I apologize... I meant to write "anyone reading the post". I did not mean to imply that I wrote the Amazon review, and I apologize for not using the preview button correctly.
a big disappointment, April 14, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Washington, DC
I really admired Jon Katz's "Geeks" and I'm deeply interested in dogs, so I pounced on this book, but I'm sorry to say I found it very disappointing. Katz writes well, and some parts of the book are touching, especially his accounts of putting his labs down, but on the whole the book is grating in its misperceptions and obtuseness about canine behavior. It also seemed to be reaching for significance and spiritual insight in a self-conscious way that is occasionally embarrassing. Worst of all, much of it is just not interesting. There are so many insightful and genuinely touching books about the human-canine relationship that this one just seems unnecessary. I hope Katz gets back on stride with his next book.
It's the creation of the spec file that's a chore. I have to know what dependencies the package has to make it. If I know already, such as by RTFM's the original source package docs, then I know all I need to know to manage it without RPM.
Well, then you're not a system administrator. You're some guy who may (or may not) administer a few Unix boxes.
For a real sys admin, most of the work goes into standardization and documentation. She's working for a company that loses valuable time and money when its systems go down, and it loses vital flexibility if its not able to replace the sys admin on a moments notice (like when the sys admin gets hit by a bus). She recognizes this, and makes every effort to make herself replaceable.
In the real world, the very worse sys admins are always the "irreplaceable" ones -- the ones with so much specialized knowledge that only they have. The horrible sys admins are the ones who can't be bothered to keep a standardized list of everything installed on the systems, and the prerequisites for each of those installations. That's not administration, it's voodoo. If you work at a company with an admin like that, get him removed from his job, immediately. If you are an admin like that, grow up, immediately.
The first paragraph of the article (which is all I bothered to read, but that's still more than CmdrTaco) clearly says "methane gas-powered", not "gasoline powered".
What I meant to write is that my understanding is that people with one copy of the sickle-cell anemia gene do not get better resistance to malaria -- they get worse resistance to malaria. In fact, the study I described suggested that many people with one copy of the gene had been infected with many strains of the malaria parasite, again and again, from a young age, at rates higher than the general population.
Of course, there is a huge difference between "being infected by malaria" and "suffering the debilitating effects of malaria". And, in fact, the described study came about as a recognition of this difference. In the past, it had simply been assumed that the sickle-cell gene conferred immunity because of its negative correllation with symptoms, but actual blood tests for the parasite had not been systematically performed. It turned out that people with one copy of the sickle-cell anemia gene, although not suffering the effects of malaria, and hence not historically diagnosed with malaria, were suprisingly still very often infected.
The reasons for this, or its implications, is anyone's guess. The reporter had given some possible reasons, but co-evolution of parasites is pretty danged freaky-cool and chaotic.
Of course, this is just something I vaguely remember reading in the NY Times one afternoon sometime in the early nineties. I'm damned if I know if I even really read it, much less if it turned out to be true.
However, for whatever reason, you ARE more resistant to malaria.
In the dim recesses of my faulty memory, I seem to recall a study claiming that sickle-cell anemia makes one less resistant to malaria. A possible explanation was that, paradoxically, people suffering from anemica catch malaria more often, and younger, and build up an immunological resistance to the disease.
I'm far too lazy to actually do a search for the study, or to find out if follow up studies had been done, or any of the other things that would make this post +1 informative instead of -1 talking-out-of-ass. But I think I read some reporters (probably mangled) synopsis of the study in the NY Times between 6 and 8 years ago.
This is kind of old news, even for Slashdot. Simson Garfinkel (who has been mentioned on this site before) burnt these things in March of 1993.
In '93, these things weren't collectors items -- they were neat-o cool, but still falling in value. By '96, you could probably walk into any math department at any university in the world and buy a Cube with a burned out optical drive, a bad hard drive, a faded out black and white monitor, and a broken PostScript printer, all for well under $500. Hell, at some universities you probably still can.
