IMHO mutation always meant something changed at gene-level. In order for that to be true, we'd need at least a couple of generations between introduction of cellphones and the like and unusual dexterity developing in the thumbs.
I would venture that the author may have just added a couple of catchwords to sensationalize otherwhise uninteresting news.
Unusual dexterity is by no means a mutation: look at piano players, touch-typists and gunslingers (ah heck, I'm reading the book!). They all seem to have highly dextrous fingers or can do nearly "impossible tasks" compared to mundane people. They can do it by enough practice (which just shows how flexible the human body is) and don't thank mutation for their gifts.
Now, if youths started to grow extra thumbs in stead of forefingers, I'd shout: "Mutation! Unclean!"...
...but how does this affect me? Does this mean that Joe can only get as much justice as Joe can afford?
Even if they win (doubtful, they will settle) what are they gonna get? Money, stocks, meaningless things. There's no way anyone except Sun (and/or Microsoft) will profit from this. Heck, MS might even be the winner here.
In all, hooray for Sun and hooray for anyone with money. Loads and loads of money. Ah well...
This reminds me of the Thumb in the Hitch-Hiker books by Douglas Adams.
If only we could get half of the galaxy's lawyers working on the circumvention of copy-protection laws and the other half on circumventing the circumvention laws, they could leave us in peace to actually code some stuff that might be worth circumventing!
I just discovered gravity. Since no patent or prior art exists, I'm going to patent it and license it to people who pay me enough. The only currency I accept is gnus. Seriously, this is a prime example to see exactly when democracy can fail. That's right, it's not perfect! If the majority believe one thing and you don't you are wrong!
Ah, well, it has happened in history before and it will probably happen again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, right? Just remember, you can't enjoy fame if you are dead.
Before you go to a flamewar about the newest draconian laws the US has passed, fix democracy. How do you fix it, by educating people!
I love Space Quest, about any other adventure game in general, Science Fiction, reading and comedy. Space Quest combined the above elements (with just enough Space Quest) to balance out into one of the most brilliant series of all time.
In fact, die-hard adventurers will agree that Space Quest has to continue, otherwise the Universe's physics is fundementally flawed. Reference: Space Quest IV.
Fact is though, the future of today's youth (and let's face it, today's money) lies with cheap thrills. Shoot-em-ups, no-brainers, multiplayer reflex-only multi-hyphen games.
The nicest games (like quests) will forevermore belong to the realm of geeks. Unfortunately, like every average slashdotter knows: geeks are NOT the majority of the population.
Sorry for ranting, but it's been a while since I've got karma nuked.
For those of you who know the difference between QT and Quicktime, take heed! There is hope! I've successfully played some Quicktime movies using WINE. Everybody knows the Crossover plugin from CodeWeavers. I've also had some very good results with the CodeWeavers version of Wine.
Unfortunately some aspects of the UI don't work but the movies play nicely. I can't wait until TransGaming's WineX or stock Wine runs Quicktime movies as good as mplayer plays.avi files under my favourite OS!
Does anyone know exactly how crosspollination between these projects work? I would say that besides GNU and Linux, Wine has the potential to be the most useful piece of code ever created.
Please follow this chain of logic carefully... I spent a lot of neurons trying to fit this into my brain.
1 NASA finds shuttles expensive to maintain.
2 They find it so expensive because shuttles expend $400M of non-recoverable fuel, components and morons per flight.
3 NASA might want invest in a project with higher construction costs but lower maintenance costs.
4BUT NASA has canned the X-33 and X-34 programs.
5 This means NASA is NOT interested in a project with higher construction costs but lower mainenance costs.
Right. Incidentally, since NASA is not interested in space flight anymore (it seems), Bruce Willis is not going to save us when the big one hits. That means the Empire State Building will very soon be hit by a meteor. Poor NYC.
Can you imagine that baby burning? The scenario is something like this:
John: Hey Sid? Wanna check out my new Athlon? It's overclocked something awful.
Sid: Yeah, cool. What's that white fire in your room?
John yells some incomprehensible syllables (mostly vowels), grabs the fishtank and runs to the fire
Sid: Hey John! That might be a bad id...
Boom
Ah well... At least they don't make fire extinguishers out of aluminium...
Re:He SHOULD care about the competition...
on
Torvalds Tells All
·
· Score: 1
"Linus Torvalds: I don't actually follow other operating systems much. I don't compete - I just worry about making Linux better than itself, not others. And quite frankly, I don't see anythign very interesting on a technical level in either."
