My wife has a modified Iopener that is in our kitchen. I use it occasionally to read Slashdot.
The LCD screen on it displays the Slashdot web bug as a 1 pixel white spot above the banner. If Slashdot didn't have a black background, I wouldn't have seen it.
I find it curious, that with all the discussion on privacy and our rights on line, that Slashdot would use web bugs. I imagine that when it comes right down to it they had to make a choice: no web bug or money, and they went for the money.
With all the talk about the higher priciples of Information Wants To Be Free, Privacy, Rights, Free Software, Etc., the inclusion of this tracking technology into Slashdot really shows that the Dollar is really more powerful than some would like to admit.
Robert Frost was an admitted trickster when it came to his poetry. Paraphrase: It takes all sorts of indoor and outdoor schooling to comprehend my sort of fooling.
My interpretation of "The Road Not Taken" is rather different than most people's assumed interpretation. It really isn't that we take the road not taken; rather we tell people that we took the road not taken. (Read all the posts claiming that they have NEVER been to any of these sites, when we all know they have.)
Here is what I base my interpretation on:
Lines 9 & 10 -- Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same...(They were both worn the same, meaning they were equally taken/traveled)
Lines 16 through 20 -- I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence:...(This is what I will tell people I did.)
Lines 19 & 20 -- I took the road less traveled by,/And that has made all the diference. (Refer back to lines 9 & 10. He clearly states they weren't any different.)
So, in a nutshell: The two paths are roughly the same, but I will tell people I took the one less taken. And that this has made all the diference in my life.
The cool thing about this poem is that people who claim it as their favorite poem or that they have based their life on it, etc., are falling into the same pattern the narrator has fallen--being just like the masses, but taking pride in claiming that they aren't just like the masses.
So, get this: Robert Frost writes a poem about someone claiming to be unique when they really are just like the rest, knowing that people will one day misinterpret it and use it as a sort of banner to proclaim their own uniqueness--when in actuality they are just like the rest.
Before I wised up and got a real career, I got an MFA in creative writing. One time we had a seminar put on by some editor for a pretty big "literary" publishing house. She said the surest way for a book's sales to jump was to have the author interviewed on NPR--Freshair specifically.
I love to read press releases from software companies because the quotes from the VP of Neatness or the Chief Cool Officer are made up by the PR department.
But then again, if it is an excuse for a buff Sigourney Weaver to run around in a tight t-shirt, I'm for it. Maybe this time Winona Ryder could be a real person and run around in a tight t-shirt too.
What this really boils down to is an educated consumer.
Most non-technologically literate, people have no idea that they have a choice. "If it is installed on my computer, it must be okay. Afterall, Microsoft is the biggest company around."
Although I find it depressing, most people would have no clue that there are superior product to what MS offers in a lot of cases--or that MS has destroyed technology that had been superior.
Let's face it, Windows is easy to use; AOL is easy to use. They may not be great, but they are easy. Most consumers are looking for less complexity out of their computers, not more. And having to look for better tools would add complexity not reduce it.
Consider this: the most prolific species on the planet is the beetle. It is my opinion that beetles aren't that smart, but they do their job well.
I think the better way to go with robots is the Mark Tilden route--BEAM
BEAM could work for large robots as well as it does for the bug size. As someone already pointed out dinosaurs had walnut sized brains. At the present time AI is so far from being feasible that you would only dely the introduction of truly useful robots while waiting for AI to catch up.
The interesting thing about Tilden's robots is they do inexplicable things like "learn"--they "remember" how to avoid obsticals, etc. Their resemblance to bugs is incredible.
Remember: Dinosaurs disappeared--cockroaches and beetles didn't.
...now, but what happens when the genetic modifications are for things such as eye color, or hair color, or racial traits etc. (And don't say we won't do anything as petty as changing someone appearance. We already surgically alter our appearances.)
We are walking right down the eugenics path.
Frankly, this is no better than a Mengele experiment.
There was a book a in the early nineties called Honey from Stone, by Chet Remo. It has been a while since I read it, but there is a quote in there about how knowledge is but and island in the sea; the larger your knowledge gets the more you realize how vast the sea is.
It seems attractive to grow replacement parts, etc., but I really can't imagine that it is that simple. Even though they "mapped" the genome, they discovered along the way how much we absolutely don't know about the genome. It is analogous to the dark matter in space.
