When I was working on internal sales tools for a company that sold shoes, I created a heat map of their sizing grid: I colored each data cell a lighter or darker shade depending on the sales number in that cell. It was so exciting and original that I think a couple people said "thanks, that's neat" before we moved on.
How the hell did this get patented, and how can I submit my prior art to invalidate it?
We've been experiencing this corruption of the patent system for over a decade now. It costs our nation millions and millions of dollars. Is there any serious effort to fix it?
It was pointed at the screens. You're watching a movie, and every once in a while some jerk in the back starts making squiggles all over the movie with a laser pointer. Then everyone turns around to see who it is but by then the jerk has stopped and you can't tell. A few minutes later he does it again.
I don't really know why it stopped, but I'm glad it did.
Is this the next phase of the stupid laser-pointer-in-the-movie-theater gag that was "becoming epidemic" in the late 90's? Why do some people become idiots when they get a laser in their hands?
I was always impressed how that died off without any serious crackdown. People just squawked about it until it was common social knowledge that nobody though you were cool and everyone thought you were a dick.
> There's a cool thing that happens when you know this life isn't the end: You suddenly stop caring about yourself and just live your life to help everyone else.
Funny, because I've been living my life to help others much more so since I started thinking this life was the end. And I really feel that it's almost the exact opposite from what you say: if I think this life is but a blip and we can all live forever afterwards, then it's hard to imagine this life matters very much. Really, what is 80 years in an eternal life situation? Who cares if someone starves or not if that's just them getting to the good stuff - the eternal life - afterwards. Isn't death a blessing in that worldview?
On the other hand, I see this life as everything we'll ever have. So if someone suffers and dies, all they will ever have was wasted, and I am to blame if I could have helped. Helping others seems much more imperative in a world without an afterlife.
And just as a side topic since you brought it up: giving money directly to the poor seems about the least effective way to make lasting progress. I've worked a fair amount in developing countries and I can say it really is all about improving education at the community level.
That was an interesting and insightful post on several levels - thanks!
However it doesn't change the fact that I like experiencing life as I do through this limited consciousness and I want to keep doing so over an infinitely large piece of spacetime. YMMV.
Whenever someone brings up the conservation of energy as it relates to death, I feel they're missing the point. It's not my matter or energy I'm attached to - it's the arrangement. My matter gets replaced regularly, and my energy comes and goes even though I do not. I am an arrangement of matter and energy. Mostly I am the arrangement of matter and energy that currently happens to be my brain.
If this sounds a little too new-age-y I assure you it's really rather plain. Imagine you've just spent a year writing a novel and have it saved on your hard drive. I come by with a demagnetizer and erase the drive. "Oh ho!" I say, "Don't worry - all the energy still exists!" Yet something has surely been lost.
So back to Jesus - his matter and energy may still exist, but he certainly does not. While energy is conserved, information about that energy doesn't seem to be. Even someone who's life was documented and widely read hasn't been conserved in any meaningful way: Jesus can no longer experience things, can no longer learn, contribute new insights, or surprise us. We have at best a lousy fossil of the people that have died. And at worst, nothing at all.
I've heard this worded a few ways - the idea that the sweetness of life is related to it's brevity. That doesn't hold up to scrutiny for me. Until I was in my teens I basically thought I would live forever - and life as as thrilling and sweet in those times as could be. And even today it is the moments that transcend time - the ones that remind me of the immortality of my youth - that thrill me the most.
I think this quote is just a good effort to console ourselves over the loss.
I am not afraid of death per se. I was exactly as dead for the eternity before my birth as I will be for the eternity after my death, and it wasn't bad.
However: the best part has certainly been the living part. By far. And I see no reason I shouldn't want to extend it as long as possible.
Maybe some are afraid of death. For me it's just that I love life. Not exactly the same thing.
Where are the filibusters? They're right here you dishonest prick: http://politicalirony.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/senate-gridlock1.jpg
More than double than the democrats under Bush. Let me guess, now you're going to justify it by saying it was a good thing they stopped so many bills and they were within their rights to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's you being dishonest again because you're retreating from your first position without admitting anything.
You ever wonder why it's hard to get anything positive done? It's people like you.
> What kind of prick does a minister have to be to believe and teach what the Bible says?!!?
