OK, so I can either mod you down as "Overrated" (yes, I think giving you a 2 is overrating you), or I can reply.
Your post has this flair of sweeping generalizations reminiscent of people who have little idea of what they're talking about (but that nevertheless tend to be popular with the younger of the/. crowd). For your own benefit, consider seeing the world not as you imagine it to be, but as it is, and in order to do that, you're going to have to go out (no, the Internet will not teach about the real world) and experience it.
Do you know why I'm comfortable making such an assumption about you? Because I recognize in your writing how I used to write, and I know much more about the world than I did just a year ago, but already I can tell you that, put plainly, the variety you'll find in the real world is often times too difficult to be summed up as you tried to in your post.
A good start, BTW, would be to have some facts or "personal experience" that you can add into your commentary.
In my experience, it's difficult to ask question. In my classes, people got annoyed when I wanted to go more in-depth on a topic because they were just there to take in what they needed to get a good grade. I've never cared for that type of education and I still don't, but it's the fantasy of an open, welcoming classroom hasn't existed for me since kindergarten, and while it should be better in college, at least in the UCLA Physics department, it's hard enough to find a teacher that speaks clear English, much less a Feynman (what I would've given to study under him...)
"No, no, you've got it backwards: It is better to live on your feet, than die on your knees." -- Nately's Whore's Pimp, the Old Italin Man, from "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
Yeah, it's true -- rings and all that stuff, they come from the time when it was a really good idea to mark your partner in such a way that pretty much said, "Dude, she's mine. BTFU." It's just evolved from there.
I didn't know about the tendency of people to ship over "problem" children -- that was interesting.
Unfortunately, I know well what you mean when you talk about education and intelligence being uncool. I was a complete social misfit upon arrival in the 'states because I was about two grades ahead of the 4th graders I was put in with. And, well, social systems in the 4th grade can be unrepentantly cruel. It brings to mind Nietzsche: "What doesn't kill me...", and 12 or so years later, it's starting to come true.
I don't think about it much and I think I would get pretty sad if I tried to work out how much more intelligent or knowledgeable I could be today if I didn't spend seven or so years in chronic depression because I tried to fit in by dumbing myself down.
Though, curiously, I think it's an advantage to grow up looking from the outside in. It's like watching a flock of sheep and once you've got the system figured out, like Ellsworth Toohey says (I paraphrase from memory), "One little push in the right place and you can bring the whole thing to a halt." If I were inclined to irony, I'd add that, ironically, I'm just not interested in the system anymore.
Not to pick nits or anything, but just in case you forgot the numbers, Firewire 2.0 runs at 400Mbits/sec, which is 50MBytes/sec. I would agree that with only a few devices on the chain though, that's enough.
I have a problem with this line: "Europe managed to get rid of many of those families by shipping over here (can't blame you). Those are the same groups in the US with the large drug abuse and crime problems, which adds significantly to the infant/maternal mortality rates."
You probably have no idea how difficult it is to get into the United States now. We were lucky in 1990 to get visas to come out; now I know someone who can't bring his mother out because they won't give her a visitation visa. The difficulty of getting out usually means that only the wealthier and more educated are granted visas, so I would not agree that Europe managed to ship out their "poor, sick, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." It may have been that way at one point or another, but now it's more like, "Send me your rich, healthy, vigorous, educated elite yearning to make a living in the land of the priviliged."
From my experience, by the way, it doesn't matter where you come from: across any categories that you can think of (race, class, heritage, so on) there are drug problems, and it may surprise you who's really doing what.
Do you actually know -- I mean, have you looked at studies? -- who the groups with the big drug problems are? Have you actually sat down and studied the causes of infant and maternity mortality rates?
Hailing from Europe as I do, let me clear up something else: "Remember that there is a vast difference between those people and the average United States citizen...the inner-city masses are the ones I always saw on European programs who could not find France on a map. There seems to be a strong desire in Europe to find some uneducated jerk and put them on television to make the US look bad. Either that or they put on an American pop star, which is just as bad."
Not only is there really no such thing as the average American citizen, but the people you are probably thinking of are not necessarily a part of the inner-city masses. I've seen more than my share of people in this world -- all over the world, in fact -- who are well-to-do, "acceptably" educated, and didn't even know where Hungary is on a map. Hell, some of them don't even know it exists!
I think I've met two born-and-raised American citizens who knew where Hungary was and what language is spoken there (Hungarian, thanks), and one of them was a cashier in Walmart. Would she have been a part of your inner-city masses?
By the way, it's not difficult to find uneducated jerks from America or anywhere in the world, so this isn't much of a point. It's really just entertainment that the American social ethic would frown on.
