Having lived in Korea for 2 years, perhaps I may not really know how they treat other races. But they treated me just fine.
You seem deeply confused. Referring to a person's race is not an insult. I'm quite certain that people in Korea probably referred to you as "white" (or whatever the term for your particular skin tone happens to be). I'm also certain that, as you say, you were treated "just fine." How does acknowledgement of a person's race equate to bad treatment?
Let's follow your muddled logic to its conclusion. An individual named Mbutu moves to your home town. From his name, it is quite clear that he is a black African. But according to you, we are not supposed to acknowledge race because it is some type of insult. Hence, you must not refer to this person by his name, since it would be a clear acknowledgement of his race. Essentially you are telling this person that his own name is an insult to him. You are telling him that his blackness should not be acknowledged. That his race makes you so uncomfortable that you cringe to even mention it.
At this point I'm about 80% sure that you are white, because only whites, in my experience, have such a neurotic view of race.
But again, WHY bring it up if it has nothing to do with anything?
Because people form mental images. Someone refers to "a developer." Immediately, I think of a white male geek, probably overweight, in his twenties. Why? Because in my experience, that's what developers tend to look like.
Is the mental image important or relevant? Maybe not. Do I have willful control over whether my mind conjures such an image? Certainly not. But at least I now have a somewhat accurate mental image.
Are you saying that you are willing to dish out $$ for an MS product, but not for some other company's product?
You forget, this is Slashdot. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday we're capitalists. On Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday we're communists. And on Mondays we waffle.
If you feel that even the mere mention of a person's race is automatically a subtle indication of racism, you either are really stuck in the tar pit of political correctness, or you have some deep insecurities yourself about the race issue.
Your nickname is "Saeed al-Sahaf." Is that a true reflection of your racial origins? If not, can you explain why your handle is not a racist reference, but the mention of a Korean's race is racist? I doubt you can.
Sorry, we're not going to tip-toe around on your racial eggshell playing field. Guess what? People have different colors of skin, come from different places, and speak different languages. How are we supposed to rejoice in our diversity if the mere mention of it is taboo?
the match had a multimillion-dollar purse. fischer walked off with several million dollars from the win. that's why it was considered a violation of the "economic" boycott instituted by the US at the time.
Let me get this straight, then. The US wanted to sanction Yugoslavia to put the pressure on. So Bobby Fischer comes into the country and walks out with several million dollars worth of Yugoslav wealth, and the US considers that a bad thing? The guy just removed several million dollars from the Yugoslav economy.
What a way for the US government to treat those who help them to the tune of millions of dollars...
He said "gravity waves," not "gravitational waves," and although he's confused, he isn't wrong.
The term "gravity wave" is used in hydrodynamics to refer to large waves at fluid boundaries which are governed exclusively by inertia and gravity. For example, your typical ocean wave. This is as opposed to a "capillary wave" which is governed at least partially by the effects of surface tension and cohesion. In water, the transition from gravity to capillary wave behavior occurs somewhere around a wavelength of 5 cm.
It's quite possible the Navy is doing some kind of research with gravity waves, but whatever it is, it's probably not for long distance communication because the waves move so slowly and their long wavelengths make them hard to focus.
Just to chime in, viruses aren't really considered "life." They require real cells to reproduce
Hence, wouldn't their presence indicate the presence of living cells, if not now, then at least at some time in the past? It seems that finding viruses would be tantamount to finding living cells, don't you think?
What would also be interesting to look at is porn trading. I'd speculate a large chunk (at least 15%) of P2P traffic is NOT warez, NOT music, NOT movies, but porn.
It's still copyright infringement, since porn is owned by the producers, but for some reason there is no outcry from the porn industry when people steal their stuff. I wonder why that is.
A compiler is technically just a translator, but the term most commonly refers to translation to a lower-level language. This need not be machine code, and it fact it hardly ever is.
Java compilers produce Java bytecode. These programs are indisputably compilers, regardless of the nature of the instructions they produce.
A true compiler creates native machine code.