That's not the problem. He can teach it all he wants. The problem is that he's trying to make it the law of the land, even though it doesn't apply to people outside his religion. That does make him a prick. I'm not trying to force him to marry a man or stay alone, he shouldn't try to force me to marry a woman or stay alone.
As to the other stuff, ya, I'm pissed at Clinton and Obama for being dicks on the issue. But aside from any individual opinions, there is an enormous difference between the way that Republicans want to handle homosexuality and the way Democrats do. The platforms of each party speak to this.
Does this justify wanting people to actually die in a storm? No. Would there be irony if they did? Yes, because of comments that prominent, respected Republicans have made.
> So Im an oppressor, a liar, a meanie? Im engaging in vitriolic attacks here?
Nope, that's not what he said at all. He said your party has become a home for such people. And that is undeniably true. He didn't even say they were the majority, or that there are no such people in the Democratic party. Just that there has been a settling of such people in the Republican party.
The fact that you didn't pick up the difference does imply that the "self-deception" and "hypocritical protest" bit may apply to you. Or maybe not; maybe it was an honest mistake.
I won't believe it until we've watched most of the world's crops wither away causing widespread famine. And even then I won't believe it. It would have happened anyway. Nope nope nope. Science is a sham.
I think the idea that innocent polite people are at risk of getting caught up in sexual harassment suits is way overblown. Are there some crazy cases out there? Sure, but it's like getting hit by lightening - generally you don't have to worry about it. The examples you give are unlikely in the extreme. Whoever told you that avoiding sexual harassment charges is like walking through a minefield either doesn't know what they're talking about or is one of the jerks that makes sexual harassment laws necessary.
For anyone who wants to know where the line is, here's a good start: don't say anything to a female co-worker that you wouldn't want a guy to say to your mother.
Which one sounds more like childish whining: Not wanting to have people talk shit at you all day? Or not wanting to have to shut your mouth and stop talking shit?
When someone wants you to stop talking in the theater, is it they who are the jerk because they can't just deal with it?
People: if you can't stop yourself from saying sexually harassing things, you've got some serious problems. If you whine that you are somehow being oppressed because you can't say stupid shit to whoever you want, you're a whiney baby.
Most of us are much better than this, of course, but there's always a few idiots in these discussions that still don't get it. Thanks, Tastecicles, for bringing the stupid.
Just reading this makes me angry. We've got this amazing volume of content in a highly useable, incredibly clean and completely unobtrusive format... and your complaint is that it's ugly? Fuck you. I don't know exactly why it makes me that angry, but it does. Probably something to do with the vast swaths of people who can't tell the difference between pretty and quality.
Why don't we got back and take Shakespeare out of this awful line-by-line format and make it all swirly or something? Moby Dick needs to be printed on pages with a water-texture background. Black readable text on a white background, cleanly segmented by content? Oh god, the graphic designer in me is just aching to jump in and fuck it all up.
Care to link to some evidence for your claims? Or explain how, if true, that squares with the fact that crime did not increase when immigration increased?
I understand that your worldview requires that immigrants be a crime problem. It's just that the facts indicate otherwise.
How odd - it looks like any of a dozen Linux window managers from the late 90's. Back then I used to think how the flat/square look was just the first simple thing a developer would come up with, and how Linux would need a little more graphical refinement if they ever hoped to go mainstream. In the end it doesn't matter much for usability, but it sure looks like a toy/baby window manager to me.
Actually, if you want to make broad judgements, there's a much more significant group that makes up nearly all of the prison population. This group is so ill-adjusted, they are over represented in criminal activity by a factor of nearly 20:1. This group, of course, is men.
If you want to keep it real, you ought be a lot more concerned about why men are such fuck-ups before you worry about what color the men are.
I have to admit some of this stuff had me absolutely drooling - particularly the app and multi-window management. Damn - it's much better than what Apple is doing right now.
They should absolutely use some of these ideas. Unfortunately I'm afraid Apple wouldn't even look at this stuff. They've got the NIH mentality bad.
Slashdot Mirror
Please tell me this is an example of Poe's law. Please.
I "invented" this years before they did. There are no technical details that are not obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
When I was working on internal sales tools for a company that sold shoes, I created a heat map of their sizing grid: I colored each data cell a lighter or darker shade depending on the sales number in that cell. It was so exciting and original that I think a couple people said "thanks, that's neat" before we moved on.