Re:Here's the text from the article
on
Triana Mothballed
·
· Score: 2
Here's a copy of the article text, for those who do not wish to see pop-up-ad-hell.:)
Now I'm just going to free-loader-and-revenue-thief-hell.
Which highlights a notable cultural difference between the US and the UK (indeed most of Europe). In the UK a pedestrian always has right of way on a public road (after all they were using them a thousand years before cars were invented.)
What is this "pedestrian" crap you European's keep talking about? Is that some sort of pedophile on a horse or something? Makes sense that you would have those for thousands of years, you damn filthy Euro's and your liberal ways.
Here in God's country, we use the roads for what God created them for -- driving our SUV's.
Slashdot Mirror
I apologize... I meant to write "anyone reading the post". I did not mean to imply that I wrote the Amazon review, and I apologize for not using the preview button correctly.
Why did you choose this one, I wonder?
No, you don't wonder. You, and anyone reading my review, understands exactly why I posted the negative review.
My reasons don't require any deep analysis.
a big disappointment, April 14, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Washington, DC
I really admired Jon Katz's "Geeks" and I'm deeply interested in dogs, so I pounced on this book, but I'm sorry to say I found it very disappointing. Katz writes well, and some parts of the book are touching, especially his accounts of putting his labs down, but on the whole the book is grating in its misperceptions and obtuseness about canine behavior. It also seemed to be reaching for significance and spiritual insight in a self-conscious way that is occasionally embarrassing. Worst of all, much of it is just not interesting. There are so many insightful and genuinely touching books about the human-canine relationship that this one just seems unnecessary. I hope Katz gets back on stride with his next book.
You know what pisses me off the most?
/etc/hosts file, and be done with this shitty site forever?
I spent a half hour writing a patch to fix page widening posts, and the fucking lameness filter won't allow it.
Who the hell should I send the patch to? Will there be a chance in hell that anyone would ever read it?
Or should I just give up, and shove the line
127.0.0.1 slashdot.org
into my
God damn you stupid motherfuckers... could you please fix this?
Or don't the people who read the site using the most popular browswer on the most popular operating system matter to you?
Wouldn't it have been easier to hook the camera to his odometer, instead of the speedometer?
It's the creation of the spec file that's a chore. I have to know what dependencies the package has to make it. If I know already, such as by RTFM's the original source package docs, then I know all I need to know to manage it without RPM.
Well, then you're not a system administrator. You're some guy who may (or may not) administer a few Unix boxes.
For a real sys admin, most of the work goes into standardization and documentation. She's working for a company that loses valuable time and money when its systems go down, and it loses vital flexibility if its not able to replace the sys admin on a moments notice (like when the sys admin gets hit by a bus). She recognizes this, and makes every effort to make herself replaceable.
In the real world, the very worse sys admins are always the "irreplaceable" ones -- the ones with so much specialized knowledge that only they have. The horrible sys admins are the ones who can't be bothered to keep a standardized list of everything installed on the systems, and the prerequisites for each of those installations. That's not administration, it's voodoo. If you work at a company with an admin like that, get him removed from his job, immediately. If you are an admin like that, grow up, immediately.
It is worth pointing out that Timothy isn't the one who made that comment. It was the submitter, Kallahar...
Yeah, Timothy is just a mindless dumbass, posting anything and everything submitted, without any oversight or thought.
No, wait, he's a Slashdot editor. Same thing, really.
This is just a random +2 post.
Will it be modded down? Let's find out!
come on now... are [the slashdot editors] professionals or 10 year olds who just had their toys taken away from them?
Well, duh!
My guess is that Slashdot get's paid to post these 'reviews'.
Well, duh.
If you're rich, yes.
It has nothing to do with being rich. You can get good customer service if you're willing to pay for it.
Frankly, most people are not.
This is the first time I've seen the airing of a piece of blatant, unapologetic propaganda directed at children since the World War 2 era.
Yeah, the "Just say No" and "D.A.R.E." programs are aimed squarely at adults.
