Sadly, the mad hordes of slashdot are not the force they once were - the only sites that get/.'ed these days are people hosting stuff off their home computers.
Seriously? You are trying to compare a city of 500,000 with a city of 8.5million? Well, still it fails. Yes, the situation in America really is that bad.
Murders rates for the most recent year I could find. Atlanta: 129 [1] London: 130 [2]
Yes, that's right, a city with 17 times the population has the same number of murders in a year. That's 17 times lower murder per capita.
And the rates for murder are highest in London, they are practically zero elsewhere in the country. It's the same in any other civilised nation where the gun lobby doesn't have control of the legislature and gun laws are actually somewhat sensible.
Was a great visual spectacle, however a terrible film story-wise and not really worth 2h40 mins of my time.
It reminds me of when IMAX first arrived - they would show 40min visual spectacles with no story, just to show off the technology. Avatar should have been one of those rather than attempting to pad it out.
On the other hand, I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes. I thought Downey was excellent and it reflected the spirit of Conan Doyle's books far better than the old man Holmes ever did. I'm not really sure why the critics (and the summary) seem to be enjoying bashing it so much. While it may never have had a chance of beating Avatar in the box office it is still the more worthwhile film in my opinion.
It is very likely that the top two (not inflation-adjusted) box office films of all time will be James Cameron's films now... sad stuff
"Ahead of it are Titanic ($1.8bn; £1.1bn), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.12bn; £695m) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.07bn; £664m).
The huge box office takings are partly down to the higher cost of tickets for 3D performances" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8438824.stm]
and Avatar has the next few months with no major releases to keep raking in the money. My cinema was charging double the "normal" ticket price for the IMAX 3D showings.
I'd be interested to compare based on actual viewer numbers rather than box office takings.
This is nonsense. You could get glasses for free on the NHS until 1984, when the Tory government abolished them. If Labour had been in power, this wouldn't have happened.
Repeat for 1000s of other policy decisions.
Somehow I think given the squeeze on the NHS budget because of population growth and massive increase in costs fighting cancer and heart disease, free glasses from the NHS were never going to last into the 21st century.
The UK political system is shockingly stagnant and it's always been a choice between career politicians who would never have the guts to truly improve society. The US is hardly any better, only with the so-called "middle ground" political viewpoint shifted even further to the right. For example, it is truly sad to see Obama's genuine effort to do something important with healthcare reform being torn down by his own party.
*Waits for someone to say that Labour would have cured cancer*
For those too lame to Google the words they don't understand in TFA.
Bruce Perens is a prominent open-source programmer and advocate. He co-founded the OSI with Eric S. Raymond and wrote the first Open Source Definition that became the first DFSG.
BusyBox is a collection of userland tools to go with the Linux kernel, similar to the GNU utilities except optimised for use in embedded systems. They are the base of most complex embedded software on devices worldwide.
Because BusyBox is so widely used but not well-known, companies generally through ignorance fail to comply with GPL guidelines stating that they must provide the source to any binaries they ship on their devices.
The SFLC is the Software Freedom Law Centre and they represent free software interests in legal matters. In this case they are suing various embedded device manufacturers who sell BusyBox-based devices and are continuing to violate the GPL by not providing the source even when warned.
Bruce Perens was the original writer of BusyBox many many years ago. However the SFLC has not included him in this lawsuit. He is no longer involved in BusyBox and the current authors say that every line that Bruce contributed to BusyBox has now been replaced by newer code; but he argues that because some of the code in the offending devices is actually based off older BusyBox code, he should actually be represented in the lawsuit.
This little disagreement looks like he's just wanting a share of any monetary damages awarded - or at least his name in the news. Bruce certainly doesn't have any grounds to stop the lawsuit anyway, and he approves of protecting the GPL.
I don't think Bruce wants to stop the lawsuit, he justs wants to get a piece of the pie.
Basically his name isn't in the lawsuit and he's complaining that he was once a BusyBox author, why didn't the SFLC didn't offer to represent him too.
