Hey everyone, did we all just forget that these guys turned out not to be the "Geeks" Slashdot wanted them to be? Has that little detail been conveniently forgotten?
Sure, there's no reason we can't talk about the horrible treatment of Geeks (and others) in today s high schools, but you know what? I don't see any justification for linking that debate with Columbine.
The Columbine killers were just crazy. Remember the Trench Coat Mafia? That group of outsiders that had an ongoing feud with the jocks, and talked about getting picked on constantly, and about how high school was hell for them? Yeah, well, Harris and Klebold were not in that group.
Harris and Klebold turned out to be, well... crazy. Two guys who just had it in for everyone else for no particular reason at all. Hard as it may be for you to believe, that is what a thorough investigation of their diary and videotaped rants has concluded.
Gee, Katz has been silent for a week now. And it's now the one year anniversary of the Columbine shooting. I guarantee you all he's got something in mind...
Everyone I know who knows about GPS has known about Selective Availability (SA for short) for years.
Funny thing is, they had to turn it off during Desert Storm (probably the only time it might have served a purpose) because they didn't have enough military receivers:-)
That would be your government at work.
-- grappler
Almost like talking to Eliza or something
on
AskJeeves Interview
·
· Score: 2
Anyone try that whole string of comments again and see if the answers are the same? I did, and I got some different answers. Funny, since it basically queries other search engines, and I wouldn't think these databases would change so quickly.
I wonder if it has some kind of algorithm to try to "learn" as people ask it questions, based on what answers they end up clicking or something like that.
Well, it's not like there's a law being made against selling these things. It's a company selling a game and people were basically ruining the challenge of the game and making it harder for other, more rational people to play fairly. Sony had every right to shut down such transactions in the game and ask Ebay to remove the items. From what I read, most participants were in favor of that move.
Of course, when we talk about legal rights, the game participants were not doing anything they "shouldn't have", and the legal system has no place in any of this.
But back to the original thread - I'm not really a bad slashdot poster, honest! But I'm also NOT A KARMA WHORE, and I will speak my mind. I only wish you could have seen the state this article put me into when I read it (hint: fits of laughter) and I really didn't care what others thought. These prices were HIGH - several "items" were going for over $1000! Also, I know people like this at my school, and they are weird.
I stand by my original comments. Moderators, go to hell.
Actually, I think it's a site that goes for a "classroom fetish" - that is, come look at pictures of attractive girls in a classrom setting. Sorta like the ones that do schoolgirls in uniforms, but updated for the times, since 99% of schoolgirls don't wear uniforms.
1. Hits or bullies others. 2. Expresses uncontrolled anger. 3. Has unlawful possession and use of firearms. 4. Displays intense intolerance or prejudice. 5. Has unlawful possession and use of firearms. 6. Has excessive feelings of isolation and/or rejection. 7. Conveys violence in writings and/or drawings. 8. Uses drugs or alcohol on campus. 9. Makes threats. 10. Suddenly has bad grades or little interest in school. 11. Is easily angered by minor things.
1 through 5 and number 8 are fine by me. 9 and 11 are borderline. 6, 7 and 10 sound alarm bells.
They did this one sequence of film people that died in the last year, honoring such notables as George C Scott. Unless I blinked and missed it, though, Stanley Kubric was nowhere to be seen.
What the fuck? He was one of the greatest directors ever, and certainly the most original. I saw no menion of him or his recent "Eyes Wide Shut" the entire night. Grrrr....
I've thought about the troll issue too. IMHO, a good troll does not deserve to be moderated down (or up, because then it would be marked as a troll, ruining the joke) and a bad troll is better described as flamebait. I suggest the "troll" option be retired.
It's pretty hard to take a rant lamenting the decline of intellectualism seriously when the author can't put coherent thoughts together.
Seriously, just slogging through that post proved to be a chore. It's called grammar, spelling and punctuation. Learn those, and then whine about the lowbrow tastes of the average american. Sheesh.
Good point. In that case, I don't really see any reason why it should be bostrophedonic at all. It could just as easily be regular right-to-left text, in which case I'm betting it is.