According to that definition, gcc itself isn't a compiler. It doesn't produce "native machine code," it produces assembly language. The assembler translates this to actual machine code -- you could accurately say the assembler compiles it, since it is again reducing from a higher-level language (human-readable assembly language instructions) to a lower-level one (binary machine instructions, essentially unreadable to most people).
Think of compilation as "boiling down" from a complex language to a simpler one. The exact nature of the two languages doesn't matter -- it's still compilation.
Why is the comparison so difficult? Measure in ton-miles per gallon instead of just miles per gallon.
I bet aircraft are fantastically more efficient, but I'm too lazy to look up numbers.
As for the propulsion systems being "exotic," I think a jet turbine with one main spindle is far less exotic than a reciprocating engine with hundreds of individual moving parts. There's nothing weird about a jet turbine.
For just a moment, join me in my madness and try to envision the capitalist system as a giant genetic algorithm. The companies producing products which sell well continue to operate, while the ones with bad sales wither.
Now, picture a capitalist system with no mergers or splits. Companies evolve purely through "mutation," by making incremental changes to their business strategies and product lines. This is analogous to a asexual biological reproduction, like we see in bacteria. A growing company is like a growing colony of bacteria, where the total mass of the colony increases, but genetic modification takes place at a slow pace, if at all.
Now, picture another system which allows mergers and splits. This is much more analogous to sexual reproduction, where two different individuals combine their genetic information. Two merging companies can bring together a wide range of business strategies and product lines, sometimes resulting in a stronger company, sometimes in a weaker one. But clearly, there is much more potential for large-scale, and sudden, variations in "genetic" traits.
Now, notice that, on Earth, the highest forms of life all reproduce sexually. Clearly there is a distinct advantage in sexual recombination over pure asexual reproduction relying only on mutation for evolution.
The analogy is very rough, and people can probably point out at least a few serious flaws, but I don't think it's unreasonable to claim, based on this analogy, that a system of capitalism that includes mergers and splits will eventually lead to more robust, variegated companies with higher-quality products and more resilient business practices.
If you really want to do something about corruption, remove the temptation. Eliminate the power, and there will be no abuse of power.
And yet, ironically, you advocate doing this by voting a specific candidate into government office through a democratic process.
Obviously you understand that your idealistic view isn't even self-realizable.
The only other option would be a disorganized, anarchic revolt against the government (since you plainly display your contempt for all power structures).
Yes, that half-black-half-white guy hating the half-white-half-black guy episode was a very clever metaphor on race relations.
Oddly, I interpret that episode as being more about sexual orientation than race, for a number of different reasons, but I can certainly see how it could be taken in either way.
The only reason Rodenberry isn't spinning in his grave is that his ashes are in orbit.
Maybe his ashes are spinning in orbit. Is his orbit getting higher? Have we found a way to extract zero-point energy from the gravitational potential of Gene Roddenberry's spinning ashes?!
Terrible Star Trek Series: They Keep Gene Spinning In His Capsule, And Your Lights On (tm)
It's the one thing that has ALWAYS made Star Trek stand out. It actually attempts to tackle modern social issues. The reality is, Trek is actually a modern soap opera cleverly disguised as futuristic sci fi.
Things have been pretty corny, and often just downright stupid, the last 8 years or so, but Trek has always been fundamentally about human relationships and difficulties, not science fiction.
You don't appear to realize the great diversity of software licensing methods that exist. People writing consumer-sector software often can't see beyond the simplistic "Pay for a box with a CD-ROM in it" method of licensing.
Where I work, our products are licensed on many different bases. To be specific, we produce software which renders and views certain types of printer datastream formats. It's like Adobe's Acrobat Reader, but for PCL and HPGL instead of PDF.
As an end-user, you may choose to license the software in the following ways:
1. Purchase a standalone license for one seat.
2. Purchase a LAN license to enable an entire workgroup.
3. Purchase a web license, so all users using the viewer plugin can view any file served from that web site (the site is licensed, not the user software).
