Of course a Soviet killing machine designed in the late 70s to kill Jimmy Carter seems ridiculously dated today. That was the joke! Duh!
If you want to use September 11th as an excuse for not having a sense of humor, that is your problem. Don't watch a show about super-heroes, and then complain about it depicting evil masterminds. What did you expect the super-heros to do, play with fluffy bunnies for half an hour?
We, the members of th FZWCC, have deemed your filthy lies to be a grave insult to the memory of our Glorious Leader, Frank Zappa. Enjoy your "freedom of speech" while you can, for once we achieve our goal of conquoring the earth in the name of Frank Zappa, sniveling worms such as you will writhe beneath our merciless boot-heels for spouting such insolence.
Where did anyone get the idea that typing a 20 character key is "good" copy protection? If a software pirate can copy an entire CD, surely they can copy a 20 character key to go with it! Keys serve no purpose, but inconvenience the user.
Re:Fundamentalism vs. moral relativism
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
I don't think people in the middle east hate us because of our open, tolerant culture. They hate us for supporting regimes in the middle east that are anything but open and tolerant, and the fact that most average Americans are so utterly ignorant of the atrocities committed with American money and American guns that we actually think people hate us for being "open" and "tolerant".
We do indeed have an open, tolerant culture, but only within our own borders. The kind of tolerance we display in the Middle East is usually delivered via cruise missile.
After reading the last article about this subject, I tried to upgrade the heat sink on my Athelon system, but I no matter how I tried I couldn't get the old heat sink off the motherboard. Those things hold on tight! The only way I can imagine them falling off is if they were installed improperly in the first place. I decided to leave it alone, and it has been working fine.
Yeah, they both mention the same actors, the same plot, and the same scenes... one might almost suspect that they were both reviewing the same movie, or something!
Why do so many people assume that just because something is old, it must be obsolete? Characterizing Quake III arena as "old" epitomizes this attitude almost to the point of self-parody. If you think that is old, you may be shocked to learn that some people still play DOOM. I like to play Fallout 2, which does not even have a first-person-perspective 3D game engine. Some people even play games that date back to the dark ages before computers were invented: games with eldrich names like "Poker" and "baseball". Oh, the horror!
The point should not be how new a game is, or how technologically advance it is: the point should be how much FUN it is. I feel sorry for anyone who loses track of this basic truth.
Proprietary does not "always" win. Proprietary interfaces only win for as long as companies can fool consumers into lusting after new features. Sooner or later, the consumers will start saying "gee, all of these cards have way more features than I need, I guess I'll just get the cheap one." That is when the companies will have to stop competing on the basis of features, and start competing on the basis of price.
I don't know how many times I've seen %.*s used in a sprintf, only to discover that the maximum length provided for the string was determined by doing a strlen of the string. Arrgh! Bad programmers always find a way to write bad code.
Anyone who thinks that Nazis were inhuman monsters and that nobody like them could ever possibly take over a "good" country like America have completely failed to comprehend the true, horrible lesson we should learn from World War II. The vast majority of people in Germany in 1933 were perfectly ordinary people who just happened to be carried into hell in a hand basket by a few ruthless, power-hungry opportunists. They may have been monsters, but they were all too human.
Assuming that nobody would ever try to lead America down the path that ends in dictatorship is just as foolish as assuming that nobody would ever try to fly a jumbo jet into a major US landmark. Ignoring the fact that such horrible things are even possible just makes their successful execution all the more likely.
A lot of people say that the American people need courage to stand up against terrorism: but it really does not take any courage to say what everyone else is saying, or do what everyone else is doing. What really takes courage is standing out from the crowd, and expressing doubt in our leaders while everyone else is singing hymns and waving flags. If our foreign policy was not so misguided and our President not so inept at carrying it out, would we even have had such a terrible attack in the first place? Now that it is too late to prevent the tragedy, is bombing the only possible response to being bombed?
The true cowards are the people who recognize that our country is on the brink of making some bad decisions that will haunt us for decades to come, but go along with the war-mongering majority because they do not have the courage to voice their true opinions. If it were not for the support of such spineless people, how much of a majority would the warmongers really have?
