This is an uncanningly accurate description of the friend of mine who introduced me to slackware. I (well, we) still use Slackware ten years later so the description must also fit me, but I never looked at myself in this way...
Re:working backwards
on
Flying By Brain
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What I don't understand is why a bunch of neuron cells should be interested in keeping an imaginary plane in the imaginary air. To be able to learn this it has to have gotten some sort of rewards or punishments I think. How did they learn those neurons to fly that plane?
I was born in Holland in '68 and I can't remember anyone taking a portable radio with them to school until the walkman became popular. So apparently that was different in America.
In 1957 (I think it was) my father had a subscription to the 'Arend', which was a Dutch version of the American magazine Eagle, a magazine for boys and girls of around 13 years old. He still has these magazines, and in there is an item about the soap box radio, which was the size and shape of one of those plastic boxes you use to carry a bar of soap around in while traveling. For that time it was an amazing thing: suddenly you had radio everywhere because it was battery powered AND portable. It's actually quite strange that we had to wait until the invention of the walkman in the 1980's before portable music really became popular because the technology has been around since the late '50's.
You're right. He really was a superman. But I guess if your life is hard due to health problems you have to stay out of the spotlights, and then people easily forget you.
A much more interesting question is if this car is really as environmentally clean as BMW claims. Yes, for the production of hydrogen fossil fuels are used and they pollute, but this pollution is centralized and therefore easier to keep under control. However, the hydrogen is burned at high temperatures inside the piston engine in this car. Because air from the atmosphere, which contains about 80% of nitrogen, is used, nitric oxides will be formed. These are responsible for a big part of the pollution problems we have in our cities today. In a fuel cell the hydrogen is 'burned' (oxidized) at a much lower temperature and these nitric oxides are not formed. Of course the piston-engine powered car will be cheaper than a fuel cell-electrically powered car, but I prefer the latter, especially in heavily crowded urban areas.
The only far-fetched assumption I found in the design of the contest itself was the assumption that in 2250 A.D., there would still be a social entity called family...
We've had families for thousands of years. Why would we suddenly get rid of them? I think the only way to get rid of families is by cloning people, and that is not a good idea.
What happened to 'security through obscurity'? MS was allways opposed to open source because of security reasons. Now they turned around like a leaf on a tree, it seems.
Well I think they deserve the attention. About a week ago I wined about things I thought Firefox and Thunderbird could not do, but I switched and I must say it's far better than I expected. This is a great browser. I especially like the way almost everything is configurable. I think I'll stick to this for a long time to come.
Last week I complained about Thunderbird not being able to import mail from Mozilla on the Mac. Today I checked out TB for Linux, and that CAN import all mail and settings from Mozilla. It didn't work perfectly but it worked, and since I use my Linux computer the most I spend the last 2 hours switching all my machines to Mozilla Firefox & T-bird. It works fine. I think I won't switch back to the Mozilla suite again.
I would say that with Linux we have the best of both worlds. Some commercial programs are certainly worth buying for Linux, while for other applications a free program might be best. Linux is more and more all about freedom of choice.
Honestly, it's not a good idea to have a multi-party system.
I am very much opposed to this view. In a two-party system you will automatically get two extreme views, left and right, because the two parties have to exaggerate their differences to get as many voters as they can. I think this is partly responsible for the weird distorted view many Americans have of the world. A multi-party system allows for nuances, which is good because opinions of the voters are better represented in the government (so many % extreme right, so many % extreme left, so many % somewhere in the middle, etc.). The parties participating in an election can not exaggerate too much because they do not want to be too much comparable with other parties that have more (or less) extreme views on certain subjects.
Write to the press about it. Writing is free, and if you phrase the story well and there are no new nuclear tests in Korea there is a chance that the press will bring this news ot the public.
If I like only one of the two then I can just as well keep using Mozilla for both. I'll just wait a while longer. I grant you, there's not much to complain about.
Last week I tried Firefox and Thunderbird on the Mac to see if they were good for replacement of the Mozilla suite, but I was disappointed. The Mozilla browser has a few features that I missed in Firefox (not too much though because I can't even remember which), but I was really disappointed to see that I couldn't even import my e-mail in Firefox. Yes I know that you can copy some vague directory to some other place and have ALL mozilla mail and preferences copied but a few buttons in a configuration window is so much nicer! I guess all that I like in Mozilla is just around the corner for Firefox et al., so I will keep trying them from time to time.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an uncanningly accurate description of the friend of mine who introduced me to slackware. I (well, we) still use Slackware ten years later so the description must also fit me, but I never looked at myself in this way...
What I don't understand is why a bunch of neuron cells should be interested in keeping an imaginary plane in the imaginary air. To be able to learn this it has to have gotten some sort of rewards or punishments I think. How did they learn those neurons to fly that plane?