First off, I know that this COULD be in a different language, meaningless random gibberish, or based on some horribly obscure document. However, I doubt it. Here's my thoughts:
Here's what gets me - no letters are on top of each other. While this sure looks like it was fed into a typewriter and typed over several times with lowercase, smallcaps, and uppercase, upside down and not, it looks like gaps were left by someone who knew that when he got to that exact spot later, he would need a letter there.
Also, I took your advise and looked up boustrophedon (great word by the way) - it means that every line would start at the same side of the page that the last ended on and go in the opposite direction "as the ox plows". If it is written this way, you would have to turn the paper upside down to type the other direction, so the stream would consist of right side up characters from alternating lines, and upside down from the other lines, and then go back the other way.
I think it is more likely that he did something like this:
o Type the entire right side up portion of the message, leaving gaps where he knew the upside down letters would go.
o Turn the paper around
o Type the rest of the message. Done.
The fact that gaps had to be left implies that some planning went into this before the "final copy" was made. He probably had some rough drafts worked out. Also, he was into cryptograms that people worked out as puzzles, not codes that would be unbreakable. I think it's unlikely that there's some obscure text that he used as a key. If I were making a serious attempt at this, I would look for the following:
o Words broken up differently from the spaces in the message.
o Words written backward, or the entire message backward. Or vise versa.
o Dummy characters. Especially at the end (beginning?)
o Different substitution alphabets for different kinds/orientations of characters in the message. (This is doubtful IMHO)
o boustrophedonic writing, like the guy said.
I'm betting it's cheap tricks like this. You can be surprisingly criptic just doing that.
'K so about 20 seconds ago I was clicking through those pictures looking at each one and a kid walks by my room, stops, comes in and says "are you looking at kiddie porn?"
I had to explain it all to him, starting by telling him what a 404 message is.
nothing against you personally, but all the purity tests I've seen suck - they just ask a bunch of questions and give back the percentage you said "no" to. I think you should weight them and make a more complicated scoring system. Make it so you can be 0% pure without saying yes to every question, since nobody will ever do that unless that is their objective. And make it shorter, not longer. Taking a long boring purity test is boring. Weed out all the questions that are redundant or not very funny.
Chill out. First of all, I have my reasons for reinstalling. I don't exactly wipe my linux partition clean all the time, but I do put in the latest redhat disk and choose "upgrade". Also, I'm thinking of switching to debian and I just recently installed that. Also, I recently moved from a wimpy 800meg hard drive to a much larger one, and just did a clean reinstall. I think I'm done with that for a while though.
And I'm not whining. I like Mathematica - it rules. I just got really frustrated when I got that request for a "system transfer application" to be sent by snail mail, no less. It reminded me of that UCITA legislation. And the next day I see this on Slashdot, so I just had to rant. Thanks for listening.:-)
I can't stand the Mathematica licensing. As a poor college student who runs Linux, I don't buy much software. But this year I decided it would be worthwhile to have Mathematica (they released a linux version).
So, I bought the student version of Mathematica. I've come to regret that, because their licensing is a pain in the ass. I reinstall OSes on a regular basis, and every time I do, Mathematica requires a new password, so I need to email the company and get a new password from them. This takes days.
Also, I dual boot windows. The CD also had a windows version, so I decided to install it. What's wrong with me using a program I paid $130 for on both operating systems right? It's still on my computer, and they can't run at the same time anyway. Well, I sent another request from them, along with a number generated from my system, and here's the response I got:
It looks as if you have changed from the Linux to the Windows platform. In order for us to generate a new password for you, I will need for you to complete a system transfer application. I have attached a copy of this form in JPG format to this e-mail. Please print the form, complete it, and return it to Wolfram Research either by fax or mail. Once received a customer service representative will process your request. Please be sure to write you new MathID number on the form so the person who receives it can process your password, I do not believe the form it asks for it.
Our fax number is listed at the top of the form, and our mailing address is:
Wolfram Research Inc Customer Service 100 Trade Center Dr Champaign IL 61820
If you are unable to open or read the file please contact me and I will request a copy of the form either faxed or mailed to you.
Gee, thanks. I haven't gotten around to doing this yet, but perhaps I'll find the time.
Meanwhile, AN OPEN SOURCE MATH PACKAGE WOULD BE A GODSEND!!!!!!!