I'm not really sure what he hopes to gain unless he wants a piece of any monetary damages awarded... ?
This is *EXACTLY* what people need to hear, I couldn't agree more.
Theories can be simplified down for "public understanding", but you lose information by doing so. It is good PR but not ultimately convincing to skeptics because of all the details that have been left out. They then dismiss science as preaching from above.
If everyone could understand all of modern science, what's so special about scientists? Saying that though, all specialized fields of study encounter this issue, the average art critic moans about the lack of public appreciation of art, but if everyone appreciated art we wouldn't need art critics:)
Either you're an excellent troll or you really have no idea of how scientific journals work. Every faction, in all the sciences, have their own journal. As a scientist, your goal is to get published - so you submit to the journal with the editors that are most likely to approve your article. You then become associated closely with that journal and then become invited to peer-review other articles for inclusion in that same journal. Inevitably that means that the cycle continues and journals develop a reputation for a certain point of view on specific issues, similar to newspapers developing a certain political affiliation. The peer-review process is not perfect, but like democracy, its the best system we've got.
"Climate debate aside, we need to invent news ways to do review of papers and grants that is not totally dependent on self-policing of scientists. Any suggestions?"
Aside from your gross generalization of "scientists" as a class of people, who else could you possibly suggest to understand and evaluate SCIENTIFIC proposals and SCIENTIFIC papers besides SCIENTISTS?
In any case, in the specific case of climate science, it is true that "skeptic" papers very rarely get published in respected scientific journals. This is not, however, due to some vast conspiracy where "some rejected should not have been" - it is because the science is truly bad in most of these papers. Besides, being published in a journal does not make it the truth - if someone truly believes in their research they are free to disseminate it in other ways, especially in "the internet age".
As for the famous quote "even if I have to redefine what peer-review literature is" - just because he is a scientist doesn't mean everything he writes has to be taken literally. He is annoyed, privately I might add, at people pushing what he views as bad science and is simply voicing his opinion. There is no evidence that any papers were actually excluded, and there are a few decent "skeptic" papers cited in the IPCC report referenced in the emails. There is no censorship going on.
There is far more money available on the "denialist" side - than from publicly funded climate research, especially in today's economic climate when governments are trillions in debt and the public opinion of science in general is a confused mess.
If someone is truly smart enough to crack your system and steal your bank account info
- when you are a fairly intelligent tech-savvy guy who uses SSL and won't just click the first open wifi network that pops up like 90% of the population would -
what the heck are they doing in the jungles of South America where maybe 5 students with negative bank balances pass through every year?
"The same issues and risks that business travelers in hotels and airports face, as well as those encountered by millions of other backpackers, gap-year travelers, and students". Do you honestly think 99% of them have a clue? And yet 99% of them make it home perfectly fine. As someone with an above-average IT security knowledge, you will be fine.
Seriously, while I don't advocate writing your bank details in 10-foot high letters of fire on Macchu Picchu, the chances of anything happening are infinitesmal.
By the way, South America is awesome to backpack through. And not being tethered to the Interwebs is a good thing.
From what I see rev4 is certainly not functional programming.
Functional programming is approaching programming from a mathematical point of view. Certain problems - especially ones that can be isolated to a mathematical definition - are much easier to solve using functional programming rather than imperative programming. Other problems - especially when interfaces to the user and other programs are needed - become a lot harder.
So I'd be interested to hear what functional programming language is claiming a 90% reduction in code in all cases...
Slashdot Mirror
I'd settle for the Repli-Carter version ...
*whoooosh*
/.'ed these days are people hosting stuff off their home computers.
Sadly, the mad hordes of slashdot are not the force they once were - the only sites that get
So this guy shot Chuck Norris in the face with a shotgun, and then he ended up in prison, because murder is illegal.
I'm cracking up over this one. Please, please, noone fix it.
you're talking about things you don't know. Stop.
This is slashdot ... fat chance
Seriously? You are trying to compare a city of 500,000 with a city of 8.5million? Well, still it fails. Yes, the situation in America really is that bad.
Murders rates for the most recent year I could find.