4. Purchase a license generator, which can attach a custom license signature to a document, so that anybody with a copy of the viewer is automatically licensed to view that, and only that, document.
There are other license schemes as well, and we swing special licensing arrangements on request, for big accounts.
The one universal feature among all our licenses is that they are not tied to a specific version of the software. Licenses as well as support contracts are time based. If you want a license and matching support contract good for three years, we're happy to provide one, and you get all the benefits of product upgrades, new manuals, etc in that period of time.
I think you haven't had a very wide range of experience. The software world extends far beyond consumer products.
One thing I've learned about big organizations, and this applies to governments as well as corporations, is that although their actions as a whole can seem very evil, the individuals making the decisions hardly ever are.
It seems to be a general property of human society that when we get together in large power structures, we start to see emergent behavior of a very corrupt kind.
Microsoft the corporation might well fall under the heading of "Evil," but the day-to-day employees certainly do not, and I'd even wager a lot of mid-level management is also just trying to do their jobs and please their bosses.
Even at the highest levels of MS corporate structure, I think the officials have honestly bought into their own propaganda so entirely that even they can't perceive that what they are doing looks "evil" to the outside world.
Heh.. Around here, we can choose any email client we want except Outlook. Last I heard, running Outlook on your workstation was a terminable (or at least reprimandable) offense.
What is it about an entire package of political liberty and personal responsibility that you don't want?
I kind of like the idea that we pool our money and distribute it evenly for the benefit of everyone. You know, "taxes." This may be hard for you to understand, but I (and quite a few others) also believe that you shouldn't necessarily benefit in direct proportion to your contributions. There are some things everyone deserves, even if they are destitute. They get these things by relying on others.
Further, witness monopolies like Microsoft, Standard Oil, et al. It could be argued that these monopolies arose through "natural" capitalist practices. However, I think it's clear that monopolies are counterproductive and in some cases destructive. How do you suggest we topple these monopolies without government assistance? Certainly not through capitalism, because it is by taking advantage of the system that monopolies arise in the first place.
Libertarianism would seem to work fine if we lived in an ideal world where people don't collude to corrupt the system. As it is, people are greedy, dishonest assholes, and I think we need at least some amount of government to keep the more intelligent and devious of them in check.
Then don't make me swallow the whole fucking package at once. Give me a few Libertanian candidates that aren't as, well, insane, as most of you seem to be, and I might vote for them.
As it stands now, yes, Libertarians would probably be quick to fix many things I think are wrong in the US, but I also think they'd break quite a few things that I like quite a bit.
I'd rather support the party that has the most overlap possible with my own interests, then do what I can to help push that party in the direction I want. For me the Libertarian party just isn't that party. At least at the moment.
It doesn't mean I "asked for this." It means government is complicated.
Slashdot Mirror
You seem deeply confused. Referring to a person's race is not an insult. I'm quite certain that people in Korea probably referred to you as "white" (or whatever the term for your particular skin tone happens to be). I'm also certain that, as you say, you were treated "just fine." How does acknowledgement of a person's race equate to bad treatment?
Let's follow your muddled logic to its conclusion. An individual named Mbutu moves to your home town. From his name, it is quite clear that he is a black African. But according to you, we are not supposed to acknowledge race because it is some type of insult. Hence, you must not refer to this person by his name, since it would be a clear acknowledgement of his race. Essentially you are telling this person that his own name is an insult to him. You are telling him that his blackness should not be acknowledged. That his race makes you so uncomfortable that you cringe to even mention it.
At this point I'm about 80% sure that you are white, because only whites, in my experience, have such a neurotic view of race.
Because people form mental images. Someone refers to "a developer." Immediately, I think of a white male geek, probably overweight, in his twenties. Why? Because in my experience, that's what developers tend to look like.
Is the mental image important or relevant? Maybe not. Do I have willful control over whether my mind conjures such an image? Certainly not. But at least I now have a somewhat accurate mental image.
You forget, this is Slashdot. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday we're capitalists. On Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday we're communists. And on Mondays we waffle.