I believe the entire BeOS operating is written in C++, with an object oriented framework and a microkernel on which several "servers" handle system tasks. It is by no means slow or bloated. Of course, for R5 they are scrapping the Net server in favor of one more closely tied to the kernel to improve performance, and I think they're doing something similiar with 3d acceleration.
Anyway, the point is, they use C++ for system level stuff and it works great. Of course, the Be people are by no means "old dogs". There is nothing legacy about BeOS.
That's a good idea. If you really want to be accurate about it, you could find some proportionality constant that would adjust your formula so that stories always average to some constant "activity" value. Then, the ones that stick way out above this value are your most active.
Perhaps a "resilient disk" standard ought to be created, for stuff you would really like to last. Perhaps a WORM (write once read many) optical disk, like a CDR, but made to be very resilient, perhaps lasting up to a thousand years.
Perhaps they could even be made to work with existing CDROM drives and perhaps even existing CD writers. Then you just start selling a new kind of disk. Anyone that wants something to last, they put on those. If they want lots of space per penny, they can buy something else.
Well, the pictures on your homepage do look quite gay...
Two things: First, it's a joke you idiot. He's making fun of people who talk like that.
Second, from his webpage: Another fact about me you may find interesting is that I'm bisexual. Some people may hate me for this, but it's not something I'm able to change so get used to it (note: for those too soft-hearted for the above link, try this one instead). Some people have told me that I must be either gay or straight because bisexual people don't exist. Needless to say these people are not exactly doing much to further my estimation of them. That's really all I can tell you about that subject...if you want to see gay/lesbian/bi resources on the web I'm sure there are only 2 billion pages about it, so use a freaking search engine.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey everyone, did we all just forget that these guys turned out not to be the "Geeks" Slashdot wanted them to be? Has that little detail been conveniently forgotten?
Sure, there's no reason we can't talk about the horrible treatment of Geeks (and others) in today
s high schools, but you know what? I don't see any justification for linking that debate with Columbine.
The Columbine killers were just crazy. Remember the Trench Coat Mafia? That group of outsiders that had an ongoing feud with the jocks, and talked about getting picked on constantly, and about how high school was hell for them? Yeah, well, Harris and Klebold were not in that group.
Harris and Klebold turned out to be, well... crazy. Two guys who just had it in for everyone else for no particular reason at all. Hard as it may be for you to believe, that is what a thorough investigation of their diary and videotaped rants has concluded.
There it is.
--
grappler
Gee, Katz has been silent for a week now. And it's now the one year anniversary of the Columbine shooting. I guarantee you all he's got something in mind...
--
grappler
Ooooo, big coverup...
:-)
Everyone I know who knows about GPS has known about Selective Availability (SA for short) for years.
Funny thing is, they had to turn it off during Desert Storm (probably the only time it might have served a purpose) because they didn't have enough military receivers
That would be your government at work.
--
grappler
Anyone try that whole string of comments again and see if the answers are the same? I did, and I got some different answers. Funny, since it basically queries other search engines, and I wouldn't think these databases would change so quickly.
I wonder if it has some kind of algorithm to try to "learn" as people ask it questions, based on what answers they end up clicking or something like that.
Anyone know?
--
grappler
First person to find out how the HMS Beagle got its name wins a cookie!
(if you think this post is offtopic, please move on and don't flaunt your ignorance)
--
grappler
Well, it's not like there's a law being made against selling these things. It's a company selling a game and people were basically ruining the challenge of the game and making it harder for other, more rational people to play fairly. Sony had every right to shut down such transactions in the game and ask Ebay to remove the items. From what I read, most participants were in favor of that move.
Of course, when we talk about legal rights, the game participants were not doing anything they "shouldn't have", and the legal system has no place in any of this.
But back to the original thread - I'm not really a bad slashdot poster, honest! But I'm also NOT A KARMA WHORE, and I will speak my mind. I only wish you could have seen the state this article put me into when I read it (hint: fits of laughter) and I really didn't care what others thought. These prices were HIGH - several "items" were going for over $1000! Also, I know people like this at my school, and they are weird.
I stand by my original comments. Moderators, go to hell.
--
grappler
Hehe, I just got squashed by the moderators. BRING IT ON!!!!!!!
Apparently, I forgot to attach the thing that always wins 'em over to the beginning of my message:
"I'll probably be moderated down for this..."