Atlanta: 129
[1]
London: 130
[2]
Yes, that's right, a city with 17 times the population has the same number of murders in a year. That's 17 times lower murder per capita. And the rates for murder are highest in London, they are practically zero elsewhere in the country. It's the same in any other civilised nation where the gun lobby doesn't have control of the legislature and gun laws are actually somewhat sensible.
Beware, thar be GERMS aboot
As TFA says, "Lawasky made sure to note that there has been only one recorded outbreak linked to soda fountains, and that was 10 years ago."
News at 11
Was a great visual spectacle, however a terrible film story-wise and not really worth 2h40 mins of my time.
... sad stuff
It reminds me of when IMAX first arrived - they would show 40min visual spectacles with no story, just to show off the technology. Avatar should have been one of those rather than attempting to pad it out.
On the other hand, I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes. I thought Downey was excellent and it reflected the spirit of Conan Doyle's books far better than the old man Holmes ever did. I'm not really sure why the critics (and the summary) seem to be enjoying bashing it so much. While it may never have had a chance of beating Avatar in the box office it is still the more worthwhile film in my opinion.
It is very likely that the top two (not inflation-adjusted) box office films of all time will be James Cameron's films now
"Ahead of it are Titanic ($1.8bn; £1.1bn), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.12bn; £695m) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.07bn; £664m). The huge box office takings are partly down to the higher cost of tickets for 3D performances" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8438824.stm]
and Avatar has the next few months with no major releases to keep raking in the money. My cinema was charging double the "normal" ticket price for the IMAX 3D showings. I'd be interested to compare based on actual viewer numbers rather than box office takings.
I bought a LaCie 1 gig drive with an ethernet connection a few years ago. Dunno the file system, prolly Linux with Samba. Just plug it into network.
Everything connects to it including the last DOS 3.1 box needed for a legacy database.
And it was only $200. You want mirroring? Buy a second and copy over the first with a batch file whenever you get nervous.
$200 for 1 gig?
Well, I guess DOS 3.1 can't handle much more ... still I get the feeling you were slightly ripped off.
This is nonsense. You could get glasses for free on the NHS until 1984, when the Tory government abolished them. If Labour had been in power, this wouldn't have happened.
Repeat for 1000s of other policy decisions.
Somehow I think given the squeeze on the NHS budget because of population growth and massive increase in costs fighting cancer and heart disease, free glasses from the NHS were never going to last into the 21st century.
The UK political system is shockingly stagnant and it's always been a choice between career politicians who would never have the guts to truly improve society. The US is hardly any better, only with the so-called "middle ground" political viewpoint shifted even further to the right. For example, it is truly sad to see Obama's genuine effort to do something important with healthcare reform being torn down by his own party.
*Waits for someone to say that Labour would have cured cancer*
That sounds more like digg.
Everyone on digg knows that Ubuntu is the only Linux distro in existence.
Finally, a case where the DMCA and anti-piracy laws COULD actually improve national security!
Of course, trying to serve terrorists with DMCA DRM circumvention notices could be even more pointless than sending them to The Pirate Bay...
For those too lame to Google the words they don't understand in TFA.
Bruce Perens is a prominent open-source programmer and advocate. He co-founded the OSI with Eric S. Raymond and wrote the first Open Source Definition that became the first DFSG.
BusyBox is a collection of userland tools to go with the Linux kernel, similar to the GNU utilities except optimised for use in embedded systems. They are the base of most complex embedded software on devices worldwide.
Because BusyBox is so widely used but not well-known, companies generally through ignorance fail to comply with GPL guidelines stating that they must provide the source to any binaries they ship on their devices.
The SFLC is the Software Freedom Law Centre and they represent free software interests in legal matters. In this case they are suing various embedded device manufacturers who sell BusyBox-based devices and are continuing to violate the GPL by not providing the source even when warned.
Bruce Perens was the original writer of BusyBox many many years ago. However the SFLC has not included him in this lawsuit. He is no longer involved in BusyBox and the current authors say that every line that Bruce contributed to BusyBox has now been replaced by newer code; but he argues that because some of the code in the offending devices is actually based off older BusyBox code, he should actually be represented in the lawsuit.
