What I came up with was almost identical; the year started and ended with the Winter Solstice, and consists of 13 months of 28 days. Where mine differs, though, is that instead of a "minimonth", I choose to exclude the extra day or two from any week, month or year; a period of time I call "Offset". These days being excluded from a week means that any given day on the calendar will always be the same day of the week from one year to the next. That is to say, under this calendar, if the first day of the first month this year is Monday, then next year and every year, it will or has been Monday (as is the first day of every month, in point of fact). In fact, the 1st, 8th, 15th and 21st would always be Monday, and Friday would always be the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th.
I've only ever used this system in unpublished works of fiction, though I find it interesting that this same idea has been explored by others.
Seasons and duration of day are logical and meaningful things to base your units of time on. Nuclear decay and EM wavelengths are a rather illogical basis, as these things don't have a practical use or observation in the common life of humans in general. Days and seasons, on the other hand, have an apparent and obvious cycle, which can be observed without need of special equipment. Furthermore, they have an immediate and profound affect on our environment. This is the difference between light and dark, between heat and cold, between growth and recess. These cycles dictate when we can grow food, and how long we have to complete tasks. It therefore makes a great deal of sense that we would want to keep track of these things. The only failing, is that the larger units aren't always comprised of a whole number of the smaller units, as they are based on difference cycles, which are not actually related to eachother.
Now, on the other hand, if we lived on a starship or perhaps a space station unassociated with any particular planet, your timekeeping method could reasonably be arbitrary. You might choose to base it on the crew's mode average circadian rhythm, perhaps. In those circumstances, you would have eliminated the conditions that have inspired our current timekeeping system.
You know, what I find funny about this, is that the only console games I ever see commercials for these days are FPS, with the occasional Third Person affair.
Perhaps this is speculation too far, but this pair of changes almost suggests that many Windows users haven't changed the way they use the operating system—or their computers—since the mid 1990s. The Windows Vista-era mechanism of "Start and then type," now seven-years-old, apparently hasn't caught on and quite plausibly isn't even known by many Windows users.
Am I missing something important, or does this idea where you're expected to type the thing you want to do kind of abandon the whole point of using a GUI instead of a command line?
I'm not exactly opposed to having the feature there, but if you automatically have to resort to it, then your GUI needs to be reconsidered.
I dunno, $200k seems about right to me. 30k seems quite a bit low for a police officer, though. The tricky thing about deciding how much a cop's salary should be, is that you've gotta pay him enough to keep him honest. If he's having trouble making the rent each month, then taking a bribe here and there might start to sound pretty good to him.
If your life and the events thereof had been run through the simulation more than once, without that knowledge being a designed part of the simulation, how would you know? You are, after all, a part of said simulation.
I've given this idea some thought as well, but the conclusion I've come to is that I don't think that we're part of a computer simulation. I do, however, think that whatever it is that makes the universe possible is liable to operate on principles similar to a computer, and may even be somehow artificial.
I can't imagine that a deliberate boycott can be necessary. Game companies have a hard enough time keeping their servers up at launch, for vastly underestimating demand, and that's often for just authentication purposes, alone. The demands this kind of service has on its servers is ludicrous (just how many players can any individual machine in the cloud support, anyway?), let alone the problems that arise when you account for latency. I just don't know how they can reasonably accomplish their goals.
As something of a.NET programmer myself, I can testify to the veracity of this..NET does a great deal for you, and I really think the handicap has prevented me from learning what's really going on.
As I recall, the technique used in TNG was a matter of introducing humanoid genes into the genome of existing lifeforms on the seeded worlds, not entirely unlike the latter scenario you describe.
Not necessarily. The only reason that's been an issue in the past, was because our computers had to significantly out-strip the machine being emulated. What's being suggested here, however, is not an emulator so much as a conditioned environment for execution, not unlike Wine.
And how do you propose to get 7 billion people to agree on any one thing? It can't be done. You'll have a hard enough time doing it with just 100 people, let alone the entire population of a region. This is why we have leaders. Leaders can make decisions that get followed. When that breaks down, that leader ceases to be such. Majority rule is the only thing that really makes any kind of sense.
The ability of a government to enforce its will is the root of its power, but I challenge you to come up with a sustainable circumstance under which a broad population of humans can exist without organizing somehow, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Even a Commune requires a hierarchical structure. Stripped of government, people will still group together. Some of those groups will be dominated by the most aggressive member, while others will organize themselves more amicably (and eventually dominated by the member with the most ideal ratio of charisma to ambition).
You can suggest that we all live without rule, but how can deliberate action be taken to prevent rule, without inherently becoming rule?
Any government of a large territory and population will necessarily be large, but it really can't be large by contrast to the population it governs. I absolutely agree that it is an important role of any government to build and improve infrastructure, and even funding research that could spawn dozens of new technologies that improve our lives is within the purview of a good government. But it doesn't have to be large to accomplish these things. Perhaps more importantly, our government is far from focused on things like building infrastructure and funding research. We're spending a great deal of money, and it really isn't making our people any better. I don't have the requisite information to make any detailed decisions, but I can certainly point out one thing-- we'd all be a lot better off if Congress could at the very least, develop a budget that spends less than the treasury collects in taxes each year.
