Well, mainly so they don't play well on normal TVs. Early movies (citizen kane etc) often had a 4:3 aspect ratio. Studios moved to widescreen formats out of fear that TVs would destroy cinema.
There might be an inate perceptual advantage too, but I'm not sure if this has been tested.
Surely ratio is 1/1 still ? But its not even a riddle, I fail see why anyone would think the policy makes a difference to proportion of sexes. Please explain, AFAICT it doesnt give any insight into anything.
> The more money we donate to starving countries, like we do to various countries in Africe (both government and public donations), the more they reproduce.
No. Being richer does not mean people reproduce more. In fact, the poorer people are (up to a point) the more they reproduce. With better education and health care, people reproduce less.
Your link contains a pack of lies. First one that comes up is "When asked to produce credible evidence of the destruction--the location of destruction sites, fragments of destroyed weapons, some documentation of the destruction, anything at all--the Iraqis refused."
No, they provided the information, it just wasn't believed. They didnt have extensive documentation on this, after all they were destroying weapons they weren't supposed to have.
The whole article contains a mixture of misinterpretation mixed with outright lies. Before the war one could read what Scott Ritter or Joseph Wilson was saying and it turned out they were entirely correct. You can and will believe what you like, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned the evidence is conclusive. As for why oil prices going up proving it wasnt for oil, are you being deliberately stupid or what ? Nobody in their right mind claimed the point of the war was to provide American proles with cheap oil, the point was to provide American corporations with the control of vast oil reserves.
A specification language is not as distinct from a bridge as a cad model of a bridge is from the bridge itself. I learnt Z but have largely forgotten it now - it is irrelevent for 99% of real world software problems anyway. Any specification language sufficiently detailed to describe the solution in such a way that one could prove the solution was bug free would be machine translateable into actual code, ie would become the programming language.
If anybody was ever in more need of a little, er, professional help, then I don't know, maybe they would already have gone and got some. Once you've got the mechanical craving taken care of you might be vaguely sane enough to get some real lovin...
It helps if you are thought to have a big dick too. No, I'm not kidding. The stereotypes Japanese women have about western men are similar to the ones caucasians have about blacks in the west.
> The mother wasn't watching her child's use of the computer, as was her responsibility to do.
So, let me get this straight.. the mother was supposed to sit and watch over the child's shoulder and watch everything the child did on the computer, even if she didn't understand what the child was doing ? Or, alternatively parents who don't understand computers should not allow their children to use computers. I guess parents who can't read should not allow their children to read in case they read something unsuitable. And blind parents should not allow their children to watch tv in case they see something obscene. I'm not clear, what you proposing exactly ?
Secondly, your self respect seems to be dependent upon being a law abiding citizen. There are 3 basic ways of treating a law: obey it, ignore it, and change it. The 3rd option is only available to those with a lot of money. For instance, copyright was orginally limited to 28 years so those star treks you covet would be fair game if it were not for the fact that copyright holders have spent some of their profits on getting the laws changed.
Even this contrived definition of stealing does not cover file sharing. How are you "taking" something if it remains where it is ? Quit calling it stealing and call it what it is: unauthorised copying.
Re:Jamie Zawinski said it better than I could have
on
The Tech of Burning Man
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Jamie Zawinski is a whiney little bitch and a hugely overrated programmer, especically by himself.
> which I assume Heinlein was a proponent of (or at least he used the system itself)
Unfair assumption. One can want to change laws while still trying to extract whatever benefit one can from existing laws. For instance, if one believes in proportional representation should one not be allowed to vote in a first past the post system. If copyright is the way authors are rewarded, then one can take whatever comes ones way from that while still arguing that the rules should be changed without being a hyprocrit.
A commodity business is one where almost the exact same product can be purchased from multiple vendors. This is true for a few established software products like RDBMS or spreadsheets, but new software development is not a commodity at all. You might as well claim that writing novels is a commodity business.
> (note to the grammer/spelling nazis: while I'm a student of science, I abhor anything related to those 'English' classes that test on spelling, so tough:-P)
That's fine, but be aware that other people will still judge anything you say partly upon your ability to write accurate English. Your judgement on the relevent merits of creationism and evolution will be equated with your judgement about the relative merits of spelling ridiculous with or without an e.
> forgive me if I take exception to some programmer hack calling himself a Scientist.
No, I won't forgive you, you pompous fuck. He didnt call himself a scientist, he said he had graduated with a degree in CS. That's what it's called and it has as much right to be called a science as rocket science, which is more obviously engineering than CS.
> Usually scientists try to achieve things that are > one or two steps above where they are now
Newton *acheived* things many steps beyond where things were, he was not a usual man. The term "scientist" as we understand it did not exist back then and Newton probably did more to bring modern science into existence than any man before or since. Also, lead into gold or was not *obviously* beyond reach at all. The fact that he attained a theory that produced a decent understanding of everything from canonballs to planetary motion was far more amazing than if he had turned lead into gold.
Slashdot Mirror
> why are movies widescreen?
Well, mainly so they don't play well on normal TVs. Early movies
(citizen kane etc) often had a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Studios moved to widescreen formats out of fear that TVs
would destroy cinema.
There might be an inate perceptual advantage
too, but I'm not sure if this has been tested.