Pop stars, interestingly or sadly, are mostly idolized in Europe. The last time I was in Germany, Eminem had mostly the same fans that he has here: 12 year-old boys.
Actually, you're digging your own grave. It's been fairly well accepted for a long time that Microsoft has allowed its software to be pirated more or less without restrictions because this will get it into every home and onto every single computer that young teenagers have access to.
Oh, yes, yes, they're losing humongous amounts of money allowing this to happen..., yes, that's very clear from the size of Gates' house or their empire.
You know how it is with crack, right? The first one's always free.
The problem isn't the medium or the file format
on
Digital Dark Ages?
·
· Score: 1
The problem is "why?" and scope.
Think about all of the information that you would have to record to give someone in the future an accurate picture of your life: your daily habits, where you live, what everything in your dwelling looks like..., in short, everything that you interact with on a daily basis. It's a vast, vast amount of information. The problems of medium and file format are Engineering problems -- throw enough of something at them and you'll get a satisfactory solution.
But there is too much possible information to store! Not because of the limits of the medium, but because what human being X years from now will want to read about your life in such great detail? By the time they would've absorbed your life, they would be 10 years older, and what's the point of that? They wouldn't have a life of their own....
The value of a contribution to the human world is in great part it's made up of uniqueness and its utility. Therefore, think hard about what value the things which you leave behind have. Can other people use this same information?
Or, you can really limit the scope and only leave those things behind which have meaning to you. Family pictures, for instance. Ultimately, this class of things may say more to future generations than a minute-by-minute blog of life.
But maybe not..., what does it really matter to you if you're forgotten or not? You'll be dead anyway.
Actually I've taken this point of view before and proven that it's possible to have free will as a finite state machine.
The proof hinges on the fact that what we think of as free will is really the ability to have a choice. Without information, it is impossible to make a choice for a state machine, because it will not know what the next step is. Human beings, on the other hand, even if we are a series of predictable computations, we have a choice at the conscious level of what we do, and we are empowered for this choice by the information we have. Therefore, we have free will.
A simple example is this: let's say you feel like crap because your girlfriend dumped you. If you are made aware that you don't have to feel bad about this forever, and you are rationally interested in feeling good, then you will make the choice to forget about her and move on. That is free will.
"This sounds like the perfect heatsink shim to me."
This sounds like a better heatink material to me. Especially for the difficult=to-extrude shapes that may be required for the next generation of efficiency advances.
Actually, I remember reading about this idea a while back some place. There were very large concerns about encasing the fuel in graphite coatings (this was the original plan) because at the temperature that the reactor would be run at, graphite would immediately catch on fire if exposed to air.
AT&T Broadband couldn't provide my roommates and me with more than 3 IPs, and since there are four of us and none of us terribly enjoy dealing with computer issues, the answer was simple: setup an OpenBSD NAT and let AT&T lose the the business they would've had if they could've provided what we needed.
Now what happens when they start to crack down? We're supposed to pay $10 more per month because they can't give us one extra IP and then deal with the BS of the cable modem handling and releasing IPs? I don't think so....
I don't know why this is considered funny in a sensitive context like security, because the implication is very real. There are security applications out there that build keys from "random" input such as time between mouse clicks and movements.
Ergo: get the key -> bye-bye cipher.
Moderate this post up. These are good points, and they need to be heard. The jaded consumerist/capitalist viewpoint that "no matter what we do will end up f*cking the environment over" is becoming more of a fallacy every day as environmentally-friendly technologies become a reality. Think about it for a moment: who said that progress has to take a toll on the environment? - No one. As just about the most intelligent things on this planet, we have a responsibility to keep this planet hospitable for at least the next couple of billions of years (at which point the sun will obliterate us anyway) so that future generations can reap from our progress. Of course technological advance is desirable - even inevitable as man is never satisfied - but this is the only planet we've got right now. Personally, I can't wait to grown my own LCD via OLED technology.
Hi, I'm European by birth, and growing up in Hungary I've noticed that Eastern European chicks are generally finer than the American blend. Does this, IYHO, hold true for Scandinavian chicks too?
Nana, *can* run slower. The newer ones with Geyserville will run at a lower clockspeed if the comp is running on batteries. Otherwise, they run at full speed (ie, socket power; electrical ones, that is)
Slashdot Mirror
Hehe, I think this was the funniest reply so far in this threat. Nice work.
OK, so I can either mod you down as "Overrated" (yes, I think giving you a 2 is overrating you), or I can reply.
/. crowd). For your own benefit, consider seeing the world not as you imagine it to be, but as it is, and in order to do that, you're going to have to go out (no, the Internet will not teach about the real world) and experience it.
