If you can theoretically store infinite data, would you have to wait an inifinite amount of time to find a particular piece of datum?
Only if you filled the whole address space with your data. If you use a finite portion of the space, you ought (one would think) to be able to find your data in a finite amount of time. And one would suppose that it would take you an infinite amount of time to write an infinite amount of data, so the seek time would be the least of your problems in that case. Or so it seems to my poorly educated mind at first blush.
On the other hand, if there are an infinite number of bits available, one would suppose the bits are in a random state before we begin to write to them. Perhaps this means that every.mp3 file on napster is already there, and you just have to find them. So perhaps the seek time is a big deal after all.
Now I just have to sit back and wait for the information theory people to set me straight...;-)
tewl noted a CNN story that says that Napster's usage has quadrupled...
That's not a very useful blurb... I daresay Napster's usage has quadrupled many times since its inception. Now I'm going to have to follow the link, and actually read the article. What's the world coming to?
Ah, okay... since February. Sheesh... doing my own research... thought this was a news site...;-)
You might be able to configure a router. Can you remove someone's spleen without killing them? Can you operate construction equipment safely?
I can configure a router, and operate construction equipment safely. I'm not sure about the spleen, but I'd be willing to try if it'd speed up my connection.:-)
Let's see... got my safety razor... bottle of scotch... roll of gauze...
So what if they use more bandwidth? The bottleneck in the system moves, and we have to continue to upgrade the backbones.
On the other hand, the state of security is deplorable, and crypto is employed only by the very few. Life can get a lot worse if every PC is an attack platform with a very zippy connection.
Forget the silly "make 'em earn their bandwidth" attitude. Cheap out-of-the-box firewalls, which are easy (or at least easier) to configure, and IPSec are needed.
They won't suck that much more bandwidth, because they won't know HOW TO.
Pooh. You underestimate how good we are at making it easy for them to waste bandwidth. They'll all be videoconferencing and filesharing movies in no time.
I mean, c'mon, how does RIAA's ripping off of artists make it OK to rip off artists even more by downloading their music via Napster?
Because, hypothetically, the artists don't own their music any more than the RIAA does. The legal basis for copyright in the US lies in promoting the progress, not protecting property rights. If the laws are now diminishing the people's freedom without providing them with adequate compensation, there's a big problem. The RIAA, aided by outdated laws, is ripping off music listeners, just as pork barrel projects rip off taxpayers.
What's that you say, you mean information is free for people to do whatever they want to it? Not according to the GPL. The aforementioned act is ignoring intellectual property laws just as much as getting something for nothing from Napster.
Sans IP laws, we'd have much less need for the GPL. Sure, some big company could modify the software and keep the source to the changes private. Personally that wouldn't disturb me very much (nor does it disturb those developers who use the BSD license). Even if it bothered you a lot, though, you might still reasonably conclude that on the whole, we'd be better off if IP laws didn't extend to software.
Honestly, people who support Napster here should at least be honest about why they REALLY support it
Oh, please. I can't speak for everyone, but my interest in the matter is certainly not about the nickels and dimes I get to save. Most of the stuff I actually want these days is classical or baroque anyway, and you pretty well have to buy that stuff if you want anything decent. In any case, arguing the issue ad hominem is just silly... don't drag your useful arguments down with speculation about the motives of those who disagree with you.
The terms 'digital audio recording device' and 'digital audio recording medium' are specifically defined in the Act. A 'digital audio recording device' is defined, with exceptions not relevant here, as any machine or device 'the digital recording function of which is designed or marketed for the primary purpose of, and that is capable of, making a digital audio copied recording for private use.'
Well, that explains it. Your hard drive isn't a digital audio recording device... the software on it is! After all, the software can't be speech, if I recall correctly, because it's got a functional component which makes it more like a machine.
But wait... that would mean Napster would be protected after all, so that's not right. Damn, it seems like if the government has its way, software won't be speech or machinery. I wonder what the heck it is. Hopefully we can find some use for it, or I'm out of a job.
It's got little to do with moving off the planet, but the Repository for Germinal Choice is a DNA repository. They're the "genius sperm bank" out in California that was the focus of a lot of controversy when they began years ago. Forget germ-line engineering, they're improving folks the old fashioned way... breeding them with Nobel Prize laureates and Olympic champions.
