Maybe you're just thinking of the commercials? Any commercial theme becomes annoying after a while. Those specials I was talking about are great no matter how many times I see them imho.
The "California Raisins" and most forms of Claymation at the time
No way! I agree with you about everything else you mentioned sucking hard, but Will Vinton's claymation was hilarious and groundbreaking. I used to watch the Claymation Christmas we taped from TV over and over again. The Halloween and Easter specials were hilariously good as well.
A couple other rare high-points of 80s culture I can think of are Max Headroom and Bloom County. And this current age features the deepest shallowness humanity has ever offered if reality TV is any indication.
The electron's there (with "there" being defined by a fuzzy cloud of possible positions/momentums), it's just that it doesn't have a precise position or momentum except at points in time when one of these quantities are "observed", as stated above.
What, no Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment (Stevens)?
I know what you mean about the differences in programming between then and now. Then it was about learning a relatively small set of simple, fundamental tools and knowing how to build with them in creative ways. Now it's more about learning a bunch of complex, ever-changing, flavor-of-the-month frameworks. Demands memorizing trivia more than creativity really.
The problem with that though is that the people who would suffer the most from these institutions going under would not be the people who directly caused the crisis. I'm not sure that the average citizen should be punished because they were not cognizant of institutions' banking practices that they had nothing to do with and no power to stop.
I saw a great broadcast by Frontline recently called Breaking The Bank. It details the reactions then Bush-appointed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had during the beginning of the meltdown. Paulson, who came in as a free-market person, was faced with the prospect of big banks dragging each other down in a domino effect which threatened to take the entire economy with it. To prevent this he was forced to change his tune and pump government money into the banks, with considerable strings attached. This was the beginning of unprecedented government involvement in the private sector.
I can't help but think that if some modest, reasonable and necessary regulations were put on the market, this situation could have been avoided. But without them, instead we end up with considerably MORE government interference in the market than ever before.
A situation where the collapse of one company can cause an entire national (actually, world) economy to have a conniption is a problem. At bare minimum, regulations should prevent this situation from ever being possible. That way when any company starts to go under because of stupid business practices they can be allowed to receive the punishment they deserve.
I think the point is that as long as unregulated derivatives were in play, a financial melt-down of some stripe was inevitable. That it may have been ultimately caused by the housing bubble in this case is entirely incidental.
I agree it sucks that our government is propping up insolvent institutions, many of which made atrocious decisions. But the alternative is that the whole economy collapse in a pile of dust. That would suck worse.
The economy was fucked when the banksters initiated the largest embezzlement scam in human history in the form of the housing bubble. They just managed to cover up the theft until about 2006.
I feel the same way about RAM versus ROM being used as mutually exclusive terms. It's not often you come across Read-Only Memory where you cannot randomly access the data. But unfortunately these are the labels we're stuck with since RWM is not pronounceable.
'You don't go into the business to get external credit and recognition - quite the opposite. Quite honestly, the main reaction was one of complete surprise that this had actually been discovered outside.'
Good thing they aren't. Right in the fucking summary no less.
That depends what you mean by "significantly close to the speed of light." With constant acceleration at 1g for a year, you'd be traveling at 0.77c. You can't simply add the velocities like you'd expect when relativistic effects come into play. For a good explanation on this see here.
Apologies in advance if you already took that into consideration.
Hell, just about anything is better than Bubble Sort. I'm not sure why it's even taught. Whenever someone is left to come up with a sorting algorithm of their own for the first time they'll usually re-create Selection Sort, and that's better than Bubble Sort.
This might surprise you (I know it did me), but Shell Sort can do better than O(n^2) when implemented the correct way, making it asymptotically better than Bubble Sort as well.
i argue with people about drug policy all the time, and it just absolutely floors me how all of the harm is from governmental policy, and no one ever admits to the harm the actual drug does on human lives. its amazing. the arguments against drug policy, are, in a way, the classic rationalization of the average addict: "its the world's fault, not mine"
Huh? That's a weird argument for you to be making since it looks like you're blaming an inanimate object known as "the drug" for the hardships that come to the irresponsible drug user.
As anyone with halfway demanding job knows, the brain is a fairly imperfect result of non-purposeful and undirected evolutionary processes and it is easy to experience its limits in your daily work. (If not, you should perhaps get an intellectually more challenging job.)