I have a co-worker who's always stressed out. He constantly complains about his job and claims that he wishes someone would fire him, but then he comes in and works on weekends. He makes me sick. I only work normal business hours, and never take my work home with me. Even when I am at work, I don't stress too hard over it. I find time to take a break now and then, and do things like post to slashdot. And yet, I probably get about as much actual, useful work done as my co-worker does. That is because I can approach my problems with a relaxed mind, and take the time to find the correct solution. Knowledge workers who are in a hurry make mistakes, which end up taking more time to fix than doing it right in the first place. Besides, life is too short to spend all of your time working anyway. What is the point of slaving away in hope of earning lots of money, if you die of a heart attack before you have a chance to spend it?
No. Free will is the opposite of predictability, not the opposite of randomness. Your point basically says that in a Newtonian universe all systems are deterministic: reconstruct the initial state and you can generate exactly the same behavior. Unfortunately, it turned out that neither universe nor humans behave in this way. Randomness is a very important component and is part of free will.
What do you mean, "it turned out"? Nobody has ever actually performed this experiment, or anything even remotely like it. We don't have the ability to selectively erase memory, to start with. You imply scientific support for your opinions, when no such support exists.
The basic problem with free will (or absence of it) is accountability. Essentially, if there is no free will, then humans cannot be held accountable for their behavior (with all the nasty concepts for the concepts of justice, effort, etc.) Let's say that there is no free will because what you are determines (always! 100%!) what you do. Well, even leaving aside the question of why you are what you are (and who made you this way -- God?) there is still no accountability.
The actual structure of the universe is not dictated by human concepts of morality or "accountability": you cannot argue that free will must exist because you find the alternative disturbing. Besides, what could be more accountable than deterministic behavior? If I could accuse you of not only simply killing someone, but of being the sort of person who would ALWAYS kill someone under the right circumstances, that strikes me as all the more reason to put you in an electric chair.
"Your appeal is denied. I am goind to punish you for murder, because that is what I do. I can't help it, It's just my nature..." BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZORCH!
Arrogant, superior, patronising, condescending, elitist, closed-minded, etc etc etc. ad nauseum.
Who are you saying acts arrogant, superior, patronizing, etc? After reading a few of your posts, I am amazed at how well the description fits you. You whine and moan about how Linux only appeals to the sort of nerds who wrote the operating system in the first place, as if WE should care that this interferes with your ability to make oodles of money repackaging a product you did not help to create. That is the height of arrogance.
As for narrowness, all you can think about is marketing. We have already seen what happens to an operating system when marketing is more important than technical issues: that is how we got the travesty known as windows. Well, we techies are sick of it. We are kicking you out of the drivers seat, and taking our rightful place behind the wheel. So don't complain if we have a different set of priorities than you do: that's the point. If you want "business as usual", go back to Windows.
The lesson is clear. Despite what Linux bigots would have you believe, "ordinary users" are not made welcome in their so-called community. This is not a generalization to all Linux users, just a certain vocal and irritating minority.
We do not make all ordinary users feel unwelcome, just a certian vocal and irritating minority... people like you, for instance.
It is only realistic to assume that people who are not involved or affected by an issue will not get too exited about it. I never used to boycott Coke because of their involvement in South America, so I know exactly how it feels to not care. The average joe on the street is not as interested in the outcome of this trial as nerds like us: I am sure they would say this is because they "have a life".
The correct way of interpereting this Microsoft-sponsored survey is that "most people who aren't paying much attention don't see what the big deal is." That is a true statement, but it says more about people and opinions than it does about Microsoft.
Nicola Tesla, who invented the polyphase system of alternating current we all depend on today, used to create balls of lightning to amuse dinner guests like Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain). The trick to creating them may be buried somewhere in his notes, but last I heard they were classified as secret by the US government apon his death.
I have little sympathy for people who set their browsers to accept all cookies, think nothing of entering personal information at every web form that asks for it, and then turn around and bemoan the horrible companies that have "stolen" their privacy. What do they expect will happen? You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realize that if you enter personal information into a web browser, someone might keep track of it. It is time for these people to stop whining and take responsibility for their own actions. If you don't want a company to know who you are, DON'T TELL THEM. -Eugene
Only the sole copyright owner of a project is allowed to release a product under multiple licenses. As soon as you start accepting improvements from the free software community, you have to worry about who ownes the changes. If someone gives you an improvement under the GPL, you are only a licensee of the improvement, and thus you cannot redistribute it under your own terms. You need to get OWNERSHIP of the contribution if you want to keep using a dual-licensing scheme, and far less developers are likely to go along with it. I have been in such a situation, and I in fact refused to contribute.
