Which "point of view" would that be? The only point of view available to you is that of the guy walking around with your memories... who, by definition, is you.
No, it's more like saying "grammar is important only where it supports communication". Normal people don't set out to create grammatically perfect sentences. That way lies madness. Instead, they try to communicate. They use exactly as much good grammar (or local idiom) as necessary, and don't sweat the rest of it.
Determining who's in charge of and who should be in charge of South Africa can be quite interesting.
Of course, as you imply, this has nothing to do with "who's in charge of South Africa", and everything to with "who's in charge of a set of config files that identify a logical region roughly congruent with South Africa within an independently administered opt-in internetwork".
The British Army was not stupid, simply conventional--"standards-compliant", if I may. And don't forget that their standard of warfare, which incorporated a number of modern innovations, had served them well in the Napoleonic wars. First forcing Napoleon to work for his victories, then holding his armies at bay, then turning the tide, and finally defeating him. They had no reason to believe that the American revolutionary war would be any different.
Do you think Washingto wouldn't have preferred to have a large army--to be able to field regiments of closely ranked musketment to equal the British Empire's own? His genius didn't lie in abandoning the standard; rather it lay in figuring out how to compete in spite of an inability to comply with the standard.
Britain wasn't defeated by stupidity, but by change, which surprises every instutition eventually. And this particular change was a long time in maturing.
As late as the first World War, over a century after the (American) Revolutionary War, the civilized nations--America included!--still utilized infantry in the same way they'd been used since the advent of the musket and the obsoletion of the armored, mounted knight.
Modern "guerilla" or "commando" infantry doctrine was devised by the Germans during WWI in an attempt to break the stalemate of trench warfare (a direct descendant of the "stupid" musketmen formations you laugh at); other nations soon followed suit, and by the end of the World War II trench warfare (and the legacy of the Napoleonic infantry) was finally at an end. Nowadays, all modern infantry follow the "Stormtrooper" doctrine. What the American Revolutionaries had wasn't doctrine at all, but desperation, and the U.S. preferred to fight in the standard way up until the early 20th century.
Niptick: I imagine what the poster meant to say was "the ends don't justify the means". Or, more closely, "a just cause (e.g., overthrowing tyranny) does not justify all methods of warfare (e.g., poisoning the tyrant's family and friends in an attempt to shake his resolve and force his abdication)". Is that clearer? I believe you were attacking a problem of form as if it were a problem of content. Since the original post is poorly worded, your error is understandable.
The problem is that the vast majority of users don't know anything happened.
Bzzzt! Wrong. Yahoo! sent out an email to every customer, telling them exactly what had happened, and giving explicit instructions on how to view and change the settings.
And yet here you are, clearly warned by the title of the article, reading and responding to it. I hope whining about it has amused you as much as teasing you has amused me!
Have you ever seen source code that is valid on four languages: Perl, C, Befunge, and BrainF*ck? During last Perlgolf season famous Perl hacker Jérôme Quelin submit such inconceivable masterpiece and now he published expanded explanation of his solution. Caution: that text can hurt your mental health.
Ironically, the article isn't even valid in one language.
It was awesome, as long as you had no plans to take it seriously. The only problem I had was that I saw it in an empty theater. A lot of the really funny lines ended up falling flat because there wasn't enough of an audience to generate a satisfying laugh response.
Don't forget to follow it up with a, "Now isn't that better? Say, you wouldn't mind giving me a big wad of cash so I can spread this message to otehrs, would you?"
Actually, I'm doing just fine without hitting you up for cash, thanks.
Lots of people are duped every day into supporting "feel-good" scam artists. At the same time, lots of people sensibly contribute money to organizations that do real good, full time. It sounds like you're trying to say "Christianity feels good, therefore it must be a scam."
Meanwhile, prior to the 20th Century, someone wrote "For God so loved the world [bla bla bla] that whosoever believeth in him shall have eternal life." Even assuming that the whole thing is a huge conspiracy, I think it's pretty clear that the texts date from prior to 1900. So there you have it: believe in the salvation of humanity via Christ, and benefit. It doesn't get any more fundamental than that. And this principle was almost certainly formulated much earlier than you seem to think.