Yeah, I'm thinking you have that completely backwards. The tasks that computers are best at wouldn't be something you'd describe as "intellectually challenging" but more like tedious, dull and unforgiving. Stuff like memorization and rapid and accurate calculations of known mathematical formula. Memorization is great if you're a waiter or waitress taking a lot of orders. (Not that I'm looking down at the profession, but it's something a lot of us wouldn't want to go through for long). You ever need to use a slide-rule? Thanks to computers, I never had to. Got some dull calculations to be solved to achieve something interesting? Well give it to a computer and focus on something better.
The really intellectually challenging jobs take insight and creativity - the things that our computers tend to suck at. Finding the proof to a long-standing math problem. (Or even creating a new branch of mathematics if you're really amazing). Coming up with an innovative algorithm. Looking at the properties of known subatomic particles known and uniting them all by creating the Standard Model. Now that right there is the pinnacle of intellectually challenging. You think a computer we create is going to achieve that anytime soon? (Or maybe ever). Not bloody likely. But they are great at taking care of stupid, soul-crushing grunt work you have to do to work up to achieving such things yourself, leaving your mind more time to think of the fun stuff.
Besides, I trust the evolutionary non-purposeful and undirected process for creating a brain more over the long term than us anyhow. Whereas we are limited by the models and concepts we are able to come up with to understand the world around us and create something, nature simply acts and is unrestrained by any concept or need for understanding whatsoever. What could possibly be more powerful than that?
The difference is that humans didn't come from the apes alive today, they split from an ancestor of both in which we have the apes alive today and humans from it.
Yes, I already knew that humans didn't come from the apes alive today. In your post you say that "people claim from monkey/apes" and that "evolutionary theory says nothing of the sort". But it does say something of the sort. We came from apes and continue to be classified as apes. It is not the case that "one branch lead to humans while the other lead to apes," as you wrote.
So either your writing did not reflect what you were trying to say or you retroactively claimed you were trying to say something else in order to save face. Why are you being belligerent towards me when you are the one who is deficient?
Evolution for instance, people who dislike religion and creation stories take the ancestral connections to apes and claim we came from monkeys/apes. Of course Biological evolutionary theory says nothing of the sort- it says that we come from an ancestor that branched and one branch lead to humans while the other lead to apes.
Not only does evolutionary theory say that we came from apes, but that we are apes. Great Apes to be exact.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you're just thinking of the commercials? Any commercial theme becomes annoying after a while. Those specials I was talking about are great no matter how many times I see them imho.
No way! I agree with you about everything else you mentioned sucking hard, but Will Vinton's claymation was hilarious and groundbreaking. I used to watch the Claymation Christmas we taped from TV over and over again. The Halloween and Easter specials were hilariously good as well.
A couple other rare high-points of 80s culture I can think of are Max Headroom and Bloom County. And this current age features the deepest shallowness humanity has ever offered if reality TV is any indication.
Photons, like any other massless particle, always travel at exactly c. It is a constant.
The electron's there (with "there" being defined by a fuzzy cloud of possible positions/momentums), it's just that it doesn't have a precise position or momentum except at points in time when one of these quantities are "observed", as stated above.
If these "external forces" are what define who you are as a person, are they really external?
What, no Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment (Stevens)?
I know what you mean about the differences in programming between then and now. Then it was about learning a relatively small set of simple, fundamental tools and knowing how to build with them in creative ways. Now it's more about learning a bunch of complex, ever-changing, flavor-of-the-month frameworks. Demands memorizing trivia more than creativity really.
The problem with that though is that the people who would suffer the most from these institutions going under would not be the people who directly caused the crisis. I'm not sure that the average citizen should be punished because they were not cognizant of institutions' banking practices that they had nothing to do with and no power to stop.
I saw a great broadcast by Frontline recently called Breaking The Bank. It details the reactions then Bush-appointed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had during the beginning of the meltdown. Paulson, who came in as a free-market person, was faced with the prospect of big banks dragging each other down in a domino effect which threatened to take the entire economy with it. To prevent this he was forced to change his tune and pump government money into the banks, with considerable strings attached. This was the beginning of unprecedented government involvement in the private sector.
I can't help but think that if some modest, reasonable and necessary regulations were put on the market, this situation could have been avoided. But without them, instead we end up with considerably MORE government interference in the market than ever before.