Point one: This is not a war. Windows being better than Linux would not cost any Linux supporter anything.
Point two: Linux (being the kernel) does not compete with Windows and FreeBSD. Linux (the kernel) competes with the FreeBSD kernel and whatever passes for Windows's kernel.
Point three: Linux should not follow "market trends". That's Microsoft's job. Linux should give users the option of having a technically superior OS without the benefit of code bloat.
Please take note, all the views above are my own. If Linus has a problem with them, he is free to have one. I believe that should be the philosophy behind Linux.
Imperial vs. Metric: SERIOUSLY OFFTOPIC!
on
Biking @ 80 MPH
·
· Score: 4, Funny
No! Don't do it!
Please, slashdotters, post everything in metric, except when dealing with nautical measurements (there's a good reason for a nautical mile!). Only America is still stuck with an archaic measurement system that requires more conversion factors than positive aspects to it..
Think about it: the SI system is even used by American scientists! It pains me to see how everyhting is turned into pounds and ounces and how you have to grab a calculator to calculate how many inches in a mile.
CowboyNeal, just think, at more than 2cm per inch, you'd be THAT MUCH TALLER and LONGER!
I see a fundamental difference between a physical design patent and a process (or software) patent.
Yes, a physical design can be patented without causing too much damage to society as a whole. The reason for this is obvious: one problem has many solutions. If, say, a patent on the wheel was taken out, that would spurn industry to think about thinks like hovercraft, aeroplanes, caterpillar tracks and any old fancifull idea.
Physical design patents have to expire in order for them to be beneficial. Small time inventors who get lots of patents (like Thomas Edison) do not get rich. Big companies that buy patents get rich. Think about it: if the FET transistor was still patented, we'd not be having this discussion... Well, maybe over pencil and paper...
Process patents, or software patents (anything that's not physical) are in my opinion immoral and can have no positive effect on society AT ALL. For them to be beneficial, they'd have to expire in a month or maybe six, but that's stretching it.
My reasons are simple. Patent the swimming process. Heck, patent breathing. It's a process, so it's patentable (at least in the USA), and I would say very little evidence on prior art is there.
It all depends on the guys at the patent office, just remember, they are not specialists in their fields and may be liable to file genetic algorithms under animal husbandry. The No Prior Art Requirement is dependent on the amount of money you are willing to spend on the patent and guess what, lawyers are present every step of the way, taking their big, fat cut from the profits you're going to make with your lovely patent!
Finally, process patents can be made so vague that they can prevent the use of any and all new ideas in a whole field. Process patents can be made so that anything that accepts a certain input and generates a certain output is a violation of that patent, effectively prohibiting novel concepts from being implemented, 'cause they're ILLEGAL!
Apologies for the Goon Show references and stuff I blatantly ripped off from everyone else, but hey, it wasn't patented!
Unfortunately the hydrogen problem's not solved yet... Would people feel OK if they've got a highly flammable and explosive gas cannister in their home?
Oh well, think of the pretty lights it can make if you bomb a neigbourhood filled with a couple of them...
People, this is no longer news. This just proves that everybody trusts Big Brother because Big Brother is always Watching Us and Caring For Us. To prove my point: How many people use the phrase Big Brother who have never read 1984 by George Orwell?
How many people know that George Orwell was just his pen name?
Democracy sounds like a good idea: the will of the majority has to be the right thing. Even though the majority is wrong it's still right.
Microsoft is right. Open Source is unamerican. The American Way is to make as much money as possible by screwing as many people as possible. Ignorance is now a virtue.
C'mon America! Microsoft is tarnishing your reputation! Stand up, show us that you care about something other than yourselves.
Heck, I should talk, I come from South Africa. At least we only pretend to be leaders in stupidity.
I've got an Athlon 1.2 with an AMD761 northbridge and a VIA vt82c686B southbridge.
Guess what, it's got a bug on the southbridge that causes anything on the PCI bus to get corrupted when an SB Live is installed. Aargh!
VIA keeps blaming Creative and vice versa. Good grief people! What happened to standards!
It was my assumption that in order for a card to be PCI compliant it had to pass certain tests. Same thing with a bus controller.
The moral of the story is the following: AMD makes nice CPUs but the chipsets that support them suck. Oftentimes. Intel makes sucky CPUs but their chipsets are nice. Oftentimes.
Lets hope the sucky chipsets Intel are introducing causes the AMD support chipsets to magically improve. Hey, anything can happen!