How the hell did this get patented, and how can I submit my prior art to invalidate it?
We've been experiencing this corruption of the patent system for over a decade now. It costs our nation millions and millions of dollars. Is there any serious effort to fix it?
It was pointed at the screens. You're watching a movie, and every once in a while some jerk in the back starts making squiggles all over the movie with a laser pointer. Then everyone turns around to see who it is but by then the jerk has stopped and you can't tell. A few minutes later he does it again.
I don't really know why it stopped, but I'm glad it did.
Is this the next phase of the stupid laser-pointer-in-the-movie-theater gag that was "becoming epidemic" in the late 90's? Why do some people become idiots when they get a laser in their hands?
I was always impressed how that died off without any serious crackdown. People just squawked about it until it was common social knowledge that nobody though you were cool and everyone thought you were a dick.
Hopefully this dies off too.
> There's a cool thing that happens when you know this life isn't the end: You suddenly stop caring about yourself and just live your life to help everyone else.
Funny, because I've been living my life to help others much more so since I started thinking this life was the end. And I really feel that it's almost the exact opposite from what you say: if I think this life is but a blip and we can all live forever afterwards, then it's hard to imagine this life matters very much. Really, what is 80 years in an eternal life situation? Who cares if someone starves or not if that's just them getting to the good stuff - the eternal life - afterwards. Isn't death a blessing in that worldview?
On the other hand, I see this life as everything we'll ever have. So if someone suffers and dies, all they will ever have was wasted, and I am to blame if I could have helped. Helping others seems much more imperative in a world without an afterlife.
And just as a side topic since you brought it up: giving money directly to the poor seems about the least effective way to make lasting progress. I've worked a fair amount in developing countries and I can say it really is all about improving education at the community level.
Cheers.
That was an interesting and insightful post on several levels - thanks!
However it doesn't change the fact that I like experiencing life as I do through this limited consciousness and I want to keep doing so over an infinitely large piece of spacetime. YMMV.
Whenever someone brings up the conservation of energy as it relates to death, I feel they're missing the point. It's not my matter or energy I'm attached to - it's the arrangement. My matter gets replaced regularly, and my energy comes and goes even though I do not. I am an arrangement of matter and energy. Mostly I am the arrangement of matter and energy that currently happens to be my brain.
If this sounds a little too new-age-y I assure you it's really rather plain. Imagine you've just spent a year writing a novel and have it saved on your hard drive. I come by with a demagnetizer and erase the drive. "Oh ho!" I say, "Don't worry - all the energy still exists!" Yet something has surely been lost.
So back to Jesus - his matter and energy may still exist, but he certainly does not. While energy is conserved, information about that energy doesn't seem to be. Even someone who's life was documented and widely read hasn't been conserved in any meaningful way: Jesus can no longer experience things, can no longer learn, contribute new insights, or surprise us. We have at best a lousy fossil of the people that have died. And at worst, nothing at all.
Cheers.
I've heard this worded a few ways - the idea that the sweetness of life is related to it's brevity. That doesn't hold up to scrutiny for me. Until I was in my teens I basically thought I would live forever - and life as as thrilling and sweet in those times as could be. And even today it is the moments that transcend time - the ones that remind me of the immortality of my youth - that thrill me the most.
I think this quote is just a good effort to console ourselves over the loss.
I am not afraid of death per se. I was exactly as dead for the eternity before my birth as I will be for the eternity after my death, and it wasn't bad.
However: the best part has certainly been the living part. By far. And I see no reason I shouldn't want to extend it as long as possible.
Maybe some are afraid of death. For me it's just that I love life. Not exactly the same thing.
Finally, a comment I can get behind.
As I always say: if you don't want to live forever you're not doing it right.
Where are the filibusters? They're right here you dishonest prick: http://politicalirony.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/senate-gridlock1.jpg
More than double than the democrats under Bush. Let me guess, now you're going to justify it by saying it was a good thing they stopped so many bills and they were within their rights to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's you being dishonest again because you're retreating from your first position without admitting anything.
You ever wonder why it's hard to get anything positive done? It's people like you.
> What kind of prick does a minister have to be to believe and teach what the Bible says?!!?
That's not the problem. He can teach it all he wants. The problem is that he's trying to make it the law of the land, even though it doesn't apply to people outside his religion. That does make him a prick. I'm not trying to force him to marry a man or stay alone, he shouldn't try to force me to marry a woman or stay alone.