I know this because they keep hassling me for my sperm.;-)
I have to work full-time and go to school just to try to make sure I will be able to survive in the future.
Obviously survival comes first. Hopefully at some point you will be more secure in life, and better able to consider making a civic contribution. If you view running as a sacrifice, that's good: that's the sort of attitude public servants should have.
I don't have the time or money to run for office. I'm not even old enough to run for most serious offices.
One of my friends ran for the Montana State House at 17, and almost made it. He had all the wealth of your typical art student backing him.
Unless you have the kind of money that allows you to devote your full attention to running a campaign, you don't have much of a chance of getting elected.
Depends on where you are, I suppose. I know lots of State Rep races are uncontested here in Iowa, and the sole candidate is often a member of one of the local parties who got more or less drafted.
And these are the people who vote on things like UCITA.
The single most important thing that each of us can do is vote. Calling and writing your congressman may help, but ultimately it is what we do on election day that matters most.
I must respectfully disagree. I believe that the most important thing you can do, in a case like this, is to educate the candidates.
As leyreno points out, politicians like to know who's voting, and what they care about. As the case presently stands, most of them know little about these issues, and have no idea that some of their constituents care strongly about them.
Think about it... do you have an anti-DMCA candidate running in your district? Probably not... so simply voting won't likely do any good.
Besides, if all you do is vote, the candidates don't know who you voted for or why. But if you write a few letters, or explain the issue on the phone to a staffer, the issue begins to pop up on the fellow's radar.
Some politicians, if they come to understand the issues at stake, will tend to agree on their own accord. All of them take notice when a significant number of people tell them about the issue that will decide their vote. It's different dealing with an incumbent than with a challenger, but the basic tactic is the same: bartering your promised votes for their promised votes.
For the highly motivated, there are local party platform committees. Not to mention simply running for office yourself... state legislature seats are often uncontested. Yeah, I know, not the most pleasant prospect, but somebody's got to do it.
Based on my admittedly small knowledge of Thomas Aquinas, I find his ideas pretty profound. I'd love to hear you explain your beef with him - except that would be incredibly offtopic.
Don't take me wrong: I think Aquinas is one of the most profound fellows in our intellectual history. Nor would I call Stallman a religious (or even irreligious) kook, save perhaps in a respectful tone.
Heck, maybe one of them's right... whatever the Truth is, it probably doesn't look much like today's common sense. Right or wrong, I think RMS is important and interesting.
When I read old religious authors, like Aquinas, it's always interesting. I consent to their peculiar premises, then follow them along the winding ways, noting that logic indeed demands each turn, until I find we're happily off making oblations, or scourging ourselves...
And then, at some point, the intervening centuries come crashing down, with a resounding, "What the heck!?!" Did this guy really... no, I already know, he did really believe all this. He absolutely lived in this elaborate, invisible realm, which requires the most careful tread once you've made it your own.
RMS manages to evoke the same sort of response from his contemporaries; and small wonder, since his own moral realm seems absolutely personal, mostly crafted by his own hand. Suddenly, just when you least expect it, RMS feels it absolutely necessary to... forgive you.
Odd duck, but I like him. You can certainly tell why he was such a coder anyway... sitting down to the keyboard, he's just slipping from one abstraction to another.
What I'm missing here is your point. I read "they are reaping what they have sown" to mean "they brought this on themselves", or, in other words, "it's their fault". Then later I read that it's wrong that this is happening. In other words, "it's the system that's wrong". I put these together to mean "reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so they shouldn't have gotten a bad one, poor fools".
More to the point, we are reaping what they have sown. "We" being everyone whose life is influenced by computers, ultimately. Reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so how the hell did so many people with good reputations (like the free software camp, with squeaky-clean leaders like Linus and Larry) wind up with their interests represented by 2600?
To the extent that 2600 was unfairly a victim of their own reputation, they deserve everyone's sympathy and support. But if we could untie our fortunes from theirs, it'd be a good thing.
So your argument is, it's a bad thing if Microsoft brings Linux users another choice, because they may take it away again later?
I don't really buy that. You're not talking about them being able to take away anything we've got, only something we haven't got. Even "legitimacy" is a real stretch.
Let's say Office does legitimize Linux in some people's minds (rather like hood ornaments legitimizing cars, but never mind that). Great. So P more people move to Linux than would have, and C more companies move to support it than would have. Now let's say Microsoft yanks Office... whom do we lose? P/X people and C/Y companies, where both X and Y > 1.