While we could argue about the benefit of genetic engineering, we still have to consider the spector of eugenics. This in itself, to me, seems reason enough to tread VERY lightly when is comes to cloning.
Fungible is a great word. I particularly like to hear it in business discussions.
CEO: Are these budget numbers hard?
VP of Finance: No. The deadline isn't until next Thursday, so they are fungible.
CEO: Well, I think we should try Desotin.
What about the speed at which this happened?
on
Genetic Stone Soup
·
· Score: 1
So, the genome wants to be free. I probably buy that.
One thing you must admit, the actual sequencing happened very quickly. Why? Competition.
Before Celera entered the fray, the Genome Project was projected to take years longer than it actually did. In fact, this very posting highlights the benefit of this competition between private industry and public science. Were it not for Kent's fear of Celera finishing first, he would not have undertaken this "miracle" effort.
While you may find private industry's scientific work distasteful, you cannot deny that the efforts of the public scientists were accelorated by Celera's.
Generally, I err on the side of Civil Liberties (I have even been accused of being a member of the ACLU). So, I have to say that encouraging students to be rat finks is repugnant to me. However, in the aftermath of so many school shootings, the random violence in our urban areas, and the decline of civility in general, I would have to say that I am willing to forfeit some civil liberties in exchange for safety. This however is a slippery slope. Once some liberties are taken it is easy to revoke more.
I think what we are witnessing is a generation of children who have been raised by daycare centers and who are the victims--I don't use this term lightly--of divorce coming of age. The apologists for day care are beginning to recognize that day care is not as harmless as once thought, even though they still tell parents it not THAT bad. Same is true for divorce.
I would have to say that this generation of kids is turning into a pretty good group of nihilists. Maybe we can get our own October Revolution out of this. If they can do such supreme damage at 17, just wait until they are in their mid-to-late twenties.
Even if you signed a non-compete, a non-disclosure, or sundry other exit documents you should be okay. As long as you aren't spreading corporate secrets.
Legally your former employer most likely has nothing to go on. However, your current employer, may have something. Does your company have an Internet use policy in place? If they do, you may have violated this policy if you made your posting s while at work. If you are on good terms with your employer, I would probably give them a heads up. If you did the posting from home, neither your current nor your former employer has anything on you.
So, legally, you are okay, BUT, at this risk of sounding pedantic, I hope you learned your lesson. Seriously, contributing to a discussion about your former employer on a stock forum is just bad judgement, even if you were just telling the truth. I remember the best advice I was ever given about the Internet: If you wouldn't say it over the PA system at a football game, don't say it on the Internet. And as you have learned, these things have a way of coming back to you.
I think the worst thing that is going to happen to you is you will have the biggest regret hangover in your live.
If they go with COTS software, they could be held hostage by some monopolistic corporation.
If they go with GPL'ed software, they could be held hostage by some crazed open source terrorist.
If they go with homegrown software, they will be accused of having inferior skills.
The Open Source community should really look at this as affirmation. Believe it or not the intellegence community is full of brilliant people--they just aren't allowed to spout off about it.
Earlier today we get an article short on technology and long on political agenda--not even remotely "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
Now this.
Granted this earlier article generated a lot "Me too!" and self-sanctimonious, back-patting, and this article is stirring up a good deal of posting; however, Slashdot is spiraling down to "News for the Lowest Common Denominator. Stuff that Sells."
These are similar to what I was talking about. The interesting thing about these things is they fly in the face of conventional robotic wisdom. Mark Tilden creates analog robots, which by any practical sense should mean they have no logic in them; however, he has shown that somehow his robots do make "decisions" and "learn" from experience.
Imagine, a veritable army of these things tending to your yard.
I would hasten to guess that the introduction of satellite television had a great deal to do with it. These kids began to fetishize what they saw on TV (90210, Melrose Place, etc.), and dispare hit when they realized that the deck was stacked against them.
Once I spent some time in a small First Nation village in Ontario called Muskrat Dam. It is a town with no roads in, you can drive on the ice roads in winter, but in summer it is only accessable via air.
The village had had a problem with teen suicide, and we were working with some of the younger kids there.
We thought it would be fun one day to have a relay race, in hopes that the running would help them mellow a bit.
We divided the group into two teams, formed them into straight lines, and explained to them that they were supposed to run down the road to a certain point, turn around and race back and tag the next runner.