Ah well, maybe this upcoming "terrorist war" will have nice spinoffs: more research into intercontinental missiles which results in cheaper launches, research into life support systems to combat bio-weapons and maybe, just maybe a cure for stupidity found by accident (hey, I'm a dreamer!)
In a similar move Richard M Stallman released the much improved newer version of the GNU Public License today. In order to use the wording of the license in existing software, several key requirements have to be met:
Firstly, the author must be a staunch advocate of all things Open Source. The author must explain (in 100 words or more) why it is EVIL, insanitary and unhygienic to use any other option. Bonus marks are awarded for a comparison between Shared Souce and Shared Sores. (Ripped of shamelessly from User Friendly)
Secondly, the author must not buy into commercial software whatsoever, since commercial software is like a virus which affects anything it touches, in the end, forcing all software to be commercial.
Finally, the author must not use the term Linux for anything other than the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system. Bonus marks are awarded if the author uses Hurd as an example of the ideal kernel.
Mr. Linus Torvalds was not available for comment, but upon reading this press release, Mr. William Gates called in his top lawyers mumbling something about "copyright infringement" and "those bastards can't use my own words against me!".
In related news, aliens have just been confirmed to............
I'm sure all slashdotters know how to make touch powder, but, just in case, I'm going to give the recipe:
Add some iodine crystals to liquid ammonia (you just need the stuff that's dissolved in water). Filter and don't dry!
I remember the time I made my biggest batch ever. About two tablespoons worth. It was family reunion and I put the stuff in blotting paper on my windowsill to remove excess liquid.
I called my cousin, told him I've got something cool to show him. Took the paper, semi-dry now, walked through the crowded living room, went out the door. Shut the door, said, "This i..." and things got fuzzy here.
Right, next thing I remember my hand was blue-purple, without feeling and I had this zinging noise in my head. He was staring at my hand like he's never going to see it again...
So, the lessons here are:
Never dry the stuff before you plant it!
Never walk through a living room with thousands of elderly relatives that might suffer heart attacks with the stuff.
Never put the stuff in blotting paper!
Always remember, the purple stains are from iodine and evaporate within minutes.
Well, have fun!
"-and those damned stupid barbarians with their
damned stupid swords will win after all..."
-- Larry Niven (The Magic Goes Away)
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO mutation always meant something changed at gene-level. In order for that to be true, we'd need at least a couple of generations between introduction of cellphones and the like and unusual dexterity developing in the thumbs.
I would venture that the author may have just added a couple of catchwords to sensationalize otherwhise uninteresting news.
Unusual dexterity is by no means a mutation: look at piano players, touch-typists and gunslingers (ah heck, I'm reading the book!). They all seem to have highly dextrous fingers or can do nearly "impossible tasks" compared to mundane people. They can do it by enough practice (which just shows how flexible the human body is) and don't thank mutation for their gifts.
Now, if youths started to grow extra thumbs in stead of forefingers, I'd shout: "Mutation! Unclean!"...
...but how does this affect me? Does this mean that Joe can only get as much justice as Joe can afford?
Even if they win (doubtful, they will settle) what are they gonna get? Money, stocks, meaningless things. There's no way anyone except Sun (and/or Microsoft) will profit from this. Heck, MS might even be the winner here.
In all, hooray for Sun and hooray for anyone with money. Loads and loads of money. Ah well...
This reminds me of the Thumb in the Hitch-Hiker books by Douglas Adams.
If only we could get half of the galaxy's lawyers working on the circumvention of copy-protection laws and the other half on circumventing the circumvention laws, they could leave us in peace to actually code some stuff that might be worth circumventing!
Sorry. I was just venting...
Plot is discussed, but not ending.
I just discovered gravity. Since no patent or prior art exists, I'm going to patent it and license it to people who pay me enough. The only currency I accept is gnus. Seriously, this is a prime example to see exactly when democracy can fail. That's right, it's not perfect! If the majority believe one thing and you don't you are wrong!
Ah, well, it has happened in history before and it will probably happen again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, right? Just remember, you can't enjoy fame if you are dead.
Before you go to a flamewar about the newest draconian laws the US has passed, fix democracy. How do you fix it, by educating people!
I love Space Quest, about any other adventure game in general, Science Fiction, reading and comedy. Space Quest combined the above elements (with just enough Space Quest) to balance out into one of the most brilliant series of all time.
In fact, die-hard adventurers will agree that Space Quest has to continue, otherwise the Universe's physics is fundementally flawed. Reference: Space Quest IV.
Fact is though, the future of today's youth (and let's face it, today's money) lies with cheap thrills. Shoot-em-ups, no-brainers, multiplayer reflex-only multi-hyphen games.