This degree of blackmail might not work on RMS types but there is a level where it is frightening.
In fact, it presumably wouldn't work on anyone who presently develops for Linux, since they already see fit to do so without Microsoft's badge of legitimacy. Maybe it'd intimidate some half-assed opportunisic newcomers; who cares? Maybe it could even work on the likes of Red Hat... that won't darken my day.
I sympathize with you; MS certainly hasn't been good to the Apple community. But we have nothing to fear. There's no central point to attack, no board of directors to intimidate, no stockholders to panic. Unless MS decides to send hit men after Linux, Alan & Co., I'd say there's not that much they can do.
Nothing more annoying than receiving a word document in pine.
In fact, nothing more annoying than receiving a word document.;-)
Seriously, amen to that... I just send 'em back. Saving them to your home directory, either mounting a windows partition and mv-ing the.doc or ftping them from the server under windows, booting windows, if you've got it, and praying you've got the right version of Word installed is just a little too bothersome to do often.
Happily, I've never worked in a situation where people customarily mailed me.doc files, so I can afford to cop an attitude. My condolences.
It's bad enough that tax laws change when crossing state boundaries.
Wow, we're really on opposite sides of the fence on that one... I'm a fairly rabid states' rights person.
I cannot imagine the complications that would result from different currency, languages and customs.
Actually, we had different currencies before the Constitution came along, and different customs for yet a long time after. Even, to an extent, today. And it's interesting to see just how much the US Federal Government was crafted to accomodate just such a situation. It was intended largely to standardize certain things which were causing problems, such as units of measurement and currency, as well as to prevent trade wars and punitive tarrifs on interstate commerce.
So imagine America of the late colonial period... except that English was predominant, it's just what you describe.
Why do most *AMERICANS* (yes, I'm American) continue to believe in this stereotype that China's one big monolingual country? I presume you've never bothered to actually learn about that country, have you?
As it so happens, I have. Partly because I'm a bit of a sinophile, partly because my stepmother's Chinese... a metallurgical engineer, whom my father married in Wuhan. And of course you're correct... there are lots of spoken dialects, which are different enough to regard as separate languages, really. On the other hand, they have a single written language, so at least they can all write to one another.
I realized I was oversimplifying the case, just to throw something on at the end of the post, and should have known somebody would call me on it. You'd think I'd have learned by now.
Anyway, the Chinese learn other dialects so they can talk to their neighbors. They also figure China's the center of the world.
So, Mr. Skald, it seems to me that you're further proof of the failure of the American educational system.
Oh, absolutely.:-) Though for other reasons than thinking that all Chinese can understand each other's speech.
As for being the center of the world, I think they realize that's a very outdated belief
The very educated (like my stepmom and her family) do, though that fact tends not to mean much in their daily lives. Most people are happily ignorant of the rest of the world, even today... they realize it exists, and they don't care much.
(let's face it, everyone thinks they're the center of the world, not just the Chinese).
Funny thing is, China is diverse enough that many Chinese are, in a way, quite cosmopolitan... I think that serves to reinforce the illusion that China is the whole world. You could characterize folks as thinking, "Of course I don't think Guang-zhou's the center of the world... there's all the rest of China!"
North American egocentrism doesn't just manifest itself in this way, but this is a classic example of how people from the U.S. believe the U.S. to be the center of the world.
Nah. Most people throughout the world are concerned with managing the details of their own lives. Your average European doesn't learn other languages because he's high-minded, or has a more balanced picture of the world, he learns them because he's wants to talk to the people around him. I lived for a while in Bulgaria, and I had people ask me, sometimes in English, things like, "Oh... you're from America? Do you know my friend Bob Smith?"
Not only do most people in the US not need to learn other languages to talk to their neighbors, but it's often very difficult to even find a neighbor who speaks a different language, if you're inclined to learn one.
People, very practically, tend to concern themselves with things which affect them. If you live in a big, monolingual country, other languages don't affect you much. Heck, most Chinese really figure China's the center of the world... that's not egocentrism, that's provincialism.
Re:Linux rehashs 70s era OS.. wow, special.
on
A Praise To Unix
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· Score: 1
Your post is almost on the mark... with a few subtle modifications, it'll be quite true:
I think the real future of Unix
, for me, looks something like MacOS X, not Linux.