Someone who likes to stir up trouble for no good reason is a "Troll". Someone who watches for months on end without saying anything is a "lurker". You can be one, or the other, or both, or neither.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course a Soviet killing machine designed in the late 70s to kill Jimmy Carter seems ridiculously dated today. That was the joke! Duh!
If you want to use September 11th as an excuse for not having a sense of humor, that is your problem. Don't watch a show about super-heroes, and then complain about it depicting evil masterminds. What did you expect the super-heros to do, play with fluffy bunnies for half an hour?
We, the members of th FZWCC, have deemed your filthy lies to be a grave insult to the memory of our Glorious Leader, Frank Zappa. Enjoy your "freedom of speech" while you can, for once we achieve our goal of conquoring the earth in the name of Frank Zappa, sniveling worms such as you will writhe beneath our merciless boot-heels for spouting such insolence.
All Hail Frank Zappa! All Hail! All Hail!
Where did anyone get the idea that typing a 20 character key is "good" copy protection? If a software pirate can copy an entire CD, surely they can copy a 20 character key to go with it! Keys serve no purpose, but inconvenience the user.
I don't think people in the middle east hate us because of our open, tolerant culture. They hate us for supporting regimes in the middle east that are anything but open and tolerant, and the fact that most average Americans are so utterly ignorant of the atrocities committed with American money and American guns that we actually think people hate us for being "open" and "tolerant".
We do indeed have an open, tolerant culture, but only within our own borders. The kind of tolerance we display in the Middle East is usually delivered via cruise missile.
Would Hitler have ever gained the support of the German people if they had not been so embittered by the terms of the Versalles treaty?
If you treat any group of people like sub-human monsters, sooner or later they will live up to your expectations.
After reading the last article about this subject, I tried to upgrade the heat sink on my Athelon system, but I no matter how I tried I couldn't get the old heat sink off the motherboard. Those things hold on tight! The only way I can imagine them falling off is if they were installed improperly in the first place. I decided to leave it alone, and it has been working fine.
I think it is exactly the sort of news slashdot is known for, but I do agree that it isn't news.
Not that I ever used it before, mind you...
But it's the principle that counts!
Yeah, they both mention the same actors, the same plot, and the same scenes... one might almost suspect that they were both reviewing the same movie, or something!
Why do so many people assume that just because something is old, it must be obsolete? Characterizing Quake III arena as "old" epitomizes this attitude almost to the point of self-parody. If you think that is old, you may be shocked to learn that some people still play DOOM. I like to play Fallout 2, which does not even have a first-person-perspective 3D game engine. Some people even play games that date back to the dark ages before computers were invented: games with eldrich names like "Poker" and "baseball". Oh, the horror!
The point should not be how new a game is, or how technologically advance it is: the point should be how much FUN it is. I feel sorry for anyone who loses track of this basic truth.
Proprietary does not "always" win. Proprietary interfaces only win for as long as companies can fool consumers into lusting after new features. Sooner or later, the consumers will start saying "gee, all of these cards have way more features than I need, I guess I'll just get the cheap one." That is when the companies will have to stop competing on the basis of features, and start competing on the basis of price.
I don't know how many times I've seen %.*s used in a sprintf, only to discover that the maximum length provided for the string was determined by doing a strlen of the string. Arrgh! Bad programmers always find a way to write bad code.
Anyone who thinks that Nazis were inhuman monsters and that nobody like them could ever possibly take over a "good" country like America have completely failed to comprehend the true, horrible lesson we should learn from World War II. The vast majority of people in Germany in 1933 were perfectly ordinary people who just happened to be carried into hell in a hand basket by a few ruthless, power-hungry opportunists. They may have been monsters, but they were all too human.
Assuming that nobody would ever try to lead America down the path that ends in dictatorship is just as foolish as assuming that nobody would ever try to fly a jumbo jet into a major US landmark. Ignoring the fact that such horrible things are even possible just makes their successful execution all the more likely.
A lot of people say that the American people need courage to stand up against terrorism: but it really does not take any courage to say what everyone else is saying, or do what everyone else is doing. What really takes courage is standing out from the crowd, and expressing doubt in our leaders while everyone else is singing hymns and waving flags. If our foreign policy was not so misguided and our President not so inept at carrying it out, would we even have had such a terrible attack in the first place? Now that it is too late to prevent the tragedy, is bombing the only possible response to being bombed?