Is this an auto-poster program? Because if it is, it's suprisingly good at stripping the relevant material out of an article and post.
Are you doing some sort of computer reading research at a graduate school somewhere?
The first paragraph of the article (which is all I bothered to read, but that's still more than CmdrTaco) clearly says "methane gas-powered", not "gasoline powered".
On the other hand, the fact that it's illegal to stiff your employees out of wages due them, even in a bankruptcy, isn't mentioned in the article...
I'm guessing the slashdot editors have been paying real careful attention to the bankruptcy laws recently.
I wonder why?
It should be noted that both this post and the one above it were posted with the +1 bonus.
That doesn't say much about Mozilla, but it says a lot about me. And matty. And Slashdot. And you, for reading this drivel.
Go home.
Apple is slowly dying anyway.
Well, duh! What did they expect when they decided to use BSD?
Sorry. I hit "submit" instead of preview.
What I meant to write is that my understanding is that people with one copy of the sickle-cell anemia gene do not get better resistance to malaria -- they get worse resistance to malaria. In fact, the study I described suggested that many people with one copy of the gene had been infected with many strains of the malaria parasite, again and again, from a young age, at rates higher than the general population.
Of course, there is a huge difference between "being infected by malaria" and "suffering the debilitating effects of malaria". And, in fact, the described study came about as a recognition of this difference. In the past, it had simply been assumed that the sickle-cell gene conferred immunity because of its negative correllation with symptoms, but actual blood tests for the parasite had not been systematically performed. It turned out that people with one copy of the sickle-cell anemia gene, although not suffering the effects of malaria, and hence not historically diagnosed with malaria, were suprisingly still very often infected.
The reasons for this, or its implications, is anyone's guess. The reporter had given some possible reasons, but co-evolution of parasites is pretty danged freaky-cool and chaotic.
Of course, this is just something I vaguely remember reading in the NY Times one afternoon sometime in the early nineties. I'm damned if I know if I even really read it, much less if it turned out to be true.
However, for whatever reason, you ARE more resistant to malaria.
In the dim recesses of my faulty memory, I seem to recall a study claiming that sickle-cell anemia makes one less resistant to malaria. A possible explanation was that, paradoxically, people suffering from anemica catch malaria more often, and younger, and build up an immunological resistance to the disease.
I'm far too lazy to actually do a search for the study, or to find out if follow up studies had been done, or any of the other things that would make this post +1 informative instead of -1 talking-out-of-ass. But I think I read some reporters (probably mangled) synopsis of the study in the NY Times between 6 and 8 years ago.
This is neither goal free nor 3-D, but this is both interesting and a response to a question posed by many people.
Also, we're already linking to random university professor's random pages.
The Geology Explorer is an educational game intended to teach the concepts and principles of Physical Geology.
This is kind of old news, even for Slashdot. Simson Garfinkel (who has been mentioned on this site before) burnt these things in March of 1993.
In '93, these things weren't collectors items -- they were neat-o cool, but still falling in value. By '96, you could probably walk into any math department at any university in the world and buy a Cube with a burned out optical drive, a bad hard drive, a faded out black and white monitor, and a broken PostScript printer, all for well under $500. Hell, at some universities you probably still can.
Here's a copy of the article text, for those who do not wish to see pop-up-ad-hell. :)
Now I'm just going to free-loader-and-revenue-thief-hell.
Thanks for nothing.
Which highlights a notable cultural difference between the US and the UK (indeed most of Europe). In the UK a pedestrian always has right of way on a public road (after all they were using them a thousand years before cars were invented.)
What is this "pedestrian" crap you European's keep talking about? Is that some sort of pedophile on a horse or something? Makes sense that you would have those for thousands of years, you damn filthy Euro's and your liberal ways.
Here in God's country, we use the roads for what God created them for -- driving our SUV's.
Ok, last post; I'm getting sick of this.
Trolls aren't supposed to get sick of trolling!