I'm unclear on the relationship you have in mind. In this case, the patient has difficulty staying still and focusing, so the doctor is prescribing an activity which will require him to stay still and focus. Even without using specially designed games, video games tend to engage the player's attention, and endeavor to hold it. It makes sense to me that this could teach habits that improve concentration, and extended attention span.
Typically insulin pumps deliver insulin in two modes: Basal and Bolus. While a bolus is a large injection provided as quickly as reasonable, the Basal is a rate of delivery which can be instructed to vary over the course of the day. I would imagine that the device described in the article likely organizes injection in this fashion, with the added feature that if your blood glucose spikes, it will react to that automatically.
I had an insulin pump for a number of years (from the same manufacturer that made the device in this article, in fact), so I am familiar with the usage. I, personally, had problems using it (I sweat too much for the catheter to stay in reliably), but I think that they're a great technology for those who can use them. This growing automation is certainly a good thing.
Fascism is a system of government in which a dictator controls military, industry and commerce (and whatever other aspects of his nation that happens to become important to him), and takes tyrannical measures to maintain his control. Racism is often used as a tool, but is not necessarily a required quality for something to be "fascist". Fascist regime is necessarily Totalitarian, but a Totalitarian regime is not necessarily Fascist. Therefore, your formula should read:
Fascism = totalitarianism + dictatorship
Now, a Communist system is not necessarily Totalitarian, but Totalitarianism becomes the method of choice for maintaining Communism when a meaningful portion of the population does not wish to be under Communist rule. I suppose there may be some other way to enforce Communism on a large scale, but I don't know what that might be.
Not to mention that calendars on PCs don't work in the way that Y2k was described. I've no doubt that a great deal of industrial machines legitimately did have a problem, but the "Y2k Patch" that a lot of PCs were getting in those days really was entirely superfluous, as the calendar on the motherboard ended some time in 2036.
I wouldn't feel too sorry for them. Most of those guys make more money than I do, working 50 hours a week. Ask the staff at Macy's about the pan handler that shows up every morning in a Lexus.
The prisoners may be free men again some day, and have the same right to health that everyone else does. Free men are able to leave the dangerous areas as they please. Prisoners don't have that choice.
Slashdot Mirror
What I came up with was almost identical; the year started and ended with the Winter Solstice, and consists of 13 months of 28 days. Where mine differs, though, is that instead of a "minimonth", I choose to exclude the extra day or two from any week, month or year; a period of time I call "Offset". These days being excluded from a week means that any given day on the calendar will always be the same day of the week from one year to the next. That is to say, under this calendar, if the first day of the first month this year is Monday, then next year and every year, it will or has been Monday (as is the first day of every month, in point of fact). In fact, the 1st, 8th, 15th and 21st would always be Monday, and Friday would always be the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th.
I've only ever used this system in unpublished works of fiction, though I find it interesting that this same idea has been explored by others.
Seasons and duration of day are logical and meaningful things to base your units of time on. Nuclear decay and EM wavelengths are a rather illogical basis, as these things don't have a practical use or observation in the common life of humans in general. Days and seasons, on the other hand, have an apparent and obvious cycle, which can be observed without need of special equipment. Furthermore, they have an immediate and profound affect on our environment. This is the difference between light and dark, between heat and cold, between growth and recess. These cycles dictate when we can grow food, and how long we have to complete tasks. It therefore makes a great deal of sense that we would want to keep track of these things. The only failing, is that the larger units aren't always comprised of a whole number of the smaller units, as they are based on difference cycles, which are not actually related to eachother.
Now, on the other hand, if we lived on a starship or perhaps a space station unassociated with any particular planet, your timekeeping method could reasonably be arbitrary. You might choose to base it on the crew's mode average circadian rhythm, perhaps. In those circumstances, you would have eliminated the conditions that have inspired our current timekeeping system.
You know, what I find funny about this, is that the only console games I ever see commercials for these days are FPS, with the occasional Third Person affair.
Perhaps this is speculation too far, but this pair of changes almost suggests that many Windows users haven't changed the way they use the operating system—or their computers—since the mid 1990s. The Windows Vista-era mechanism of "Start and then type," now seven-years-old, apparently hasn't caught on and quite plausibly isn't even known by many Windows users.
Am I missing something important, or does this idea where you're expected to type the thing you want to do kind of abandon the whole point of using a GUI instead of a command line?
I'm not exactly opposed to having the feature there, but if you automatically have to resort to it, then your GUI needs to be reconsidered.
I dunno, $200k seems about right to me. 30k seems quite a bit low for a police officer, though. The tricky thing about deciding how much a cop's salary should be, is that you've gotta pay him enough to keep him honest. If he's having trouble making the rent each month, then taking a bribe here and there might start to sound pretty good to him.
It's not clear to me that the existence of reincarnation precludes the possibility of the universe existing with simulation-like properties.
That's Larceny, in fact. Though the law generally treats it identically to theft.