This little disagreement looks like he's just wanting a share of any monetary damages awarded - or at least his name in the news. Bruce certainly doesn't have any grounds to stop the lawsuit anyway, and he approves of protecting the GPL.
I don't think Bruce wants to stop the lawsuit, he justs wants to get a piece of the pie. ... ?
Basically his name isn't in the lawsuit and he's complaining that he was once a BusyBox author, why didn't the SFLC didn't offer to represent him too.
I'm not really sure what he hopes to gain unless he wants a piece of any monetary damages awarded
This is *EXACTLY* what people need to hear, I couldn't agree more.
:)
Theories can be simplified down for "public understanding", but you lose information by doing so. It is good PR but not ultimately convincing to skeptics because of all the details that have been left out. They then dismiss science as preaching from above.
If everyone could understand all of modern science, what's so special about scientists?
Saying that though, all specialized fields of study encounter this issue, the average art critic moans about the lack of public appreciation of art, but if everyone appreciated art we wouldn't need art critics
Either you're an excellent troll or you really have no idea of how scientific journals work.
Every faction, in all the sciences, have their own journal. As a scientist, your goal is to get published - so you submit to the journal with the editors that are most likely to approve your article. You then become associated closely with that journal and then become invited to peer-review other articles for inclusion in that same journal.
Inevitably that means that the cycle continues and journals develop a reputation for a certain point of view on specific issues, similar to newspapers developing a certain political affiliation.
The peer-review process is not perfect, but like democracy, its the best system we've got.
"Climate debate aside, we need to invent news ways to do review of papers and grants that is not totally dependent on self-policing of scientists. Any suggestions?"
Aside from your gross generalization of "scientists" as a class of people, who else could you possibly suggest to understand and evaluate SCIENTIFIC proposals and SCIENTIFIC papers besides SCIENTISTS?
In any case, in the specific case of climate science, it is true that "skeptic" papers very rarely get published in respected scientific journals. This is not, however, due to some vast conspiracy where "some rejected should not have been" - it is because the science is truly bad in most of these papers.
Besides, being published in a journal does not make it the truth - if someone truly believes in their research they are free to disseminate it in other ways, especially in "the internet age".
As for the famous quote "even if I have to redefine what peer-review literature is" - just because he is a scientist doesn't mean everything he writes has to be taken literally. He is annoyed, privately I might add, at people pushing what he views as bad science and is simply voicing his opinion. There is no evidence that any papers were actually excluded, and there are a few decent "skeptic" papers cited in the IPCC report referenced in the emails. There is no censorship going on.
There is far more money available on the "denialist" side - than from publicly funded climate research, especially in today's economic climate when governments are trillions in debt and the public opinion of science in general is a confused mess.
If someone is truly smart enough to crack your system and steal your bank account info - when you are a fairly intelligent tech-savvy guy who uses SSL and won't just click the first open wifi network that pops up like 90% of the population would - what the heck are they doing in the jungles of South America where maybe 5 students with negative bank balances pass through every year? "The same issues and risks that business travelers in hotels and airports face, as well as those encountered by millions of other backpackers, gap-year travelers, and students". Do you honestly think 99% of them have a clue? And yet 99% of them make it home perfectly fine. As someone with an above-average IT security knowledge, you will be fine. Seriously, while I don't advocate writing your bank details in 10-foot high letters of fire on Macchu Picchu, the chances of anything happening are infinitesmal. By the way, South America is awesome to backpack through. And not being tethered to the Interwebs is a good thing.
From what I see rev4 is certainly not functional programming. Functional programming is approaching programming from a mathematical point of view. Certain problems - especially ones that can be isolated to a mathematical definition - are much easier to solve using functional programming rather than imperative programming. Other problems - especially when interfaces to the user and other programs are needed - become a lot harder. So I'd be interested to hear what functional programming language is claiming a 90% reduction in code in all cases ...