To our chagrin, they ran down to the turn-around spot, stopped, waited for the other runner to catch up, and ran with the other runner back to the starting line. The race ended in a tie.
It was a good lesson for me. Particularly in light of the harsh environment they lived in. Competition of the European sort in a survival situation would have surely ended in death for the winners and losers.
On a slightly different note, that is what I find so utterly repugnant about the TV show Survivor. In a true survival situation, a Machiavellian jerk would be banished or killed. That sort of soap-opera chicanery will only minimize the chances of survival of the group.
Slashdot Mirror
The LCD screen on it displays the Slashdot web bug as a 1 pixel white spot above the banner. If Slashdot didn't have a black background, I wouldn't have seen it.
I find it curious, that with all the discussion on privacy and our rights on line, that Slashdot would use web bugs. I imagine that when it comes right down to it they had to make a choice: no web bug or money, and they went for the money.
With all the talk about the higher priciples of Information Wants To Be Free, Privacy, Rights, Free Software, Etc., the inclusion of this tracking technology into Slashdot really shows that the Dollar is really more powerful than some would like to admit.
Robert Frost was an admitted trickster when it came to his poetry. Paraphrase: It takes all sorts of indoor and outdoor schooling to comprehend my sort of fooling.
My interpretation of "The Road Not Taken" is rather different than most people's assumed interpretation. It really isn't that we take the road not taken; rather we tell people that we took the road not taken. (Read all the posts claiming that they have NEVER been to any of these sites, when we all know they have.)
Here is what I base my interpretation on:
- Lines 9 & 10 -- Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same...(They were both worn the same, meaning they were equally taken/traveled)
- Lines 16 through 20 -- I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence:...(This is what I will tell people I did.)
- Lines 19 & 20 -- I took the road less traveled by,/And that has made all the diference. (Refer back to lines 9 & 10. He clearly states they weren't any different.)
So, in a nutshell: The two paths are roughly the same, but I will tell people I took the one less taken. And that this has made all the diference in my life.The cool thing about this poem is that people who claim it as their favorite poem or that they have based their life on it, etc., are falling into the same pattern the narrator has fallen--being just like the masses, but taking pride in claiming that they aren't just like the masses.
So, get this: Robert Frost writes a poem about someone claiming to be unique when they really are just like the rest, knowing that people will one day misinterpret it and use it as a sort of banner to proclaim their own uniqueness--when in actuality they are just like the rest.
Before I wised up and got a real career, I got an MFA in creative writing. One time we had a seminar put on by some editor for a pretty big "literary" publishing house. She said the surest way for a book's sales to jump was to have the author interviewed on NPR--Freshair specifically.
I love to read press releases from software companies because the quotes from the VP of Neatness or the Chief Cool Officer are made up by the PR department.
The real deal will be a device that tracks eye movement as input. You just put on your glasses and start typing.
I would like to watch Sigourny Weaver and Wynona Ryder using the device while wearing tight t-shirts.
But then again, if it is an excuse for a buff Sigourney Weaver to run around in a tight t-shirt, I'm for it. Maybe this time Winona Ryder could be a real person and run around in a tight t-shirt too.
Most non-technologically literate, people have no idea that they have a choice. "If it is installed on my computer, it must be okay. Afterall, Microsoft is the biggest company around."
Although I find it depressing, most people would have no clue that there are superior product to what MS offers in a lot of cases--or that MS has destroyed technology that had been superior.
Let's face it, Windows is easy to use; AOL is easy to use. They may not be great, but they are easy. Most consumers are looking for less complexity out of their computers, not more. And having to look for better tools would add complexity not reduce it.
I would buy soybean diesel if it were available, and I had a diesel car.
It is interesting how many people don't know what is actually illegal, e.g. Napster.
I think the better way to go with robots is the Mark Tilden route--BEAM
BEAM could work for large robots as well as it does for the bug size. As someone already pointed out dinosaurs had walnut sized brains. At the present time AI is so far from being feasible that you would only dely the introduction of truly useful robots while waiting for AI to catch up.
The interesting thing about Tilden's robots is they do inexplicable things like "learn"--they "remember" how to avoid obsticals, etc. Their resemblance to bugs is incredible.
Remember: Dinosaurs disappeared--cockroaches and beetles didn't.
We are walking right down the eugenics path.
Frankly, this is no better than a Mengele experiment.