A situation where the collapse of one company can cause an entire national (actually, world) economy to have a conniption is a problem. At bare minimum, regulations should prevent this situation from ever being possible. That way when any company starts to go under because of stupid business practices they can be allowed to receive the punishment they deserve.
I think the point is that as long as unregulated derivatives were in play, a financial melt-down of some stripe was inevitable. That it may have been ultimately caused by the housing bubble in this case is entirely incidental.
I agree it sucks that our government is propping up insolvent institutions, many of which made atrocious decisions. But the alternative is that the whole economy collapse in a pile of dust. That would suck worse.
That's only part of the story. The full story involves unregulated derivatives.
I find your lack of faith... disturbing.
I feel the same way about RAM versus ROM being used as mutually exclusive terms. It's not often you come across Read-Only Memory where you cannot randomly access the data. But unfortunately these are the labels we're stuck with since RWM is not pronounceable.
Good thing they aren't. Right in the fucking summary no less.
Yes, but Hawking thinks it applies. The linked article is from a while ago.
That depends what you mean by "significantly close to the speed of light." With constant acceleration at 1g for a year, you'd be traveling at 0.77c. You can't simply add the velocities like you'd expect when relativistic effects come into play. For a good explanation on this see here.
Apologies in advance if you already took that into consideration.
Twenty megaton blast? Meh. We've seen worse.
Of course, I'm sure where it strikes will make a bit of difference.
A life-saving technique, or a handy container for a delicious baby sandwich? Hmmmmmmmmm...
Don't watch The Colbert Report. That show will confuse the living hell out of you.
+1 - Honesty?
Hell, just about anything is better than Bubble Sort. I'm not sure why it's even taught. Whenever someone is left to come up with a sorting algorithm of their own for the first time they'll usually re-create Selection Sort, and that's better than Bubble Sort.
This might surprise you (I know it did me), but Shell Sort can do better than O(n^2) when implemented the correct way, making it asymptotically better than Bubble Sort as well.
No offense, but I'm guessing that anybody with the same interests as the OP would find the topic of law wrist-slashingly dull.
Huh? That's a weird argument for you to be making since it looks like you're blaming an inanimate object known as "the drug" for the hardships that come to the irresponsible drug user.
Yeah, I'm thinking you have that completely backwards. The tasks that computers are best at wouldn't be something you'd describe as "intellectually challenging" but more like tedious, dull and unforgiving. Stuff like memorization and rapid and accurate calculations of known mathematical formula. Memorization is great if you're a waiter or waitress taking a lot of orders. (Not that I'm looking down at the profession, but it's something a lot of us wouldn't want to go through for long). You ever need to use a slide-rule? Thanks to computers, I never had to. Got some dull calculations to be solved to achieve something interesting? Well give it to a computer and focus on something better.
The really intellectually challenging jobs take insight and creativity - the things that our computers tend to suck at. Finding the proof to a long-standing math problem. (Or even creating a new branch of mathematics if you're really amazing). Coming up with an innovative algorithm. Looking at the properties of known subatomic particles known and uniting them all by creating the Standard Model. Now that right there is the pinnacle of intellectually challenging. You think a computer we create is going to achieve that anytime soon? (Or maybe ever). Not bloody likely. But they are great at taking care of stupid, soul-crushing grunt work you have to do to work up to achieving such things yourself, leaving your mind more time to think of the fun stuff.
Besides, I trust the evolutionary non-purposeful and undirected process for creating a brain more over the long term than us anyhow. Whereas we are limited by the models and concepts we are able to come up with to understand the world around us and create something, nature simply acts and is unrestrained by any concept or need for understanding whatsoever. What could possibly be more powerful than that?
Dammit! First quote should have read "[people] claim we came from monkeys/apes." My bad.
Yes, I already knew that humans didn't come from the apes alive today. In your post you say that "people claim from monkey/apes" and that "evolutionary theory says nothing of the sort". But it does say something of the sort. We came from apes and continue to be classified as apes. It is not the case that "one branch lead to humans while the other lead to apes," as you wrote.
So either your writing did not reflect what you were trying to say or you retroactively claimed you were trying to say something else in order to save face. Why are you being belligerent towards me when you are the one who is deficient?
Not only does evolutionary theory say that we came from apes, but that we are apes. Great Apes to be exact.