The nicest games (like quests) will forevermore belong to the realm of geeks. Unfortunately, like every average slashdotter knows: geeks are NOT the majority of the population.
Sorry for ranting, but it's been a while since I've got karma nuked.
For those of you who know the difference between QT and Quicktime, take heed! There is hope! I've successfully played some Quicktime movies using WINE. Everybody knows the Crossover plugin from CodeWeavers. I've also had some very good results with the CodeWeavers version of Wine.
.avi files under my favourite OS!
Unfortunately some aspects of the UI don't work but the movies play nicely. I can't wait until TransGaming's WineX or stock Wine runs Quicktime movies as good as mplayer plays
Does anyone know exactly how crosspollination between these projects work? I would say that besides GNU and Linux, Wine has the potential to be the most useful piece of code ever created.
Please follow this chain of logic carefully... I spent a lot of neurons trying to fit this into my brain.
1 NASA finds shuttles expensive to maintain.
2 They find it so expensive because shuttles expend $400M of non-recoverable fuel, components and morons per flight.
3 NASA might want invest in a project with higher construction costs but lower maintenance costs.
4 BUT NASA has canned the X-33 and X-34 programs.
5 This means NASA is NOT interested in a project with higher construction costs but lower mainenance costs.
Right. Incidentally, since NASA is not interested in space flight anymore (it seems), Bruce Willis is not going to save us when the big one hits. That means the Empire State Building will very soon be hit by a meteor. Poor NYC.
Reason being: written for geeks, read by geeks...
Dark matter is the packing material the Universe came in...
No theory of everything could ever be complete without allowing for this.
Can you imagine that baby burning? The scenario is something like this:
John: Hey Sid? Wanna check out my new Athlon? It's overclocked something awful.
Sid: Yeah, cool. What's that white fire in your room?
John yells some incomprehensible syllables (mostly vowels), grabs the fishtank and runs to the fire
Sid: Hey John! That might be a bad id...
Boom
Ah well... At least they don't make fire extinguishers out of aluminium...
"Linus Torvalds: I don't actually follow other operating systems much. I don't compete - I just worry about making Linux better than itself, not others. And quite frankly, I don't see anythign very interesting on a technical level in either."
Point one: This is not a war. Windows being better than Linux would not cost any Linux supporter anything.
Point two: Linux (being the kernel) does not compete with Windows and FreeBSD. Linux (the kernel) competes with the FreeBSD kernel and whatever passes for Windows's kernel.
Point three: Linux should not follow "market trends". That's Microsoft's job. Linux should give users the option of having a technically superior OS without the benefit of code bloat.
Please take note, all the views above are my own. If Linus has a problem with them, he is free to have one. I believe that should be the philosophy behind Linux.
No! Don't do it!
Please, slashdotters, post everything in metric, except when dealing with nautical measurements (there's a good reason for a nautical mile!). Only America is still stuck with an archaic measurement system that requires more conversion factors than positive aspects to it..
Think about it: the SI system is even used by American scientists! It pains me to see how everyhting is turned into pounds and ounces and how you have to grab a calculator to calculate how many inches in a mile.
CowboyNeal, just think, at more than 2cm per inch, you'd be THAT MUCH TALLER and LONGER!
Boycott Imperialist sites! Post in metric!
BIIG Rant warning...
I see a fundamental difference between a physical design patent and a process (or software) patent.
Yes, a physical design can be patented without causing too much damage to society as a whole. The reason for this is obvious: one problem has many solutions. If, say, a patent on the wheel was taken out, that would spurn industry to think about thinks like hovercraft, aeroplanes, caterpillar tracks and any old fancifull idea.
Physical design patents have to expire in order for them to be beneficial. Small time inventors who get lots of patents (like Thomas Edison) do not get rich. Big companies that buy patents get rich. Think about it: if the FET transistor was still patented, we'd not be having this discussion... Well, maybe over pencil and paper...
Process patents, or software patents (anything that's not physical) are in my opinion immoral and can have no positive effect on society AT ALL. For them to be beneficial, they'd have to expire in a month or maybe six, but that's stretching it.
My reasons are simple. Patent the swimming process. Heck, patent breathing. It's a process, so it's patentable (at least in the USA), and I would say very little evidence on prior art is there.
It all depends on the guys at the patent office, just remember, they are not specialists in their fields and may be liable to file genetic algorithms under animal husbandry. The No Prior Art Requirement is dependent on the amount of money you are willing to spend on the patent and guess what, lawyers are present every step of the way, taking their big, fat cut from the profits you're going to make with your lovely patent!