--
grappler
What was your first clue?
Actually, I think it's a site that goes for a "classroom fetish" - that is, come look at pictures of attractive girls in a classrom setting. Sorta like the ones that do schoolgirls in uniforms, but updated for the times, since 99% of schoolgirls don't wear uniforms.
Or there's the possibility that I'm on crack.
--
grappler
Let's subtract our clothes, divide our legs, and multiply!
Of course, that's arithmetic, not calculus.
Wanna see my unit vector?
--
grappler
Here are their warning signs:
1. Hits or bullies others.
2. Expresses uncontrolled anger.
3. Has unlawful possession and use of firearms.
4. Displays intense intolerance or prejudice.
5. Has unlawful possession and use of firearms.
6. Has excessive feelings of isolation and/or rejection.
7. Conveys violence in writings and/or drawings.
8. Uses drugs or alcohol on campus.
9. Makes threats.
10. Suddenly has bad grades or little interest in school.
11. Is easily angered by minor things.
1 through 5 and number 8 are fine by me. 9 and 11 are borderline. 6, 7 and 10 sound alarm bells.
--
grappler
They did this one sequence of film people that died in the last year, honoring such notables as George C Scott. Unless I blinked and missed it, though, Stanley Kubric was nowhere to be seen.
What the fuck? He was one of the greatest directors ever, and certainly the most original. I saw no menion of him or his recent "Eyes Wide Shut" the entire night. Grrrr....
--
grappler
I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of a toilet that analyzes my crap and communicates the results over the internet. Call me old-fashioned.
--
grappler
I've thought about the troll issue too. IMHO, a good troll does not deserve to be moderated down (or up, because then it would be marked as a troll, ruining the joke) and a bad troll is better described as flamebait. I suggest the "troll" option be retired.
--
grappler
This link (connected with Amelia Earhart's dissappearance) is especially amusing:
http://foia.fbi.gov/earhart/earhart1.pdf
--
grappler
It's pretty hard to take a rant lamenting the decline of intellectualism seriously when the author can't put coherent thoughts together.
Seriously, just slogging through that post proved to be a chore. It's called grammar, spelling and punctuation. Learn those, and then whine about the lowbrow tastes of the average american. Sheesh.
--
grappler
Good point. In that case, I don't really see any reason why it should be bostrophedonic at all. It could just as easily be regular right-to-left text, in which case I'm betting it is.
--
grappler
First off, I know that this COULD be in a different language, meaningless random gibberish, or based on some horribly obscure document. However, I doubt it. Here's my thoughts:
Here's what gets me - no letters are on top of each other. While this sure looks like it was fed into a typewriter and typed over several times with lowercase, smallcaps, and uppercase, upside down and not, it looks like gaps were left by someone who knew that when he got to that exact spot later, he would need a letter there.
Also, I took your advise and looked up boustrophedon (great word by the way) - it means that every line would start at the same side of the page that the last ended on and go in the opposite direction "as the ox plows". If it is written this way, you would have to turn the paper upside down to type the other direction, so the stream would consist of right side up characters from alternating lines, and upside down from the other lines, and then go back the other way.
I think it is more likely that he did something like this:
o Type the entire right side up portion of the message, leaving gaps where he knew the upside down letters would go.
o Turn the paper around
o Type the rest of the message. Done.
The fact that gaps had to be left implies that some planning went into this before the "final copy" was made. He probably had some rough drafts worked out. Also, he was into cryptograms that people worked out as puzzles, not codes that would be unbreakable. I think it's unlikely that there's some obscure text that he used as a key. If I were making a serious attempt at this, I would look for the following:
o Words broken up differently from the spaces in the message.
o Words written backward, or the entire message backward. Or vise versa.
o Dummy characters. Especially at the end (beginning?)
o Different substitution alphabets for different kinds/orientations of characters in the message. (This is doubtful IMHO)
o boustrophedonic writing, like the guy said.
I'm betting it's cheap tricks like this. You can be surprisingly criptic just doing that.
--
grappler
'K so about 20 seconds ago I was clicking through those pictures looking at each one and a kid walks by my room, stops, comes in and says "are you looking at kiddie porn?"
I had to explain it all to him, starting by telling him what a 404 message is.