Your post has this flair of sweeping generalizations reminiscent of people who have little idea of what they're talking about (but that nevertheless tend to be popular with the younger of the
Do you know why I'm comfortable making such an assumption about you? Because I recognize in your writing how I used to write, and I know much more about the world than I did just a year ago, but already I can tell you that, put plainly, the variety you'll find in the real world is often times too difficult to be summed up as you tried to in your post.
A good start, BTW, would be to have some facts or "personal experience" that you can add into your commentary.
Good luck.
In my experience, it's difficult to ask question. In my classes, people got annoyed when I wanted to go more in-depth on a topic because they were just there to take in what they needed to get a good grade. I've never cared for that type of education and I still don't, but it's the fantasy of an open, welcoming classroom hasn't existed for me since kindergarten, and while it should be better in college, at least in the UCLA Physics department, it's hard enough to find a teacher that speaks clear English, much less a Feynman (what I would've given to study under him...)
Unless you're trolling, can you elaborate?
Yes! Haha, you're cool man. I'm gonna visit DNA the next time I'm in SF.
"No, no, you've got it backwards: It is better to live on your feet, than die on your knees." -- Nately's Whore's Pimp, the Old Italin Man, from "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
Wow, what a good point.
Yeah, it's true -- rings and all that stuff, they come from the time when it was a really good idea to mark your partner in such a way that pretty much said, "Dude, she's mine. BTFU." It's just evolved from there.
Whoa, intelligent discussion on Slashdot.
Insert Keanu "...whoa...".
I didn't know about the tendency of people to ship over "problem" children -- that was interesting.
Unfortunately, I know well what you mean when you talk about education and intelligence being uncool. I was a complete social misfit upon arrival in the 'states because I was about two grades ahead of the 4th graders I was put in with. And, well, social systems in the 4th grade can be unrepentantly cruel. It brings to mind Nietzsche: "What doesn't kill me...", and 12 or so years later, it's starting to come true.
I don't think about it much and I think I would get pretty sad if I tried to work out how much more intelligent or knowledgeable I could be today if I didn't spend seven or so years in chronic depression because I tried to fit in by dumbing myself down.
Though, curiously, I think it's an advantage to grow up looking from the outside in. It's like watching a flock of sheep and once you've got the system figured out, like Ellsworth Toohey says (I paraphrase from memory), "One little push in the right place and you can bring the whole thing to a halt." If I were inclined to irony, I'd add that, ironically, I'm just not interested in the system anymore.
Not to pick nits or anything, but just in case you forgot the numbers, Firewire 2.0 runs at 400Mbits/sec, which is 50MBytes/sec. I would agree that with only a few devices on the chain though, that's enough.
Haha, that was the funniest thing I read so far under this article. +1 Funny
I have a problem with this line: "Europe managed to get rid of many of those families by shipping over here (can't blame you). Those are the same groups in the US with the large drug abuse and crime problems, which adds significantly to the infant/maternal mortality rates."
You probably have no idea how difficult it is to get into the United States now. We were lucky in 1990 to get visas to come out; now I know someone who can't bring his mother out because they won't give her a visitation visa. The difficulty of getting out usually means that only the wealthier and more educated are granted visas, so I would not agree that Europe managed to ship out their "poor, sick, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." It may have been that way at one point or another, but now it's more like, "Send me your rich, healthy, vigorous, educated elite yearning to make a living in the land of the priviliged."
From my experience, by the way, it doesn't matter where you come from: across any categories that you can think of (race, class, heritage, so on) there are drug problems, and it may surprise you who's really doing what.
Do you actually know -- I mean, have you looked at studies? -- who the groups with the big drug problems are? Have you actually sat down and studied the causes of infant and maternity mortality rates?
Hailing from Europe as I do, let me clear up something else: "Remember that there is a vast difference between those people and the average United States citizen...the inner-city masses are the ones I always saw on European programs who could not find France on a map. There seems to be a strong desire in Europe to find some uneducated jerk and put them on television to make the US look bad. Either that or they put on an American pop star, which is just as bad."
Not only is there really no such thing as the average American citizen, but the people you are probably thinking of are not necessarily a part of the inner-city masses. I've seen more than my share of people in this world -- all over the world, in fact -- who are well-to-do, "acceptably" educated, and didn't even know where Hungary is on a map. Hell, some of them don't even know it exists!
I think I've met two born-and-raised American citizens who knew where Hungary was and what language is spoken there (Hungarian, thanks), and one of them was a cashier in Walmart. Would she have been a part of your inner-city masses?
By the way, it's not difficult to find uneducated jerks from America or anywhere in the world, so this isn't much of a point. It's really just entertainment that the American social ethic would frown on.