Finally, process patents can be made so vague that they can prevent the use of any and all new ideas in a whole field. Process patents can be made so that anything that accepts a certain input and generates a certain output is a violation of that patent, effectively prohibiting novel concepts from being implemented, 'cause they're ILLEGAL!
Apologies for the Goon Show references and stuff I blatantly ripped off from everyone else, but hey, it wasn't patented!
Unfortunately the hydrogen problem's not solved yet... Would people feel OK if they've got a highly flammable and explosive gas cannister in their home?
Oh well, think of the pretty lights it can make if you bomb a neigbourhood filled with a couple of them...
Rant warning...
People, this is no longer news. This just proves that everybody trusts Big Brother because Big Brother is always Watching Us and Caring For Us. To prove my point: How many people use the phrase Big Brother who have never read 1984 by George Orwell?
How many people know that George Orwell was just his pen name?
Democracy sounds like a good idea: the will of the majority has to be the right thing. Even though the majority is wrong it's still right.
Microsoft is right. Open Source is unamerican. The American Way is to make as much money as possible by screwing as many people as possible. Ignorance is now a virtue.
C'mon America! Microsoft is tarnishing your reputation! Stand up, show us that you care about something other than yourselves.
Heck, I should talk, I come from South Africa. At least we only pretend to be leaders in stupidity.
A frag by any other smell is still a frag.
Get that sunblock!
I've got an Athlon 1.2 with an AMD761 northbridge and a VIA vt82c686B southbridge.
Guess what, it's got a bug on the southbridge that causes anything on the PCI bus to get corrupted when an SB Live is installed. Aargh!
VIA keeps blaming Creative and vice versa. Good grief people! What happened to standards!
It was my assumption that in order for a card to be PCI compliant it had to pass certain tests. Same thing with a bus controller.
The moral of the story is the following: AMD makes nice CPUs but the chipsets that support them suck. Oftentimes. Intel makes sucky CPUs but their chipsets are nice. Oftentimes.
Lets hope the sucky chipsets Intel are introducing causes the AMD support chipsets to magically improve. Hey, anything can happen!
Too bad, we'll never be able to match that headline. Linux'll never sell... Oh wait! ;-)
Ah well, maybe this upcoming "terrorist war" will have nice spinoffs: more research into intercontinental missiles which results in cheaper launches, research into life support systems to combat bio-weapons and maybe, just maybe a cure for stupidity found by accident (hey, I'm a dreamer!)
In a similar move Richard M Stallman released the much improved newer version of the GNU Public License today. In order to use the wording of the license in existing software, several key requirements have to be met:
... ... ... ...
Firstly, the author must be a staunch advocate of all things Open Source. The author must explain (in 100 words or more) why it is EVIL, insanitary and unhygienic to use any other option. Bonus marks are awarded for a comparison between Shared Souce and Shared Sores. (Ripped of shamelessly from User Friendly)
Secondly, the author must not buy into commercial software whatsoever, since commercial software is like a virus which affects anything it touches, in the end, forcing all software to be commercial.
Finally, the author must not use the term Linux for anything other than the kernel of the GNU/Linux operating system. Bonus marks are awarded if the author uses Hurd as an example of the ideal kernel.
Mr. Linus Torvalds was not available for comment, but upon reading this press release, Mr. William Gates called in his top lawyers mumbling something about "copyright infringement" and "those bastards can't use my own words against me!".
In related news, aliens have just been confirmed to
I can't wait for the pundits to start claming that their pipeline is *twice* as long as their competitors!
Maybe the public'll believe that a 20 stage pipeline is twice as fast as a 10 stage...
Your MHz may vary's gonna have a whole new meaning...
Add some iodine crystals to liquid ammonia (you just need the stuff that's dissolved in water). Filter and don't dry!
I remember the time I made my biggest batch ever. About two tablespoons worth. It was family reunion and I put the stuff in blotting paper on my windowsill to remove excess liquid.
I called my cousin, told him I've got something cool to show him. Took the paper, semi-dry now, walked through the crowded living room, went out the door. Shut the door, said, "This i..." and things got fuzzy here.
Right, next thing I remember my hand was blue-purple, without feeling and I had this zinging noise in my head. He was staring at my hand like he's never going to see it again...
So, the lessons here are:
Well, have fun!
"-and those damned stupid barbarians with their damned stupid swords will win after all..." -- Larry Niven (The Magic Goes Away)