If you feel that even the mere mention of a person's race is automatically a subtle indication of racism, you either are really stuck in the tar pit of political correctness, or you have some deep insecurities yourself about the race issue.
Your nickname is "Saeed al-Sahaf." Is that a true reflection of your racial origins? If not, can you explain why your handle is not a racist reference, but the mention of a Korean's race is racist? I doubt you can.
Sorry, we're not going to tip-toe around on your racial eggshell playing field. Guess what? People have different colors of skin, come from different places, and speak different languages. How are we supposed to rejoice in our diversity if the mere mention of it is taboo?
Let me get this straight, then. The US wanted to sanction Yugoslavia to put the pressure on. So Bobby Fischer comes into the country and walks out with several million dollars worth of Yugoslav wealth, and the US considers that a bad thing? The guy just removed several million dollars from the Yugoslav economy.
What a way for the US government to treat those who help them to the tune of millions of dollars...
The term "gravity wave" is used in hydrodynamics to refer to large waves at fluid boundaries which are governed exclusively by inertia and gravity. For example, your typical ocean wave. This is as opposed to a "capillary wave" which is governed at least partially by the effects of surface tension and cohesion. In water, the transition from gravity to capillary wave behavior occurs somewhere around a wavelength of 5 cm.
It's quite possible the Navy is doing some kind of research with gravity waves, but whatever it is, it's probably not for long distance communication because the waves move so slowly and their long wavelengths make them hard to focus.
Hence, wouldn't their presence indicate the presence of living cells, if not now, then at least at some time in the past? It seems that finding viruses would be tantamount to finding living cells, don't you think?
That's why you sell that extra jug on eBay! Come on, you AMATEUR! :-)
It's still copyright infringement, since porn is owned by the producers, but for some reason there is no outcry from the porn industry when people steal their stuff. I wonder why that is.
You can universally replace foo | xargs bar with bar $(foo).
I've never needed xargs for anything...
Java compilers produce Java bytecode. These programs are indisputably compilers, regardless of the nature of the instructions they produce.
A true compiler creates native machine code.
According to that definition, gcc itself isn't a compiler. It doesn't produce "native machine code," it produces assembly language. The assembler translates this to actual machine code -- you could accurately say the assembler compiles it, since it is again reducing from a higher-level language (human-readable assembly language instructions) to a lower-level one (binary machine instructions, essentially unreadable to most people).
Think of compilation as "boiling down" from a complex language to a simpler one. The exact nature of the two languages doesn't matter -- it's still compilation.
I bet aircraft are fantastically more efficient, but I'm too lazy to look up numbers.
As for the propulsion systems being "exotic," I think a jet turbine with one main spindle is far less exotic than a reciprocating engine with hundreds of individual moving parts. There's nothing weird about a jet turbine.
Linux + VMWare.
Now, picture a capitalist system with no mergers or splits. Companies evolve purely through "mutation," by making incremental changes to their business strategies and product lines. This is analogous to a asexual biological reproduction, like we see in bacteria. A growing company is like a growing colony of bacteria, where the total mass of the colony increases, but genetic modification takes place at a slow pace, if at all.
Now, picture another system which allows mergers and splits. This is much more analogous to sexual reproduction, where two different individuals combine their genetic information. Two merging companies can bring together a wide range of business strategies and product lines, sometimes resulting in a stronger company, sometimes in a weaker one. But clearly, there is much more potential for large-scale, and sudden, variations in "genetic" traits.
Now, notice that, on Earth, the highest forms of life all reproduce sexually. Clearly there is a distinct advantage in sexual recombination over pure asexual reproduction relying only on mutation for evolution.
The analogy is very rough, and people can probably point out at least a few serious flaws, but I don't think it's unreasonable to claim, based on this analogy, that a system of capitalism that includes mergers and splits will eventually lead to more robust, variegated companies with higher-quality products and more resilient business practices.
People's thoughts?
And yet, ironically, you advocate doing this by voting a specific candidate into government office through a democratic process.