If your life and the events thereof had been run through the simulation more than once, without that knowledge being a designed part of the simulation, how would you know? You are, after all, a part of said simulation.
I've given this idea some thought as well, but the conclusion I've come to is that I don't think that we're part of a computer simulation. I do, however, think that whatever it is that makes the universe possible is liable to operate on principles similar to a computer, and may even be somehow artificial.
I can't imagine that a deliberate boycott can be necessary. Game companies have a hard enough time keeping their servers up at launch, for vastly underestimating demand, and that's often for just authentication purposes, alone. The demands this kind of service has on its servers is ludicrous (just how many players can any individual machine in the cloud support, anyway?), let alone the problems that arise when you account for latency. I just don't know how they can reasonably accomplish their goals.
As something of a .NET programmer myself, I can testify to the veracity of this. .NET does a great deal for you, and I really think the handicap has prevented me from learning what's really going on.
Anyone savvy enough to create an artificial Xbox One in software isn't going to be stopped by any DRM measure.
As I recall, the technique used in TNG was a matter of introducing humanoid genes into the genome of existing lifeforms on the seeded worlds, not entirely unlike the latter scenario you describe.
Not necessarily. The only reason that's been an issue in the past, was because our computers had to significantly out-strip the machine being emulated. What's being suggested here, however, is not an emulator so much as a conditioned environment for execution, not unlike Wine.
No, no, no, he wants to run a file system check on them. Something's hanging a boot time.
And how do you propose to get 7 billion people to agree on any one thing? It can't be done. You'll have a hard enough time doing it with just 100 people, let alone the entire population of a region. This is why we have leaders. Leaders can make decisions that get followed. When that breaks down, that leader ceases to be such. Majority rule is the only thing that really makes any kind of sense.
The ability of a government to enforce its will is the root of its power, but I challenge you to come up with a sustainable circumstance under which a broad population of humans can exist without organizing somehow, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Even a Commune requires a hierarchical structure. Stripped of government, people will still group together. Some of those groups will be dominated by the most aggressive member, while others will organize themselves more amicably (and eventually dominated by the member with the most ideal ratio of charisma to ambition).
You can suggest that we all live without rule, but how can deliberate action be taken to prevent rule, without inherently becoming rule?
Any government of a large territory and population will necessarily be large, but it really can't be large by contrast to the population it governs. I absolutely agree that it is an important role of any government to build and improve infrastructure, and even funding research that could spawn dozens of new technologies that improve our lives is within the purview of a good government. But it doesn't have to be large to accomplish these things. Perhaps more importantly, our government is far from focused on things like building infrastructure and funding research. We're spending a great deal of money, and it really isn't making our people any better. I don't have the requisite information to make any detailed decisions, but I can certainly point out one thing-- we'd all be a lot better off if Congress could at the very least, develop a budget that spends less than the treasury collects in taxes each year.
I'm unclear on the relationship you have in mind. In this case, the patient has difficulty staying still and focusing, so the doctor is prescribing an activity which will require him to stay still and focus. Even without using specially designed games, video games tend to engage the player's attention, and endeavor to hold it. It makes sense to me that this could teach habits that improve concentration, and extended attention span.
Typically insulin pumps deliver insulin in two modes: Basal and Bolus. While a bolus is a large injection provided as quickly as reasonable, the Basal is a rate of delivery which can be instructed to vary over the course of the day. I would imagine that the device described in the article likely organizes injection in this fashion, with the added feature that if your blood glucose spikes, it will react to that automatically.
I had an insulin pump for a number of years (from the same manufacturer that made the device in this article, in fact), so I am familiar with the usage. I, personally, had problems using it (I sweat too much for the catheter to stay in reliably), but I think that they're a great technology for those who can use them. This growing automation is certainly a good thing.
Fascism = totalitarianism + racial superiority complex.
Fascism is a system of government in which a dictator controls military, industry and commerce (and whatever other aspects of his nation that happens to become important to him), and takes tyrannical measures to maintain his control. Racism is often used as a tool, but is not necessarily a required quality for something to be "fascist". Fascist regime is necessarily Totalitarian, but a Totalitarian regime is not necessarily Fascist. Therefore, your formula should read:
Fascism = totalitarianism + dictatorship
Now, a Communist system is not necessarily Totalitarian, but Totalitarianism becomes the method of choice for maintaining Communism when a meaningful portion of the population does not wish to be under Communist rule. I suppose there may be some other way to enforce Communism on a large scale, but I don't know what that might be.
We generally don't eat fertilized eggs, dude.
Not to mention that calendars on PCs don't work in the way that Y2k was described. I've no doubt that a great deal of industrial machines legitimately did have a problem, but the "Y2k Patch" that a lot of PCs were getting in those days really was entirely superfluous, as the calendar on the motherboard ended some time in 2036.
I wouldn't feel too sorry for them. Most of those guys make more money than I do, working 50 hours a week. Ask the staff at Macy's about the pan handler that shows up every morning in a Lexus.
The prisoners may be free men again some day, and have the same right to health that everyone else does. Free men are able to leave the dangerous areas as they please. Prisoners don't have that choice.
And video games. Don't forget video games.