The communinity development model so far has been unable to do anything other than kludge together something as important to me of the GUI. Gnome and KDE are just the first iteration towards a useful weezel experience.
Apple, on the other hand, has taken the core of a Unix system and used a single vision/goal/thingy to synthesize something new and (to me) exciting from what are, for my purposes, two fairly stagnant OSs. Borrowing from the low level functionality of Unix and the elegant UI of MacOS they have made a real step forward for me.
Linux so far is a step sideways for me at best.
There, that's better. I'm sure we're all pleased that Apple's doing something that excites you. I, for one, am also pleased that I have a powerful, flexible, CLI-based alternative which suits my purposes, so I don't have to feel like a slave to the mouse.
That RFC was written with the executive branch in mind, not the legislative branch.
The notion that we should be guessing at authors' intentions, rather simply reading the RFC, is unworthy of a distinguished forum like Slashdot, and should be relegated to regions of low intellectual climate... like the Supreme Court.;-)
This is because the three branches of our government are coequal.
I'd be very much interested in hearing this claim justified... I frankly believe it to be untrue, either in theory or in practice.
The US Consitution neither declares them coequal nor unequal, it simply delineates the powers of each. You could perhaps argue that said powers are equal, though that would be a tough argument to make, IMHO. I certainly don't think you can argue that the folks at the constitutional convention intended us to understand that the branches should be kept equal. Most foresaw a relatively weak judicial branch; their unpleasant experience with English magistrates effectively acting as legislators was pretty fresh on everybody's mind. I would strongly argue that the legislative was intended to be most powerful... but I won't, unless anyone cares.:-)
Think of it this way, the Speaker of the House is third in line to the presidency, and has a greater Constitutional claim to his own domain than any appointee of the president.
The Speaker can lay no constitutional claim to a domain name, for the simple reason that the constitution doesn't grant him any such privilege. Nor can he lay statutory claim to a domain name, unless there's a law on the subject I don't know about. According to the conventions laid out by RFC 2146, we may regard his office as warranting an appropriately-named domain. But as tagishsimon points out, Rep. Armey is actually in violation of RFC 2146. His actions, whatever the intentions, are uncouth and show poor netizenship. We should tell him so, and hope he makes amends.
The sadest part is that new stories like this don't last in peoples mind longer.
I'm sure somebody here will brood over this, make Fred Moody dart boards, and send the guy hate mail till he dies. Actually, that's one of the things I love about slashdot... there's always some bitter old fellow waiting to remind you of stuff like this. You know the sort of post:
IBM!?! I was working tech support for an accounting company when they took over Electronic Typewriters... bastards changed the mountings on the platen knobs, wouldn't return our letters, and we wound up having to hire a guy to carve new ones! Cost us nearly $15, and then the guy got drafted... I'm telling you, never buy IBM!
I read somewhere that the USPS, in volume, does what fedex does in a year every day. Does this coincide with your facts? You seem to compare the two as equals here.
You make a fair point; it'd be a better one if you could cite a source. In any case, you can only make a comparison where competition is legal.
From the Cato article:
Between 1951 and 1974, the volume of parcels handled by the Postal Service fell over 50 percent, while the volume handled by UPS soared. Later: UPS now carries 70 percent of all parcels, and the Postal Service is losing more ground each year. A more recent article I found, and can't find just now, places this at 80%.
Of course, the majority of parcels go by ground delivery, while FedEx is an express air transport company. I don't have statistics handy, but I know they whoop the USPS in that arena... I know some people who work for FedEx, if need be I can get corroborating stats.
The USPS dominates those very large markets where there can be no competition. But maybe they'd prosper in a free market, too; only one way to find out!:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Only if you filled the whole address space with your data. If you use a finite portion of the space, you ought (one would think) to be able to find your data in a finite amount of time. And one would suppose that it would take you an infinite amount of time to write an infinite amount of data, so the seek time would be the least of your problems in that case. Or so it seems to my poorly educated mind at first blush.
On the other hand, if there are an infinite number of bits available, one would suppose the bits are in a random state before we begin to write to them. Perhaps this means that every .mp3 file on napster is already there, and you just have to find them. So perhaps the seek time is a big deal after all.
Now I just have to sit back and wait for the information theory people to set me straight... ;-)
That's not a very useful blurb... I daresay Napster's usage has quadrupled many times since its inception. Now I'm going to have to follow the link, and actually read the article. What's the world coming to?
