyone seems to like to claim (in fact we just won the fastest downloading retail site, though Akamai helps there).
And, here's the amazing part: we all do good work and we all get along. TMTOWTDI, as they say.
Cheers.
Um, a lot of the rhetoric back and forth on this point is speculation and unverifiable. But there's one fact that stands out:
Mosquitos are now resistant to DDT.
So, uh, obviously we used plenty of it, environmentalists or not, to kill off all the non-immune mosquitos. So we did as much with DDT as we could. Whether Rachel Carson's book had any effect on our usage pattern is still debatable, but the fact regarding DDT is that it wouldn't have mattered anyways. It had a very short useful lifespan, which we used up.
So all the environmentalist haters can keep on hating -- if DDT was useful maybe ol' Rachel would have screwed it up. But it wasn't that useful as we now know, so I don't think we can actually pin any lives on her.
Cheers.
If it was, then Gates would have donated the money anonymously
Why? Is there any disadvantage to doing it openly? Assuming it was pure philanthropy, what would possibly be his motivation to make it anonymous? It just doesn't matter. So there's no way to know if that was a consideration.
Now, I'll go on to assume publicity was a consideration because in general people like to be recognized for their good deeds. And this is a good deed. And what is wrong with being recognized for that? If people can be recognized for their bad deeds (who wants those to be anonymous) then it should be the same with good deeds. It's only fair.
Why are we so cynical now that even a good act is labeled self-serving if the person could get even a pat on the back for it? Oh Bill! You selfish bastard! You did something nice publicly! People might actually talk well of you!
It's weird how bitter we all seem. People just love to hate.
Cheers.
PS - I'm a Linux and Mac user, so no motive here other than to give credit where credit is due. Oh wait! I'm trying to look generous and forgiving! That must be my ulterior motive! I'm such a self-serving bastard!
By putting so many regulations and restrictions on how H1B's can work, they've created indentured servitude. And surprise surprise this lets companies underpay them, which in turn allows them to undercut American labor much more effectively. Because of their fear of fair competition, they've encouraged the exact behavior they were seeking to avoid.
I'm personally of the opinion that we should open the borders wide, and let all residents be legal aliens. Like it was before the xenophobia early last century. Like back when poor immigrants came over and built the country and economy we so love today. Yes, it'll be ugly for a bit, and some native born people would have to compete with foreign born people, but survival of the fittest, right?
Cheers.
That's an interesting point... if you're going to show violence, you should show the consequences. It's probably better to show the suffering and destruction than to pretend it's all a game. In general I think people work it out in their heads so it doesn't matter that much, but it's funny that perhaps in an effort to clean things up they're actually creating something more dangerous: a "safe-looking" version of violence.
Cheers.
It's an intersting question. I think it's possible to analyze "the brain" and to immitate it. We've done this to an extent with neural nets (though we don't even understand fully how they work).
:)
As to the more philosophical question of analyzing one's self... you definitely can, but not objectively. As any analysis changes the way you see yourself, which changes the analysis.
Wacky stuff, this self-referential thinking
Cheers.
Really? I would have thought that the majority was the reasoning bit... it seems that even tiny brains are very good at the muscle/organ control tasks. I don't imagine our physical controls are much more difficult than any other two legged creature. And in fact simpler than some: I've always thought it's amazing that birds with their small brains have an incredible physical understanding of three dimensional movement... movement that baffles me when I play flight simulator games and such :)
Cheers.