There's an important flaw in your reasoning here: "converting fractions to decimals" is actually nothing more than division: "converting decimals to fractions" is nothing more than writing the fraction implied by the decimal form (e.g. 123/1000 for 0.123) and simplifying. If you can't figure that out and do it for any number, it doesn't mean that you failed to acquire some arcane skill. It means that you fundamentally don't understand fractions, decimal numbers, or both. And I know that I sound like a heretic here, but if the kids don't understand the basic concepts, then they need to go back and do them again, instead of getting a free pass and causing even more problems when they fail to understand the advanced concepts that build on the basic ones.
Not that I really disagree with any of your post, but making change in american coins can be solved by a greedy (i.e. obvious) algorithm, and it's all convenient fives until you get to the pennies -- are there really people who can't pull that off?
To amplify on one of the important points in the parent here: the government is not itself a producer of anything; therefore it cannot give a gift to one party without taking something away from someone else. That is to say, you cannot have government grants, subsidies, and tax breaks without government injustice, corruption, and unfair taxation.
Another example: I find it convenient to watch movies or TV episodes on my Palm. In case you haven't been keeping up with modern technology, the device as a whole is considerably smaller than a DVD. But CSS is designed to keep me from watching DVDs without having the physical DVD in the player, whether or not I can get the whole movie onto my little SD card. Is it any surprise that I don't give a shit about CSS? DVD Decrypter is a simple, well-written app. But if you can't use it, I'd like to note that a script employing MPlayer (with libdvdcss) can do the same thing.
Aah, but there's a difference between being able to do something, and doing it. In a Linux context, I ran Slackware for the first few years; once I knew what I was doing with that system, I felt comfortable being lazy and running whatever I wanted. In a "real life" context, I don't grow my own food, because I know that letting someone else do it for me results in a more efficient allocation of my energy (and more free time for posting on Slashdot). But I could feed myself if need be. As for clothes -- they're not absolutely necessary to live. I figure that whatever I've got on should last me long enough to start walking south, in the improbable case that it actually matters.
I don't think you're broadcasting 30 miles directly; the way I saw it, it would be an ad-hoc mesh network, running at legal power levels on unlicensed frequencies, and that (for whatever reason) the maximum useful distance of a multi-hop path would be around 30 miles. Of course, it's probably only worth anything if the car density is high, but that's about when I need some good music.
Wouldn't words getting into the dictionary more quickly slow the evolution of language, by homogenizing it, and creating "standard usages" for words before they have a chance to really evolve?
I've got to disagree with you on the topic of the OS. PalmOS was a beautiful system on a par with Mac OS classic, nicely adapted to the hardware requirements. Sure, the cruft accumulated as they added features that were never thought of originally, but it's still not bad. And I'm allowed to hope that PalmOS => PalmOS 6 will do something like Mac OS => OS X:)
Actually, I think it would be fairer to say that 70% of all eligible voters didn't vote for Bush, while 71% of all eligible voters didn't vote for Kerry.
Except that there's no requirement to print(C) on anything, anywhere, and the only uses of (TM) and (R) are for a business to protect its own trademarks (on the grounds that if you don't label your trademarks prominently as such, then you're not doing enough to prevent them from becoming common words).
The majority of your post is a mass of unfounded hyperbole with no relation to anything I've ever said, but I'd like to respond to one point in particular: "then why is that word in the English language?" The answer, of course, is that the idea exists; English is able to express the impossible (such as "faster than light" or "nigritude ultramarine") just as easily as the possible. Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a language.
Um, WTF? Since when am I "campaigning"? I'm sorry that you feel persecuted because you can't understand what I'm saying, but don't take it personally.
Anyway, as to your point: nothing is "sustainable". It's a fact of the universe. Living your life with minimal impact on the world is nice and Zen and all, but that's the strategy of "delaying the inevitable", not anything I've ever talked about. You can keep on being "sustainable" right up to the (inevitable, as far as you or I know at the moment) heat death of the universe, but your standard of living will go to shit in the meantime. Or, you can go about your life optimizing what you get out of the universe and what you put in, changing it, to your benefit as well as you can. Both you and the universe will be around for a finite amount of time, so you might as well make that time interesting, creative, productive, profitable, or whatever you want. That's the essence of life. Like I said, I don't deny that ecology exists, or that "the environment" is a good thing, only that "environmentalism" as a philosophy is the polar opposite of "living".
Obtaining a patent on a specific, innovative technique that's important to your business can be considered reasonable and not especially evil. Obtaining patents on a whole mess of vague descriptions of subprocesses in order to keep competition entirely out of a given field, exploiting loopholes in the process to create "submarine" patents, and other such abuse is evil. Just because "the patent system" is broken and subject to rampant abuse doesn't mean that the whole idea of a patent should -- necessarily -- be thrown out.
That said, I think that the trademark, properly applied, is a more important protection, and better for business, than either the copyright or the patent.
is this "More On Some Topic", or "Some Topic for Morons"? Looks to me like someone just submitted a mainstream news article which dumbs everything down and pisses off slashdotters in the process.
Of course. I'm not saying "let's go destroy us some environment"; merely that I should preserve and improve the environment for my benefit (because I'm a part of it), not to my detriment.
Slashdot Mirror
There's an important flaw in your reasoning here: "converting fractions to decimals" is actually nothing more than division: "converting decimals to fractions" is nothing more than writing the fraction implied by the decimal form (e.g. 123/1000 for 0.123) and simplifying. If you can't figure that out and do it for any number, it doesn't mean that you failed to acquire some arcane skill. It means that you fundamentally don't understand fractions, decimal numbers, or both. And I know that I sound like a heretic here, but if the kids don't understand the basic concepts, then they need to go back and do them again, instead of getting a free pass and causing even more problems when they fail to understand the advanced concepts that build on the basic ones.