Obviously you understand that your idealistic view isn't even self-realizable.
The only other option would be a disorganized, anarchic revolt against the government (since you plainly display your contempt for all power structures).
Oddly, I interpret that episode as being more about sexual orientation than race, for a number of different reasons, but I can certainly see how it could be taken in either way.
That's one of my favorite episodes, BTW.
Maybe his ashes are spinning in orbit. Is his orbit getting higher? Have we found a way to extract zero-point energy from the gravitational potential of Gene Roddenberry's spinning ashes?!
Terrible Star Trek Series: They Keep Gene Spinning In His Capsule, And Your Lights On (tm)
It's the one thing that has ALWAYS made Star Trek stand out. It actually attempts to tackle modern social issues. The reality is, Trek is actually a modern soap opera cleverly disguised as futuristic sci fi.
Things have been pretty corny, and often just downright stupid, the last 8 years or so, but Trek has always been fundamentally about human relationships and difficulties, not science fiction.
Where I work, our products are licensed on many different bases. To be specific, we produce software which renders and views certain types of printer datastream formats. It's like Adobe's Acrobat Reader, but for PCL and HPGL instead of PDF.
As an end-user, you may choose to license the software in the following ways:
1. Purchase a standalone license for one seat.
2. Purchase a LAN license to enable an entire workgroup.
3. Purchase a web license, so all users using the viewer plugin can view any file served from that web site (the site is licensed, not the user software).
4. Purchase a license generator, which can attach a custom license signature to a document, so that anybody with a copy of the viewer is automatically licensed to view that, and only that, document.
There are other license schemes as well, and we swing special licensing arrangements on request, for big accounts.
The one universal feature among all our licenses is that they are not tied to a specific version of the software. Licenses as well as support contracts are time based. If you want a license and matching support contract good for three years, we're happy to provide one, and you get all the benefits of product upgrades, new manuals, etc in that period of time.
I think you haven't had a very wide range of experience. The software world extends far beyond consumer products.
It seems to be a general property of human society that when we get together in large power structures, we start to see emergent behavior of a very corrupt kind.
Microsoft the corporation might well fall under the heading of "Evil," but the day-to-day employees certainly do not, and I'd even wager a lot of mid-level management is also just trying to do their jobs and please their bosses.
Even at the highest levels of MS corporate structure, I think the officials have honestly bought into their own propaganda so entirely that even they can't perceive that what they are doing looks "evil" to the outside world.
Heh.. Around here, we can choose any email client we want except Outlook. Last I heard, running Outlook on your workstation was a terminable (or at least reprimandable) offense.
I kind of like the idea that we pool our money and distribute it evenly for the benefit of everyone. You know, "taxes." This may be hard for you to understand, but I (and quite a few others) also believe that you shouldn't necessarily benefit in direct proportion to your contributions. There are some things everyone deserves, even if they are destitute. They get these things by relying on others.
Further, witness monopolies like Microsoft, Standard Oil, et al. It could be argued that these monopolies arose through "natural" capitalist practices. However, I think it's clear that monopolies are counterproductive and in some cases destructive. How do you suggest we topple these monopolies without government assistance? Certainly not through capitalism, because it is by taking advantage of the system that monopolies arise in the first place.
Libertarianism would seem to work fine if we lived in an ideal world where people don't collude to corrupt the system. As it is, people are greedy, dishonest assholes, and I think we need at least some amount of government to keep the more intelligent and devious of them in check.
As it stands now, yes, Libertarians would probably be quick to fix many things I think are wrong in the US, but I also think they'd break quite a few things that I like quite a bit.
I'd rather support the party that has the most overlap possible with my own interests, then do what I can to help push that party in the direction I want. For me the Libertarian party just isn't that party. At least at the moment.
It doesn't mean I "asked for this." It means government is complicated.
I was shooting for "Funny," but I can hardly help what the moderators decide to do...
My comments were grossly sarcastic. I don't advocate firebombing of anything.
I'm just flaming on Slashdot, as we all do. Chill.