Ah, okay... since February. Sheesh... doing my own research... thought this was a news site... ;-)
I can configure a router, and operate construction equipment safely. I'm not sure about the spleen, but I'd be willing to try if it'd speed up my connection. :-)
Let's see... got my safety razor... bottle of scotch... roll of gauze...
On the other hand, the state of security is deplorable, and crypto is employed only by the very few. Life can get a lot worse if every PC is an attack platform with a very zippy connection.
Forget the silly "make 'em earn their bandwidth" attitude. Cheap out-of-the-box firewalls, which are easy (or at least easier) to configure, and IPSec are needed.
Pooh. You underestimate how good we are at making it easy for them to waste bandwidth. They'll all be videoconferencing and filesharing movies in no time.
Because, hypothetically, the artists don't own their music any more than the RIAA does. The legal basis for copyright in the US lies in promoting the progress, not protecting property rights. If the laws are now diminishing the people's freedom without providing them with adequate compensation, there's a big problem. The RIAA, aided by outdated laws, is ripping off music listeners, just as pork barrel projects rip off taxpayers.
What's that you say, you mean information is free for people to do whatever they want to it? Not according to the GPL. The aforementioned act is ignoring intellectual property laws just as much as getting something for nothing from Napster.
Sans IP laws, we'd have much less need for the GPL. Sure, some big company could modify the software and keep the source to the changes private. Personally that wouldn't disturb me very much (nor does it disturb those developers who use the BSD license). Even if it bothered you a lot, though, you might still reasonably conclude that on the whole, we'd be better off if IP laws didn't extend to software.
Honestly, people who support Napster here should at least be honest about why they REALLY support it
Oh, please. I can't speak for everyone, but my interest in the matter is certainly not about the nickels and dimes I get to save. Most of the stuff I actually want these days is classical or baroque anyway, and you pretty well have to buy that stuff if you want anything decent. In any case, arguing the issue ad hominem is just silly... don't drag your useful arguments down with speculation about the motives of those who disagree with you.
Well, that explains it. Your hard drive isn't a digital audio recording device... the software on it is! After all, the software can't be speech, if I recall correctly, because it's got a functional component which makes it more like a machine.
But wait... that would mean Napster would be protected after all, so that's not right. Damn, it seems like if the government has its way, software won't be speech or machinery. I wonder what the heck it is. Hopefully we can find some use for it, or I'm out of a job.
I know this because they keep hassling me for my sperm. ;-)
Obviously survival comes first. Hopefully at some point you will be more secure in life, and better able to consider making a civic contribution. If you view running as a sacrifice, that's good: that's the sort of attitude public servants should have.
I don't have the time or money to run for office. I'm not even old enough to run for most serious offices.
One of my friends ran for the Montana State House at 17, and almost made it. He had all the wealth of your typical art student backing him.
Unless you have the kind of money that allows you to devote your full attention to running a campaign, you don't have much of a chance of getting elected.
Depends on where you are, I suppose. I know lots of State Rep races are uncontested here in Iowa, and the sole candidate is often a member of one of the local parties who got more or less drafted.
And these are the people who vote on things like UCITA.
I must respectfully disagree. I believe that the most important thing you can do, in a case like this, is to educate the candidates.
As leyreno points out, politicians like to know who's voting, and what they care about. As the case presently stands, most of them know little about these issues, and have no idea that some of their constituents care strongly about them.
Think about it... do you have an anti-DMCA candidate running in your district? Probably not... so simply voting won't likely do any good. Besides, if all you do is vote, the candidates don't know who you voted for or why. But if you write a few letters, or explain the issue on the phone to a staffer, the issue begins to pop up on the fellow's radar.
Some politicians, if they come to understand the issues at stake, will tend to agree on their own accord. All of them take notice when a significant number of people tell them about the issue that will decide their vote. It's different dealing with an incumbent than with a challenger, but the basic tactic is the same: bartering your promised votes for their promised votes.
For the highly motivated, there are local party platform committees. Not to mention simply running for office yourself... state legislature seats are often uncontested. Yeah, I know, not the most pleasant prospect, but somebody's got to do it.
Don't take me wrong: I think Aquinas is one of the most profound fellows in our intellectual history. Nor would I call Stallman a religious (or even irreligious) kook, save perhaps in a respectful tone.