Pop stars, interestingly or sadly, are mostly idolized in Europe. The last time I was in Germany, Eminem had mostly the same fans that he has here: 12 year-old boys.
Actually, you're digging your own grave. It's been fairly well accepted for a long time that Microsoft has allowed its software to be pirated more or less without restrictions because this will get it into every home and onto every single computer that young teenagers have access to.
Oh, yes, yes, they're losing humongous amounts of money allowing this to happen..., yes, that's very clear from the size of Gates' house or their empire.
You know how it is with crack, right? The first one's always free.
The problem is "why?" and scope.
Think about all of the information that you would have to record to give someone in the future an accurate picture of your life: your daily habits, where you live, what everything in your dwelling looks like..., in short, everything that you interact with on a daily basis. It's a vast, vast amount of information. The problems of medium and file format are Engineering problems -- throw enough of something at them and you'll get a satisfactory solution.
But there is too much possible information to store! Not because of the limits of the medium, but because what human being X years from now will want to read about your life in such great detail? By the time they would've absorbed your life, they would be 10 years older, and what's the point of that? They wouldn't have a life of their own....
The value of a contribution to the human world is in great part it's made up of uniqueness and its utility. Therefore, think hard about what value the things which you leave behind have. Can other people use this same information?
Or, you can really limit the scope and only leave those things behind which have meaning to you. Family pictures, for instance. Ultimately, this class of things may say more to future generations than a minute-by-minute blog of life.
But maybe not..., what does it really matter to you if you're forgotten or not? You'll be dead anyway.
Actually I've taken this point of view before and proven that it's possible to have free will as a finite state machine.
The proof hinges on the fact that what we think of as free will is really the ability to have a choice. Without information, it is impossible to make a choice for a state machine, because it will not know what the next step is. Human beings, on the other hand, even if we are a series of predictable computations, we have a choice at the conscious level of what we do, and we are empowered for this choice by the information we have. Therefore, we have free will.
A simple example is this: let's say you feel like crap because your girlfriend dumped you. If you are made aware that you don't have to feel bad about this forever, and you are rationally interested in feeling good, then you will make the choice to forget about her and move on. That is free will.
"This sounds like the perfect heatsink shim to me."
This sounds like a better heatink material to me. Especially for the difficult=to-extrude shapes that may be required for the next generation of efficiency advances.
Actually, I remember reading about this idea a while back some place. There were very large concerns about encasing the fuel in graphite coatings (this was the original plan) because at the temperature that the reactor would be run at, graphite would immediately catch on fire if exposed to air.
OMG, this is brilliant. I love you.
::goes back to reading slash, drinking tea, and listening to Tzigane::
AT&T Broadband couldn't provide my roommates and me with more than 3 IPs, and since there are four of us and none of us terribly enjoy dealing with computer issues, the answer was simple: setup an OpenBSD NAT and let AT&T lose the the business they would've had if they could've provided what we needed.
Now what happens when they start to crack down? We're supposed to pay $10 more per month because they can't give us one extra IP and then deal with the BS of the cable modem handling and releasing IPs? I don't think so....
And watch my OpenBSD box crunch, crunch away. Mmmm, nice box.
Magic Lantern in the source tree of an OS hosted in Canada? Homey don't think so.
I don't know why this is considered funny in a sensitive context like security, because the implication is very real. There are security applications out there that build keys from "random" input such as time between mouse clicks and movements. Ergo: get the key -> bye-bye cipher.
Awesome response. Clear, to the point, non-inflammatory, and intelligent.
Wonderful.
I think the Linux version (ironically or not) is more relevant right now:
"Where do you want to go tomorrow?"
Moderate this post up. These are good points, and they need to be heard.
The jaded consumerist/capitalist viewpoint that "no matter what we do will end up f*cking the environment over" is becoming more of a fallacy every day as environmentally-friendly technologies become a reality.
Think about it for a moment: who said that progress has to take a toll on the environment? - No one. As just about the most intelligent things on this planet, we have a responsibility to keep this planet hospitable for at least the next couple of billions of years (at which point the sun will obliterate us anyway) so that future generations can reap from our progress.
Of course technological advance is desirable - even inevitable as man is never satisfied - but this is the only planet we've got right now.
Personally, I can't wait to grown my own LCD via OLED technology.
Hi,
I'm European by birth, and growing up in Hungary I've noticed that Eastern European chicks are generally finer than the American blend. Does this, IYHO, hold true for Scandinavian chicks too?
Nana, *can* run slower.
The newer ones with Geyserville will run at a lower clockspeed if the comp is running on batteries. Otherwise, they run at full speed (ie, socket power; electrical ones, that is)