I was born in Holland in '68 and I can't remember anyone taking a portable radio with them to school until the walkman became popular. So apparently that was different in America.
In 1957 (I think it was) my father had a subscription to the 'Arend', which was a Dutch version of the American magazine Eagle, a magazine for boys and girls of around 13 years old. He still has these magazines, and in there is an item about the soap box radio, which was the size and shape of one of those plastic boxes you use to carry a bar of soap around in while traveling. For that time it was an amazing thing: suddenly you had radio everywhere because it was battery powered AND portable. It's actually quite strange that we had to wait until the invention of the walkman in the 1980's before portable music really became popular because the technology has been around since the late '50's.
You're right. He really was a superman. But I guess if your life is hard due to health problems you have to stay out of the spotlights, and then people easily forget you.
Hm. So now we have two very unsafe browsers on the market. I guess it will be a while before we see less worms and viruses on the 'net.
It's fun to go to the movies with some friends. Besides, some movies you just have to see in the cinema because the screen is so much bigger there.
A much more interesting question is if this car is really as environmentally clean as BMW claims. Yes, for the production of hydrogen fossil fuels are used and they pollute, but this pollution is centralized and therefore easier to keep under control. However, the hydrogen is burned at high temperatures inside the piston engine in this car. Because air from the atmosphere, which contains about 80% of nitrogen, is used, nitric oxides will be formed. These are responsible for a big part of the pollution problems we have in our cities today. In a fuel cell the hydrogen is 'burned' (oxidized) at a much lower temperature and these nitric oxides are not formed. Of course the piston-engine powered car will be cheaper than a fuel cell-electrically powered car, but I prefer the latter, especially in heavily crowded urban areas.
Maybe then I would not have gotten a -2: Troll moderation. I know it was a lame joke but I'm surprised how lame people find it :-)
I don't have an X-box :-)
Is life on earth possible? Sure. Probable? Not really. That nasty oxidizing atmosphere must kill most of it.
From the article:
The only far-fetched assumption I found in the design of the contest itself was
the assumption that in 2250 A.D., there would still be a social entity called family...
We've had families for thousands of years. Why would we suddenly get rid of them? I think the only way to get rid of families is by cloning people, and that is not a good idea.
What happened to 'security through obscurity'? MS was allways opposed to open source because of security reasons. Now they turned around like a leaf on a tree, it seems.
Well I think they deserve the attention. About a week ago I wined about things I thought Firefox and Thunderbird could not do, but I switched and I must say it's far better than I expected. This is a great browser. I especially like the way almost everything is configurable. I think I'll stick to this for a long time to come.
Since switching to Debian I've never had a crash either.
Hm. My Linux system (Slackware) crashes regularly. About once every 5 years.
You may have a point but my machine gives root a # prompt whilst 'normal' lusers get a $:
tsa@Betty:~$
root@Betty:~#
I came here to say exactly what you said.
Yeah, me too! Since Win2000 I've never had a crash.
Last week I complained about Thunderbird not being able to import mail from Mozilla on the Mac. Today I checked out TB for Linux, and that CAN import all mail and settings from Mozilla. It didn't work perfectly but it worked, and since I use my Linux computer the most I spend the last 2 hours switching all my machines to Mozilla Firefox & T-bird. It works fine. I think I won't switch back to the Mozilla suite again.
I would say that with Linux we have the best of both worlds. Some commercial programs are certainly worth buying for Linux, while for other applications a free program might be best. Linux is more and more all about freedom of choice.
Honestly, it's not a good idea to have a multi-party system.
I am very much opposed to this view. In a two-party system you will automatically get two extreme views, left and right, because the two parties have to exaggerate their differences to get as many voters as they can. I think this is partly responsible for the weird distorted view many Americans have of the world. A multi-party system allows for nuances, which is good because opinions of the voters are better represented in the government (so many % extreme right, so many % extreme left, so many % somewhere in the middle, etc.). The parties participating in an election can not exaggerate too much because they do not want to be too much comparable with other parties that have more (or less) extreme views on certain subjects.
Obviously.
Sorry I meant Thunderbird.
Write to the press about it. Writing is free, and if you phrase the story well and there are no new nuclear tests in Korea there is a chance that the press will bring this news ot the public.
If I like only one of the two then I can just as well keep using Mozilla for both. I'll just wait a while longer. I grant you, there's not much to complain about.
Last week I tried Firefox and Thunderbird on the Mac to see if they were good for replacement of the Mozilla suite, but I was disappointed. The Mozilla browser has a few features that I missed in Firefox (not too much though because I can't even remember which), but I was really disappointed to see that I couldn't even import my e-mail in Firefox. Yes I know that you can copy some vague directory to some other place and have ALL mozilla mail and preferences copied but a few buttons in a configuration window is so much nicer! I guess all that I like in Mozilla is just around the corner for Firefox et al., so I will keep trying them from time to time.