Heck, maybe one of them's right... whatever the Truth is, it probably doesn't look much like today's common sense. Right or wrong, I think RMS is important and interesting.
And then, at some point, the intervening centuries come crashing down, with a resounding, "What the heck!?!" Did this guy really... no, I already know, he did really believe all this. He absolutely lived in this elaborate, invisible realm, which requires the most careful tread once you've made it your own.
RMS manages to evoke the same sort of response from his contemporaries; and small wonder, since his own moral realm seems absolutely personal, mostly crafted by his own hand. Suddenly, just when you least expect it, RMS feels it absolutely necessary to... forgive you.
Odd duck, but I like him. You can certainly tell why he was such a coder anyway... sitting down to the keyboard, he's just slipping from one abstraction to another.
Hello, this is Frudu Baagins, and I pronounce Elbeereth as Elbeereth.
What I'm missing here is your point. I read "they are reaping what they have sown" to mean "they brought this on themselves", or, in other words, "it's their fault". Then later I read that it's wrong that this is happening. In other words, "it's the system that's wrong". I put these together to mean "reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so they shouldn't have gotten a bad one, poor fools".
More to the point, we are reaping what they have sown. "We" being everyone whose life is influenced by computers, ultimately. Reputations shouldn't matter, but they do, so how the hell did so many people with good reputations (like the free software camp, with squeaky-clean leaders like Linus and Larry) wind up with their interests represented by 2600?
To the extent that 2600 was unfairly a victim of their own reputation, they deserve everyone's sympathy and support. But if we could untie our fortunes from theirs, it'd be a good thing.
Let's say Office does legitimize Linux in some people's minds (rather like hood ornaments legitimizing cars, but never mind that). Great. So P more people move to Linux than would have, and C more companies move to support it than would have. Now let's say Microsoft yanks Office... whom do we lose? P/X people and C/Y companies, where both X and Y > 1.
This degree of blackmail might not work on RMS types but there is a level where it is frightening.
In fact, it presumably wouldn't work on anyone who presently develops for Linux, since they already see fit to do so without Microsoft's badge of legitimacy. Maybe it'd intimidate some half-assed opportunisic newcomers; who cares? Maybe it could even work on the likes of Red Hat... that won't darken my day.
I sympathize with you; MS certainly hasn't been good to the Apple community. But we have nothing to fear. There's no central point to attack, no board of directors to intimidate, no stockholders to panic. Unless MS decides to send hit men after Linux, Alan & Co., I'd say there's not that much they can do.
In fact, nothing more annoying than receiving a word document. ;-)
Seriously, amen to that... I just send 'em back. Saving them to your home directory, either mounting a windows partition and mv-ing the .doc or ftping them from the server under windows, booting windows, if you've got it, and praying you've got the right version of Word installed is just a little too bothersome to do often.
Happily, I've never worked in a situation where people customarily mailed me .doc files, so I can afford to cop an attitude. My condolences.
Wow, we're really on opposite sides of the fence on that one... I'm a fairly rabid states' rights person.
I cannot imagine the complications that would result from different currency, languages and customs.
Actually, we had different currencies before the Constitution came along, and different customs for yet a long time after. Even, to an extent, today. And it's interesting to see just how much the US Federal Government was crafted to accomodate just such a situation. It was intended largely to standardize certain things which were causing problems, such as units of measurement and currency, as well as to prevent trade wars and punitive tarrifs on interstate commerce.
So imagine America of the late colonial period... except that English was predominant, it's just what you describe.
As it so happens, I have. Partly because I'm a bit of a sinophile, partly because my stepmother's Chinese... a metallurgical engineer, whom my father married in Wuhan. And of course you're correct... there are lots of spoken dialects, which are different enough to regard as separate languages, really. On the other hand, they have a single written language, so at least they can all write to one another.
I realized I was oversimplifying the case, just to throw something on at the end of the post, and should have known somebody would call me on it. You'd think I'd have learned by now.
Anyway, the Chinese learn other dialects so they can talk to their neighbors. They also figure China's the center of the world.
So, Mr. Skald, it seems to me that you're further proof of the failure of the American educational system.
Oh, absolutely. :-) Though for other reasons than thinking that all Chinese can understand each other's speech.