It seems attractive to grow replacement parts, etc., but I really can't imagine that it is that simple. Even though they "mapped" the genome, they discovered along the way how much we absolutely don't know about the genome. It is analogous to the dark matter in space.
While we could argue about the benefit of genetic engineering, we still have to consider the spector of eugenics. This in itself, to me, seems reason enough to tread VERY lightly when is comes to cloning.
To quote Winston Churchill, "This is something up with which I will not put."
CEO: Are these budget numbers hard?
VP of Finance: No. The deadline isn't until next Thursday, so they are fungible.
CEO: Well, I think we should try Desotin.
One thing you must admit, the actual sequencing happened very quickly. Why? Competition.
Before Celera entered the fray, the Genome Project was projected to take years longer than it actually did. In fact, this very posting highlights the benefit of this competition between private industry and public science. Were it not for Kent's fear of Celera finishing first, he would not have undertaken this "miracle" effort.
While you may find private industry's scientific work distasteful, you cannot deny that the efforts of the public scientists were accelorated by Celera's.
I think what we are witnessing is a generation of children who have been raised by daycare centers and who are the victims--I don't use this term lightly--of divorce coming of age. The apologists for day care are beginning to recognize that day care is not as harmless as once thought, even though they still tell parents it not THAT bad. Same is true for divorce.
I would have to say that this generation of kids is turning into a pretty good group of nihilists. Maybe we can get our own October Revolution out of this. If they can do such supreme damage at 17, just wait until they are in their mid-to-late twenties.
Even if you signed a non-compete, a non-disclosure, or sundry other exit documents you should be okay. As long as you aren't spreading corporate secrets.
Legally your former employer most likely has nothing to go on. However, your current employer, may have something. Does your company have an Internet use policy in place? If they do, you may have violated this policy if you made your posting s while at work. If you are on good terms with your employer, I would probably give them a heads up. If you did the posting from home, neither your current nor your former employer has anything on you.
So, legally, you are okay, BUT, at this risk of sounding pedantic, I hope you learned your lesson. Seriously, contributing to a discussion about your former employer on a stock forum is just bad judgement, even if you were just telling the truth. I remember the best advice I was ever given about the Internet: If you wouldn't say it over the PA system at a football game, don't say it on the Internet. And as you have learned, these things have a way of coming back to you.
I think the worst thing that is going to happen to you is you will have the biggest regret hangover in your live.
we've killed Nevrax!
If they go with COTS software, they could be held hostage by some monopolistic corporation.
If they go with GPL'ed software, they could be held hostage by some crazed open source terrorist.
If they go with homegrown software, they will be accused of having inferior skills.
The Open Source community should really look at this as affirmation. Believe it or not the intellegence community is full of brilliant people--they just aren't allowed to spout off about it.
Really, though, why is this news? Some kids got hassled by the police. There is nothing sinister here.
Man, XFL, Homosexual Adoption, Cops Question Student. This is a pathetic day for Slashdot
Now this.
Granted this earlier article generated a lot "Me too!" and self-sanctimonious, back-patting, and this article is stirring up a good deal of posting; however, Slashdot is spiraling down to "News for the Lowest Common Denominator. Stuff that Sells."
When the XFL is a tough as the New Zealand All Black, come back and talk to us.
Imagine, a veritable army of these things tending to your yard.
I would hasten to guess that the introduction of satellite television had a great deal to do with it. These kids began to fetishize what they saw on TV (90210, Melrose Place, etc.), and dispare hit when they realized that the deck was stacked against them.
The village had had a problem with teen suicide, and we were working with some of the younger kids there.
We thought it would be fun one day to have a relay race, in hopes that the running would help them mellow a bit.
We divided the group into two teams, formed them into straight lines, and explained to them that they were supposed to run down the road to a certain point, turn around and race back and tag the next runner.
To our chagrin, they ran down to the turn-around spot, stopped, waited for the other runner to catch up, and ran with the other runner back to the starting line. The race ended in a tie.
It was a good lesson for me. Particularly in light of the harsh environment they lived in. Competition of the European sort in a survival situation would have surely ended in death for the winners and losers.
On a slightly different note, that is what I find so utterly repugnant about the TV show Survivor. In a true survival situation, a Machiavellian jerk would be banished or killed. That sort of soap-opera chicanery will only minimize the chances of survival of the group.