If you don't think the problem exists, then great! I hope that works out for you. But please don't tell me I should be charging you money for the information you've received. It's not like that at all.
And yet the Marvel's business plan for years now has been to dump continuity and serious storytelling in favor of hyperrealistic titties and recycled plots, all geared towards each year's new crop of teenagers. Miller, Mazzuchelli, Byrne, Sienkewicz (to name a few) have all moved on long since to other publishers and titles. Marvel's mainstream lines have become the boy bands of the comics industry. Remember the 80s? John Byrne's Alpha Flight? Miller and Mazzucelli on Wolverine? Miller's Daredevil?
I'm happy that people are making money off the Marvel properties, but it's a crying shame that stockholders like profits more that quality.
Are you aware that every story ever told is "formulaic"?
Are you aware that every movie Hollywood ever made is a "money grab"?
Do you always confuse "design" with "implementation"?
Do you like to hang around the water cooler saying things like "Don't waste your time with Linux--it's just another POSIX-compliant Open Source OS."?
Re:Charlatans Exist Because We Love Them
on
The Magic Box Hoax
·
· Score: 2
I'm just not sure it's actually an "insight". It sounds like he's saying "If we define a skeptic in such and such a way, then the term ceases to have any meaning, and all "sceptics" not truly sceptics, but rather some other thing (which he does not define, except to say that it is inconsistent with "scepticism" as he defines it), or else irrational.
There are no skeptics, he says, only irrational doubters and people who disagree because they have knowledge of contradictory evidence. And he says this because he's redefined skepticism to mean something other than what we generally agree that it means:
So, to paraphrase (again): If you have knowledge of contradictory evidence, then you are not uncertain or doubtful, [of the truth of the claim] but are instead certain [of the falsehood of the claim]. This certainty, of course, means that you are not a sceptic, and I'll agree that claiming to be a skeptic in this instance would be inconsistent.
But what about the other option? He goes on to say that doubting a claim without knowing contradictory evidence is "irrational"--that is, rational people accept any claim that they do not currently have the knowledge to refute.
For example: The entities that invested in Priest's "magic box" were behaving rationally. In fact, by preventing access to contradictory information, Priest was able to transform irrational behavior (investing in an obviously bogus technology) into rational behavior (investing in a technology whose claims had never been adequately proven by independent examination). Does this make sense to you?
Suppose I make the following claim: "My revolutionary new mathematical proofs clearly indicate that FTL travel is possible."
What's the rational course of action? Accept my claim, and promptly give me millions of dollars to build a prototype? If so, I can tell you where to send the money (cash or money orders only, please) right now.
Or would it be more rational to find a panel of experts that could review my calculations and either support or refute them, before betting Aunt May's pension fund?
"Skepticism" is the word some of us use to denote this attitude of waiting for reasonable proof before committing to believe in a thing. To say that this attitude doesn't exist, and that those that claim to be skeptics are either fools or delusional, completely ignores the fact that not only does the attitude exist, but that we even have a word for it. You can redefine it all you want, but then we're not even speaking the same language. You'll either have to come up with a new word in your language for that attitude (which in English is called "skepticism"), or else deny the existence of that attitude (in which case you won't need a word for it).
Once again: Which is more rational? To withold your funds until you have evidence one way or the other about my claims, or to send me the money now?
Please answer quickly, because baby needs a new pair of shoes.
Re:Charlatans Exist Because We Love Them
on
The Magic Box Hoax
·
· Score: 2
I'm skeptical about Bittle's analysis. It seems as though he's playing around with semantics, rather than presenting a new insight.
In that case, the story is "Hey! Did you hear about Original Sin? You're burning in hell, buddy.
More like "Hey that unpleasantness you're feeling? That's separation from the Creator. Happily, it's really easy to fix! No donations, no brainwashing, no obligations--just believe, and pursue a personal relationship with the Supreme Being."
Oh, wait--you're one of those people who confuses the Catholic Church with the fundamental principles of Christianity. Never mind.
You might want to qualify that. Remeber Challenger? The time from "catastrophic O-ring failure" to "tragic loss of life" was pretty damn short. I'd imagine you'd have more time than that to save your ass if a submarine bulkhead failed.