As for being the center of the world, I think they realize that's a very outdated belief
The very educated (like my stepmom and her family) do, though that fact tends not to mean much in their daily lives. Most people are happily ignorant of the rest of the world, even today... they realize it exists, and they don't care much.
(let's face it, everyone thinks they're the center of the world, not just the Chinese).
Funny thing is, China is diverse enough that many Chinese are, in a way, quite cosmopolitan... I think that serves to reinforce the illusion that China is the whole world. You could characterize folks as thinking, "Of course I don't think Guang-zhou's the center of the world... there's all the rest of China!"
Watch, now that I said that, we'll both get modded down and assulted by a pack of clowns bearing bowls of grits. ;-)
Nah. Most people throughout the world are concerned with managing the details of their own lives. Your average European doesn't learn other languages because he's high-minded, or has a more balanced picture of the world, he learns them because he's wants to talk to the people around him. I lived for a while in Bulgaria, and I had people ask me, sometimes in English, things like, "Oh... you're from America? Do you know my friend Bob Smith?"
Not only do most people in the US not need to learn other languages to talk to their neighbors, but it's often very difficult to even find a neighbor who speaks a different language, if you're inclined to learn one.
People, very practically, tend to concern themselves with things which affect them. If you live in a big, monolingual country, other languages don't affect you much. Heck, most Chinese really figure China's the center of the world... that's not egocentrism, that's provincialism.
There, that's better. I'm sure we're all pleased that Apple's doing something that excites you. I, for one, am also pleased that I have a powerful, flexible, CLI-based alternative which suits my purposes, so I don't have to feel like a slave to the mouse.
I beg your pardon... Nethack has looked great on Linux for years!
The notion that we should be guessing at authors' intentions, rather simply reading the RFC, is unworthy of a distinguished forum like Slashdot, and should be relegated to regions of low intellectual climate... like the Supreme Court. ;-)
This is because the three branches of our government are coequal.
I'd be very much interested in hearing this claim justified... I frankly believe it to be untrue, either in theory or in practice.
The US Consitution neither declares them coequal nor unequal, it simply delineates the powers of each. You could perhaps argue that said powers are equal, though that would be a tough argument to make, IMHO. I certainly don't think you can argue that the folks at the constitutional convention intended us to understand that the branches should be kept equal. Most foresaw a relatively weak judicial branch; their unpleasant experience with English magistrates effectively acting as legislators was pretty fresh on everybody's mind. I would strongly argue that the legislative was intended to be most powerful... but I won't, unless anyone cares. :-)
Think of it this way, the Speaker of the House is third in line to the presidency, and has a greater Constitutional claim to his own domain than any appointee of the president.
The Speaker can lay no constitutional claim to a domain name, for the simple reason that the constitution doesn't grant him any such privilege. Nor can he lay statutory claim to a domain name, unless there's a law on the subject I don't know about. According to the conventions laid out by RFC 2146, we may regard his office as warranting an appropriately-named domain. But as tagishsimon points out, Rep. Armey is actually in violation of RFC 2146. His actions, whatever the intentions, are uncouth and show poor netizenship. We should tell him so, and hope he makes amends.
I'm sure somebody here will brood over this, make Fred Moody dart boards, and send the guy hate mail till he dies. Actually, that's one of the things I love about slashdot... there's always some bitter old fellow waiting to remind you of stuff like this. You know the sort of post:
IBM!?! I was working tech support for an accounting company when they took over Electronic Typewriters... bastards changed the mountings on the platen knobs, wouldn't return our letters, and we wound up having to hire a guy to carve new ones! Cost us nearly $15, and then the guy got drafted... I'm telling you, never buy IBM!
You make a fair point; it'd be a better one if you could cite a source. In any case, you can only make a comparison where competition is legal.
From the Cato article:
Between 1951 and 1974, the volume of parcels handled by the Postal Service fell over 50 percent, while the volume handled by UPS soared. Later: UPS now carries 70 percent of all parcels, and the Postal Service is losing more ground each year. A more recent article I found, and can't find just now, places this at 80%.
Of course, the majority of parcels go by ground delivery, while FedEx is an express air transport company. I don't have statistics handy, but I know they whoop the USPS in that arena... I know some people who work for FedEx, if need be I can get corroborating stats.
The USPS dominates those very large markets where there can be no competition. But maybe they'd prosper in a free market, too; only one way to find out! :-)