Not that I really disagree with any of your post, but making change in american coins can be solved by a greedy (i.e. obvious) algorithm, and it's all convenient fives until you get to the pennies -- are there really people who can't pull that off?
To amplify on one of the important points in the parent here: the government is not itself a producer of anything; therefore it cannot give a gift to one party without taking something away from someone else. That is to say, you cannot have government grants, subsidies, and tax breaks without government injustice, corruption, and unfair taxation.
Another example: I find it convenient to watch movies or TV episodes on my Palm. In case you haven't been keeping up with modern technology, the device as a whole is considerably smaller than a DVD. But CSS is designed to keep me from watching DVDs without having the physical DVD in the player, whether or not I can get the whole movie onto my little SD card. Is it any surprise that I don't give a shit about CSS? DVD Decrypter is a simple, well-written app. But if you can't use it, I'd like to note that a script employing MPlayer (with libdvdcss) can do the same thing.
Aah, but there's a difference between being able to do something, and doing it. In a Linux context, I ran Slackware for the first few years; once I knew what I was doing with that system, I felt comfortable being lazy and running whatever I wanted. In a "real life" context, I don't grow my own food, because I know that letting someone else do it for me results in a more efficient allocation of my energy (and more free time for posting on Slashdot). But I could feed myself if need be. As for clothes -- they're not absolutely necessary to live. I figure that whatever I've got on should last me long enough to start walking south, in the improbable case that it actually matters.
You don't remember OpenLinux? It was brought to you by the fine folks at SCO -- well, Caldera.
... and failed you in biology.
I don't think you're broadcasting 30 miles directly; the way I saw it, it would be an ad-hoc mesh network, running at legal power levels on unlicensed frequencies, and that (for whatever reason) the maximum useful distance of a multi-hop path would be around 30 miles. Of course, it's probably only worth anything if the car density is high, but that's about when I need some good music.
Yes, it's a legend. As in, "any wonderful story coming down from the past, but not verifiable by historical record; a myth; a fable."
That said, it is a "popularly held" belief, yeah.
People can spell sarge, whereas slashdotters seem to be singularly unable to figure out Ubuntu.
Wouldn't words getting into the dictionary more quickly slow the evolution of language, by homogenizing it, and creating "standard usages" for words before they have a chance to really evolve?
Forget Times New Roman. Humans definitely deserve Palatino Linotype.
"On the way out" as in, the service is disappearing and won't exist for all that much longer :)
Except that
1) It's not a flip-phone. Flipping closed isn't a convenience feature, it's a necessity in any phone that I carry.
2) Awful, hard-to-press Nokia buttons.
3) I want simple and uncomplicated, not old tech. That phone appears to use D-AMPS, which is on its way out.
I've got to disagree with you on the topic of the OS. PalmOS was a beautiful system on a par with Mac OS classic, nicely adapted to the hardware requirements. Sure, the cruft accumulated as they added features that were never thought of originally, but it's still not bad. And I'm allowed to hope that PalmOS => PalmOS 6 will do something like Mac OS => OS X :)
was going to be CAN-SPAM-ADA.
My "public interest" would be nicely served by actually being able to get broadband. And I have power lines.
Actually, I think it would be fairer to say that 70% of all eligible voters didn't vote for Bush, while 71% of all eligible voters didn't vote for Kerry.
Except that there's no requirement to print(C) on anything, anywhere, and the only uses of (TM) and (R) are for a business to protect its own trademarks (on the grounds that if you don't label your trademarks prominently as such, then you're not doing enough to prevent them from becoming common words).
I thought it was the Winstone. You'll be hearing from Ziff-Davis.
The majority of your post is a mass of unfounded hyperbole with no relation to anything I've ever said, but I'd like to respond to one point in particular: "then why is that word in the English language?" The answer, of course, is that the idea exists; English is able to express the impossible (such as "faster than light" or "nigritude ultramarine") just as easily as the possible. Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a language.
Um, WTF? Since when am I "campaigning"? I'm sorry that you feel persecuted because you can't understand what I'm saying, but don't take it personally.
Anyway, as to your point: nothing is "sustainable". It's a fact of the universe. Living your life with minimal impact on the world is nice and Zen and all, but that's the strategy of "delaying the inevitable", not anything I've ever talked about. You can keep on being "sustainable" right up to the (inevitable, as far as you or I know at the moment) heat death of the universe, but your standard of living will go to shit in the meantime.
Or, you can go about your life optimizing what you get out of the universe and what you put in, changing it, to your benefit as well as you can. Both you and the universe will be around for a finite amount of time, so you might as well make that time interesting, creative, productive, profitable, or whatever you want. That's the essence of life.
Like I said, I don't deny that ecology exists, or that "the environment" is a good thing, only that "environmentalism" as a philosophy is the polar opposite of "living".
Obtaining a patent on a specific, innovative technique that's important to your business can be considered reasonable and not especially evil. Obtaining patents on a whole mess of vague descriptions of subprocesses in order to keep competition entirely out of a given field, exploiting loopholes in the process to create "submarine" patents, and other such abuse is evil. Just because "the patent system" is broken and subject to rampant abuse doesn't mean that the whole idea of a patent should -- necessarily -- be thrown out.
That said, I think that the trademark, properly applied, is a more important protection, and better for business, than either the copyright or the patent.
is this "More On Some Topic", or "Some Topic for Morons"? Looks to me like someone just submitted a mainstream news article which dumbs everything down and pisses off slashdotters in the process.
Of course. I'm not saying "let's go destroy us some environment"; merely that I should preserve and improve the environment for my benefit (because I'm a part of it), not to my detriment.