Surely ratio is 1/1 still ? But its not even a riddle, I fail see why anyone would think the policy makes a difference to proportion of sexes. Please explain, AFAICT it doesnt give any insight into anything.
simple: x = 1/0 ;)
> The more money we donate to starving countries, like we do to various countries in Africe (both government and public donations), the more they reproduce.
No. Being richer does not mean people reproduce more. In fact, the poorer people are (up to a point) the more they reproduce. With better education and health care, people reproduce less.
Your link contains a pack of lies. First one that comes up is "When asked to produce credible evidence of the destruction--the location of destruction sites, fragments of destroyed weapons, some documentation of the destruction, anything at all--the Iraqis refused."
No, they provided the information, it just wasn't believed. They didnt have extensive documentation on this, after all they were destroying weapons they weren't supposed to have.
The whole article contains a mixture of misinterpretation mixed with outright lies. Before the war one could read what Scott Ritter or Joseph Wilson was saying and it turned out they were entirely correct. You can and will believe what you like, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned the evidence is conclusive. As for why oil prices going up proving it wasnt for oil, are you being deliberately stupid or what ? Nobody in their right mind claimed the point of the war was to provide American proles with cheap oil, the point was to provide American corporations with the control of vast oil reserves.
A specification language is not as distinct from a bridge as a cad model of a bridge is from the bridge itself. I learnt Z but have largely forgotten it now - it is irrelevent for 99% of real world software problems anyway. Any specification language sufficiently detailed to describe the solution in such a way that one could prove the solution was bug free would be machine translateable into actual code, ie would become the programming language.
If anybody was ever in more need of a little, er, professional help, then I don't know, maybe they would already have gone and got some. Once you've got the mechanical craving taken care of you might be vaguely sane enough to get some real lovin...
> That also solves the problem of having finished one beer, but not wanting another.
Pussy
It helps if you are thought to have a big dick too. No, I'm not kidding. The stereotypes Japanese women have about western men are similar to the ones caucasians have about blacks in the west.
> The mother wasn't watching her child's use of the computer, as was her responsibility to do.
So, let me get this straight.. the mother was supposed to sit and watch over the child's shoulder and watch everything the child did on the computer, even if she didn't understand what the child was doing ? Or, alternatively parents who don't understand computers should not allow their children to use computers. I guess parents who can't read should not allow their children to read in case they read something unsuitable. And blind parents should not allow their children to watch tv in case they see something obscene. I'm not clear, what you proposing exactly ?
Secondly, your self respect seems to be dependent upon being a law abiding citizen. There are 3 basic ways of treating a law: obey it, ignore it, and change it. The 3rd option is only available to those with a lot of money. For instance, copyright was orginally limited to 28 years so those star treks you covet would be fair game if it were not for the fact that copyright holders have spent some of their profits on getting the laws changed.
Even this contrived definition of stealing does not cover file sharing. How are you "taking" something if it remains where it is ? Quit calling it stealing and call it what it is: unauthorised copying.
Jamie Zawinski is a whiney little bitch and a hugely overrated programmer, especically by himself.
> It's entertainment, not medication.
Don't tell the judge
> Drug development is a hugely expensive process.
_ the_issues.htm 50%
That's true, and over 50% of this comes from public funds currently. http://www.cepr.net/publications/patents_what_are
> which I assume Heinlein was a proponent of (or at least he used the system itself)
Unfair assumption. One can want to change laws while still trying to extract whatever benefit one can from existing laws. For instance, if one believes in proportional representation should one not be allowed to vote in a first past the post system. If copyright is the way authors are rewarded, then one can take whatever comes ones way from that while still arguing that the rules should be changed without being a hyprocrit.
> like getting offended when somebody says "The sky is blue".
I live in England you insensitive clod.
No, look... Birmingham is *not* famous for those things because only people from Birmingham are aware that they come from Birmingham.
> software is now a commodity business
A commodity business is one where almost the exact same product can be purchased from multiple vendors. This is true for a few established software products like RDBMS or spreadsheets, but new software development is not a commodity at all. You might as well claim that writing novels is a commodity business.
> (note to the grammer/spelling nazis: while I'm a student of science, I abhor anything related to those 'English' classes that test on spelling, so tough :-P)
That's fine, but be aware that other people will still judge anything you say partly upon your ability to write accurate English. Your judgement on the relevent merits of creationism and evolution will be equated with your judgement about the relative merits of spelling ridiculous with or without an e.
It's called a recipe for fuck's sake. BFD^2
Great, please give me an example of how would you use this return type ?
Foo f1(3);
Foo *f;
f = new Foo(2);
Maybe a little more thought needs to go into your language suggestions.
> forgive me if I take exception to some programmer hack calling himself a Scientist.
No, I won't forgive you, you pompous fuck. He didnt call himself a scientist, he said he had graduated with a degree in CS. That's what it's called and it has as much right to be called a science as rocket science, which is more obviously engineering than CS.
> Usually scientists try to achieve things that are > one or two steps above where they are now
Newton *acheived* things many steps beyond where things were, he was not a usual man. The term "scientist" as we understand it did not exist back then and Newton probably did more to bring modern science into existence than any man before or since. Also, lead into gold or was not *obviously* beyond reach at all. The fact that he attained a theory that produced a decent understanding of everything from canonballs to planetary motion was far more amazing than if he had turned lead into gold.
Personnally, I have more faith in the US constitution than the gospels, and I'm not even American.
I hate XP, w2003 seems just like a newer version of w2k. Only problem is you have to use product activation, so its not suitable for, er, sharing.