I suppose you meant that once in orbit the space shuttle crew has more time from fuckup to fucked than does the crew of a submerged ocean-going vessel.
Do you mean the verb "to fuck", or the multipurpose expletive "fuck"?
In Portuguese, the translation of the first would be "foder", while the second might be "c'os pariu" (but I'm not up on current slang, so that may be outdated).
NOTE: The multipurpose expletive in Portuguese would be a totally different cognate from the English version.
Definetly Herbert, though I have a place in my heart for this review of Dune.
And I found Heinlein's style to be all over the board--some of it is good, some of it is just abysmal. At this point in my life, Heinlein holds little draw for me. He's light on advanced science, and Iain Banks does a better job with advanced societies. IMO, of course. YMMV, &c.
Slashdot Mirror
Bzzzt. How about
More money company has = more money they received because more people have seen their adverts than the competitions'.
Which "point of view" would that be? The only point of view available to you is that of the guy walking around with your memories... who, by definition, is you.
Assuming the Perfect Quantum Replication thing is even possible, of course. Although, come to think of it, we should probably pass legislation now to censor the Internet using PQR, on the assumption we'll someday have the technology to enforce such a law.
No, it's more like saying "grammar is important only where it supports communication". Normal people don't set out to create grammatically perfect sentences. That way lies madness. Instead, they try to communicate. They use exactly as much good grammar (or local idiom) as necessary, and don't sweat the rest of it.
Of course, as you imply, this has nothing to do with "who's in charge of South Africa", and everything to with "who's in charge of a set of config files that identify a logical region roughly congruent with South Africa within an independently administered opt-in internetwork".
Wait, wait! I know this one! I saw it in a movie once: The Japanese are stealing our technology!
Oh, and you, my serious neighbor, have misspelled "souffle" in your .sig.
Do you think Washingto wouldn't have preferred to have a large army--to be able to field regiments of closely ranked musketment to equal the British Empire's own? His genius didn't lie in abandoning the standard; rather it lay in figuring out how to compete in spite of an inability to comply with the standard.
Britain wasn't defeated by stupidity, but by change, which surprises every instutition eventually. And this particular change was a long time in maturing.
As late as the first World War, over a century after the (American) Revolutionary War, the civilized nations--America included!--still utilized infantry in the same way they'd been used since the advent of the musket and the obsoletion of the armored, mounted knight.
Modern "guerilla" or "commando" infantry doctrine was devised by the Germans during WWI in an attempt to break the stalemate of trench warfare (a direct descendant of the "stupid" musketmen formations you laugh at); other nations soon followed suit, and by the end of the World War II trench warfare (and the legacy of the Napoleonic infantry) was finally at an end. Nowadays, all modern infantry follow the "Stormtrooper" doctrine. What the American Revolutionaries had wasn't doctrine at all, but desperation, and the U.S. preferred to fight in the standard way up until the early 20th century.
Niptick: I imagine what the poster meant to say was "the ends don't justify the means". Or, more closely, "a just cause (e.g., overthrowing tyranny) does not justify all methods of warfare (e.g., poisoning the tyrant's family and friends in an attempt to shake his resolve and force his abdication)". Is that clearer? I believe you were attacking a problem of form as if it were a problem of content. Since the original post is poorly worded, your error is understandable.
Are you sure you own them? Maybe you just have a limited license to play them.
Bzzzt! Wrong. Yahoo! sent out an email to every customer, telling them exactly what had happened, and giving explicit instructions on how to view and change the settings.
And yet here you are, clearly warned by the title of the article, reading and responding to it. I hope whining about it has amused you as much as teasing you has amused me!
Ironically, the article isn't even valid in one language.
It was awesome, as long as you had no plans to take it seriously. The only problem I had was that I saw it in an empty theater. A lot of the really funny lines ended up falling flat because there wasn't enough of an audience to generate a satisfying laugh response.
Actually, I'm doing just fine without hitting you up for cash, thanks.
Lots of people are duped every day into supporting "feel-good" scam artists. At the same time, lots of people sensibly contribute money to organizations that do real good, full time. It sounds like you're trying to say "Christianity feels good, therefore it must be a scam."