The true cowards are the people who recognize that our country is on the brink of making some bad decisions that will haunt us for decades to come, but go along with the war-mongering majority because they do not have the courage to voice their true opinions. If it were not for the support of such spineless people, how much of a majority would the warmongers really have?
I have a co-worker who's always stressed out. He constantly complains about his job and claims that he wishes someone would fire him, but then he comes in and works on weekends. He makes me sick. I only work normal business hours, and never take my work home with me. Even when I am at work, I don't stress too hard over it. I find time to take a break now and then, and do things like post to slashdot. And yet, I probably get about as much actual, useful work done as my co-worker does. That is because I can approach my problems with a relaxed mind, and take the time to find the correct solution. Knowledge workers who are in a hurry make mistakes, which end up taking more time to fix than doing it right in the first place. Besides, life is too short to spend all of your time working anyway. What is the point of slaving away in hope of earning lots of money, if you die of a heart attack before you have a chance to spend it?
What do you mean, "it turned out"? Nobody has ever actually performed this experiment, or anything even remotely like it. We don't have the ability to selectively erase memory, to start with. You imply scientific support for your opinions, when no such support exists.
The basic problem with free will (or absence of it) is accountability. Essentially, if there is no free will, then humans cannot be held accountable for their behavior (with all the nasty concepts for the concepts of justice, effort, etc.) Let's say that there is no free will because what you are determines (always! 100%!) what you do. Well, even leaving aside the question of why you are what you are (and who made you this way -- God?) there is still no accountability.
The actual structure of the universe is not dictated by human concepts of morality or "accountability": you cannot argue that free will must exist because you find the alternative disturbing. Besides, what could be more accountable than deterministic behavior? If I could accuse you of not only simply killing someone, but of being the sort of person who would ALWAYS kill someone under the right circumstances, that strikes me as all the more reason to put you in an electric chair.
"Your appeal is denied. I am goind to punish you for murder, because that is what I do. I can't help it, It's just my nature..." BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZORCH!
Arrogant, superior, patronising, condescending, elitist, closed-minded, etc etc etc. ad nauseum.
Who are you saying acts arrogant, superior, patronizing, etc? After reading a few of your posts, I am amazed at how well the description fits you. You whine and moan about how Linux only appeals to the sort of nerds who wrote the operating system in the first place, as if WE should care that this interferes with your ability to make oodles of money repackaging a product you did not help to create. That is the height of arrogance.
As for narrowness, all you can think about is marketing. We have already seen what happens to an operating system when marketing is more important than technical issues: that is how we got the travesty known as windows. Well, we techies are sick of it. We are kicking you out of the drivers seat, and taking our rightful place behind the wheel. So don't complain if we have a different set of priorities than you do: that's the point. If you want "business as usual", go back to Windows.
The lesson is clear. Despite what Linux bigots would have you believe, "ordinary users" are not made welcome in their so-called community. This is not a generalization to all Linux users, just a certain vocal and irritating minority.
We do not make all ordinary users feel unwelcome, just a certian vocal and irritating minority... people like you, for instance.
The correct way of interpereting this Microsoft-sponsored survey is that "most people who aren't paying much attention don't see what the big deal is." That is a true statement, but it says more about people and opinions than it does about Microsoft.
-Eugene
Nicola Tesla, who invented the polyphase system of alternating current we all depend on today, used to create balls of lightning to amuse dinner guests like Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain). The trick to creating them may be buried somewhere in his notes, but last I heard they were classified as secret by the US government apon his death.
I have little sympathy for people who set their browsers to accept all cookies, think nothing of entering personal information at every web form that asks for it, and then turn around and bemoan the horrible companies that have "stolen" their privacy. What do they expect will happen? You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realize that if you enter personal information into a web browser, someone might keep track of it. It is time for these people to stop whining and take responsibility for their own actions. If you don't want a company to know who you are, DON'T TELL THEM. -Eugene
Only the sole copyright owner of a project is allowed to release a product under multiple licenses. As soon as you start accepting improvements from the free software community, you have to worry about who ownes the changes. If someone gives you an improvement under the GPL, you are only a licensee of the improvement, and thus you cannot redistribute it under your own terms. You need to get OWNERSHIP of the contribution if you want to keep using a dual-licensing scheme, and far less developers are likely to go along with it. I have been in such a situation, and I in fact refused to contribute.
Someone who likes to stir up trouble for no good reason is a "Troll". Someone who watches for months on end without saying anything is a "lurker". You can be one, or the other, or both, or neither.