--
grappler
nothing against you personally, but all the purity tests I've seen suck - they just ask a bunch of questions and give back the percentage you said "no" to. I think you should weight them and make a more complicated scoring system. Make it so you can be 0% pure without saying yes to every question, since nobody will ever do that unless that is their objective. And make it shorter, not longer. Taking a long boring purity test is boring. Weed out all the questions that are redundant or not very funny.
--
grappler
Chill out. First of all, I have my reasons for reinstalling. I don't exactly wipe my linux partition clean all the time, but I do put in the latest redhat disk and choose "upgrade". Also, I'm thinking of switching to debian and I just recently installed that. Also, I recently moved from a wimpy 800meg hard drive to a much larger one, and just did a clean reinstall. I think I'm done with that for a while though.
:-)
And I'm not whining. I like Mathematica - it rules. I just got really frustrated when I got that request for a "system transfer application" to be sent by snail mail, no less. It reminded me of that UCITA legislation. And the next day I see this on Slashdot, so I just had to rant. Thanks for listening.
--
grappler
I can't stand the Mathematica licensing. As a poor college student who runs Linux, I don't buy much software. But this year I decided it would be worthwhile to have Mathematica (they released a linux version).
So, I bought the student version of Mathematica. I've come to regret that, because their licensing is a pain in the ass. I reinstall OSes on a regular basis, and every time I do, Mathematica requires a new password, so I need to email the company and get a new password from them. This takes days.
Also, I dual boot windows. The CD also had a windows version, so I decided to install it. What's wrong with me using a program I paid $130 for on both operating systems right? It's still on my computer, and they can't run at the same time anyway. Well, I sent another request from them, along with a number generated from my system, and here's the response I got:
It looks as if you have changed from the Linux to the Windows platform. In
order for us to generate a new password for you, I will need for you to
complete a system transfer application. I have attached a copy of this form
in JPG format to this e-mail. Please print the form, complete it, and
return it to Wolfram Research either by fax or mail. Once received a
customer service representative will process your request. Please be sure
to write you new MathID number on the form so the person who receives it can
process your password, I do not believe the form it asks for it.
Our fax number is listed at the top of the form, and our mailing address is:
Wolfram Research Inc
Customer Service
100 Trade Center Dr
Champaign IL 61820
If you are unable to open or read the file please contact me and I will
request a copy of the form either faxed or mailed to you.
Gee, thanks. I haven't gotten around to doing this yet, but perhaps I'll find the time.
Meanwhile, AN OPEN SOURCE MATH PACKAGE WOULD BE A GODSEND!!!!!!!
--
grappler
I believe the entire BeOS operating is written in C++, with an object oriented framework and a microkernel on which several "servers" handle system tasks. It is by no means slow or bloated. Of course, for R5 they are scrapping the Net server in favor of one more closely tied to the kernel to improve performance, and I think they're doing something similiar with 3d acceleration.
Anyway, the point is, they use C++ for system level stuff and it works great. Of course, the Be people are by no means "old dogs". There is nothing legacy about BeOS.
--
grappler
That's a good idea. If you really want to be accurate about it, you could find some proportionality constant that would adjust your formula so that stories always average to some constant "activity" value. Then, the ones that stick way out above this value are your most active.
--
grappler
Perhaps a "resilient disk" standard ought to be created, for stuff you would really like to last. Perhaps a WORM (write once read many) optical disk, like a CDR, but made to be very resilient, perhaps lasting up to a thousand years.
Perhaps they could even be made to work with existing CDROM drives and perhaps even existing CD writers. Then you just start selling a new kind of disk. Anyone that wants something to last, they put on those. If they want lots of space per penny, they can buy something else.
--
grappler
Well, the pictures on your homepage do look quite gay...
Two things: First, it's a joke you idiot. He's making fun of people who talk like that.
Second, from his webpage:
Another fact about me you may find interesting is that I'm bisexual. Some people may hate me for this, but it's not something I'm able to change so get used to it (note: for those too soft-hearted for the above link, try this one instead). Some people have told me that I must be either gay or straight because bisexual people don't exist.
Needless to say these people are not exactly doing much to further my estimation of them. That's really all I can tell you about that subject...if you want to see gay/lesbian/bi resources on the web I'm sure there are only 2 billion pages about it, so use a freaking search engine.
--
grappler