As to the other stuff, ya, I'm pissed at Clinton and Obama for being dicks on the issue. But aside from any individual opinions, there is an enormous difference between the way that Republicans want to handle homosexuality and the way Democrats do. The platforms of each party speak to this.
Does this justify wanting people to actually die in a storm? No. Would there be irony if they did? Yes, because of comments that prominent, respected Republicans have made.
> So Im an oppressor, a liar, a meanie? Im engaging in vitriolic attacks here?
Nope, that's not what he said at all. He said your party has become a home for such people. And that is undeniably true. He didn't even say they were the majority, or that there are no such people in the Democratic party. Just that there has been a settling of such people in the Republican party.
The fact that you didn't pick up the difference does imply that the "self-deception" and "hypocritical protest" bit may apply to you. Or maybe not; maybe it was an honest mistake.
Now that's the kind of Slashdot comment I miss. Thanks for the enlightening info!
I won't believe it until we've watched most of the world's crops wither away causing widespread famine. And even then I won't believe it. It would have happened anyway. Nope nope nope. Science is a sham.
I think the idea that innocent polite people are at risk of getting caught up in sexual harassment suits is way overblown. Are there some crazy cases out there? Sure, but it's like getting hit by lightening - generally you don't have to worry about it. The examples you give are unlikely in the extreme. Whoever told you that avoiding sexual harassment charges is like walking through a minefield either doesn't know what they're talking about or is one of the jerks that makes sexual harassment laws necessary.
For anyone who wants to know where the line is, here's a good start: don't say anything to a female co-worker that you wouldn't want a guy to say to your mother.
There. Was that really that hard?
Which one sounds more like childish whining: Not wanting to have people talk shit at you all day? Or not wanting to have to shut your mouth and stop talking shit?
When someone wants you to stop talking in the theater, is it they who are the jerk because they can't just deal with it?
People: if you can't stop yourself from saying sexually harassing things, you've got some serious problems. If you whine that you are somehow being oppressed because you can't say stupid shit to whoever you want, you're a whiney baby.
Most of us are much better than this, of course, but there's always a few idiots in these discussions that still don't get it. Thanks, Tastecicles, for bringing the stupid.
I'm all for rapid development, but any time you're measuring coding productivity in "lines of code" you've already lost.
Just reading this makes me angry. We've got this amazing volume of content in a highly useable, incredibly clean and completely unobtrusive format... and your complaint is that it's ugly? Fuck you. I don't know exactly why it makes me that angry, but it does. Probably something to do with the vast swaths of people who can't tell the difference between pretty and quality.
Why don't we got back and take Shakespeare out of this awful line-by-line format and make it all swirly or something? Moby Dick needs to be printed on pages with a water-texture background. Black readable text on a white background, cleanly segmented by content? Oh god, the graphic designer in me is just aching to jump in and fuck it all up.
Sigh.
Care to link to some evidence for your claims? Or explain how, if true, that squares with the fact that crime did not increase when immigration increased?
I understand that your worldview requires that immigrants be a crime problem. It's just that the facts indicate otherwise.
Illegal immigration is not causing higher crime. Arizona's crime rates are down since immigration increased - in line with the rest of the country:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/03/nation/la-na-arizona-crime-20100503
There is some ugly stuff going on, but saying illegal immigration has increased the the crime rate is simply false.
I think he's implying that the vast, vast majority of people are doing it wrong.
How odd - it looks like any of a dozen Linux window managers from the late 90's. Back then I used to think how the flat/square look was just the first simple thing a developer would come up with, and how Linux would need a little more graphical refinement if they ever hoped to go mainstream. In the end it doesn't matter much for usability, but it sure looks like a toy/baby window manager to me.
Actually, if you want to make broad judgements, there's a much more significant group that makes up nearly all of the prison population. This group is so ill-adjusted, they are over represented in criminal activity by a factor of nearly 20:1. This group, of course, is men.
If you want to keep it real, you ought be a lot more concerned about why men are such fuck-ups before you worry about what color the men are.
I have to admit some of this stuff had me absolutely drooling - particularly the app and multi-window management. Damn - it's much better than what Apple is doing right now.
They should absolutely use some of these ideas. Unfortunately I'm afraid Apple wouldn't even look at this stuff. They've got the NIH mentality bad.