Meanwhile, prior to the 20th Century, someone wrote "For God so loved the world [bla bla bla] that whosoever believeth in him shall have eternal life." Even assuming that the whole thing is a huge conspiracy, I think it's pretty clear that the texts date from prior to 1900. So there you have it: believe in the salvation of humanity via Christ, and benefit. It doesn't get any more fundamental than that. And this principle was almost certainly formulated much earlier than you seem to think.
If you don't think the problem exists, then great! I hope that works out for you. But please don't tell me I should be charging you money for the information you've received. It's not like that at all.
I'm happy that people are making money off the Marvel properties, but it's a crying shame that stockholders like profits more that quality.
Are you aware that every story ever told is "formulaic"?
Are you aware that every movie Hollywood ever made is a "money grab"?
Do you always confuse "design" with "implementation"?
Do you like to hang around the water cooler saying things like "Don't waste your time with Linux--it's just another POSIX-compliant Open Source OS."?
There are no skeptics, he says, only irrational doubters and people who disagree because they have knowledge of contradictory evidence. And he says this because he's redefined skepticism to mean something other than what we generally agree that it means:
An attitude of doubt or uncertainty about a particluar topic.
So, to paraphrase (again): If you have knowledge of contradictory evidence, then you are not uncertain or doubtful, [of the truth of the claim] but are instead certain [of the falsehood of the claim]. This certainty, of course, means that you are not a sceptic, and I'll agree that claiming to be a skeptic in this instance would be inconsistent.
But what about the other option? He goes on to say that doubting a claim without knowing contradictory evidence is "irrational"--that is, rational people accept any claim that they do not currently have the knowledge to refute.
For example: The entities that invested in Priest's "magic box" were behaving rationally. In fact, by preventing access to contradictory information, Priest was able to transform irrational behavior (investing in an obviously bogus technology) into rational behavior (investing in a technology whose claims had never been adequately proven by independent examination). Does this make sense to you?
Suppose I make the following claim: "My revolutionary new mathematical proofs clearly indicate that FTL travel is possible."
What's the rational course of action? Accept my claim, and promptly give me millions of dollars to build a prototype? If so, I can tell you where to send the money (cash or money orders only, please) right now.
Or would it be more rational to find a panel of experts that could review my calculations and either support or refute them, before betting Aunt May's pension fund?
"Skepticism" is the word some of us use to denote this attitude of waiting for reasonable proof before committing to believe in a thing. To say that this attitude doesn't exist, and that those that claim to be skeptics are either fools or delusional, completely ignores the fact that not only does the attitude exist, but that we even have a word for it. You can redefine it all you want, but then we're not even speaking the same language. You'll either have to come up with a new word in your language for that attitude (which in English is called "skepticism"), or else deny the existence of that attitude (in which case you won't need a word for it).
Once again: Which is more rational? To withold your funds until you have evidence one way or the other about my claims, or to send me the money now?
Please answer quickly, because baby needs a new pair of shoes.
I'm skeptical about Bittle's analysis. It seems as though he's playing around with semantics, rather than presenting a new insight.
More like "Hey that unpleasantness you're feeling? That's separation from the Creator. Happily, it's really easy to fix! No donations, no brainwashing, no obligations--just believe, and pursue a personal relationship with the Supreme Being."
Oh, wait--you're one of those people who confuses the Catholic Church with the fundamental principles of Christianity. Never mind.
Interesting. But what I want to know is this: do corporations have the same "self-evident", "inalienable" rights as people?
The other alternative, of course, is HBO: Programming so good it's worth paying for, and supports itself without any need for in-line ads.
Seems to me that this would be trivially susceptible to DDoS attacks.
I suppose you meant that once in orbit the space shuttle crew has more time from fuckup to fucked than does the crew of a submerged ocean-going vessel.
In Portuguese, the translation of the first would be "foder", while the second might be "c'os pariu" (but I'm not up on current slang, so that may be outdated).
NOTE: The multipurpose expletive in Portuguese would be a totally different cognate from the English version.
And I found Heinlein's style to be all over the board--some of it is good, some of it is just abysmal. At this point in my life, Heinlein holds little draw for me. He's light on advanced science, and Iain Banks does a better job with advanced societies. IMO, of course. YMMV, &c.