Oh, how funny it is to read the complaints you citizens of the United States have... Because, you know, most of you seem very comfortable at getting the sensation of freedom, democracy and security when the price is payed by the decomposing bodies of your soldiers in a remote corner of the world. Thus, gathering money to pay for the healthcare of the poor seems pretty cheap to me.
In fact, that very same thing is done in a lot of countries, both richer and poorer than the U.S. If you had a little more empathy - starting with your fellow citizens and then towards the rest of the world - there'd be no stopping you. You'd have to fight no wars, because you'd have no enemies. Of course, you could argue there's no stopping you right now, the very way you are... but that'd just be you being yourselves.
SG1 was a silly show, IMO. I challenge you to watch its first chapter now, about 12 years later. You'll be ashamed of yourself, for sure. On the other hand, ten years from now BSG will be as great as it is today.
Complaining that a lot of people have enough time on their hands? Welcome to Slashdot (but personally, I like being on Slashdot[...].
I didn't complain or say that I didn't like Slashdot.
[...]it's a good way to enjoy myself and you cannot be productive all of the time).
Oh, so you participated in the discussion for the amusement value... We agree more than it'd seem at a first glance then, since I posted in this thread for the same reason.;)
Still, many people seem to feel personally under attack by this kind of things. The tone of their posts, if not their words, suggests that. I thing the term "nerd rage" applies quite well. So, I try to tune it down a notch and put it under some kind of perspective (you know, something like "don't worry, mate, it's not the end of the world"), without trying to insult or offend.
Ignoring the feelings of millions of Java devs by going after Google does constitute evil.
I disagree. That's not evil. Using the word "evil" just because one doesn't like something - even if it affects millions - is a mistake. I'd use the word "evil" for important affairs of the world, not for corportate policies - no matter how wrong or injust - or commercial litigations.
Now, if instead of Google and Oracle and their torts, we'd be talking about a pharmeceutical company deliberately selling expired drugs because it's profitable, or a car manufacturer delivering faulty brake systems, or a food comany dumping food to raise market-price... well, that certainly would qualify as evil in my book.
Two big software vendors fighting in court over a patent is an interesting case study, an important piece of news for us in the industry... but under no circumstances it's a "good vs evil" epic battle, us Java devs on the "good" side, them the "merciless suits" on the "evil" side.
I think that people who have no real problems in their lives tend to find reasons to uproar in the most insignificant events of daily life. I understand that "real" is a subjective measure, so what's unreal and unimportant to me, might a a very important thing in someone else's life... That's just natural. It's a fact that humans , once satisfied one level of comfort, struggle to satisfy the next. I think those investing time and effort in complaining about this kind of stuff actually have a lot of time in their hands...
If by "hungry" you mean "I want another Twinkie to go with my Red Bull before the season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ends, and I don't give a damn about anything else as long as I get what I want", then yes, I am, and I consider your hunger a joke.
It HAD its chance... and used it to become a boring piece of crap.
They cancelled Heroes because it became boring after a great start.
Angel was for teenage girls who are now in their thirties and read Twilight, so that's that.
Bionic Woman, what the hell are you talking about? That was a hideous "Dark Angel" clone reusing the name of a classic TV show, so that's a no-go.
Enterprise... I think that was OK, being yet another Star Trek sibling.
I agree with you, though: you SHOULD stop watching TV...
Evil? Are you serious? Oracle is not "evil", at least not by my understanding of the word. Evil would be to stealing food from a starving crowd, selling weapons to terrorists, secretly building atomic arsenals to launch surprise attacks, creating an ever-mutating virus targeting a specific ethnic group, and the like...
A company buying another one and filing a lawsuit for a patent against a competitor might be silly, unfair, wrong... but never "evil".
A colony on Mars would be great challenge. Eventually, someone *will* go there, just because they can. It is human nature.
But... we have enought problems here on earth right now. Some of them are more urgent than others. I believe any goverment on Earth can think of a better investment than sending a crewed mission to mars right now. Humanity itself should condem such a mission. In a a few decades, though (and once the most annoying problems we have as a species, not a particular country, are finally solved), humanity should applaud projects like this.
The team "evolved" new generations of robots by copying and combining the artificial neural networksof the most successful robots. The scientists also added a few random changes to their code to mimic biological mutations.
They did not reprogram themselves. The team "evolved" them. Note the quotation marks used by the author of the article. They picked the most successful robots by hand, manually reprogrammed them and modified the code to mimic genetic mutations.
I think you're right. If the robots had, without reprogramming, efectively turned off their blue lights, then we could talk about "learning". Or, if the robots could reproduce based on their success on finding food, we could talk about evolution.
Or we could make up new meanings for the words "learning" and "evolution" thus making the statement a correct one;)
You beat me to it... I was going with the warehouse analogy. Or even further: should the owner of the appartment I rent be hold liable for printouts of the ebooks I make at home?
Nonesense.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, how funny it is to read the complaints you citizens of the United States have... Because, you know, most of you seem very comfortable at getting the sensation of freedom, democracy and security when the price is payed by the decomposing bodies of your soldiers in a remote corner of the world. Thus, gathering money to pay for the healthcare of the poor seems pretty cheap to me.
In fact, that very same thing is done in a lot of countries, both richer and poorer than the U.S. If you had a little more empathy - starting with your fellow citizens and then towards the rest of the world - there'd be no stopping you. You'd have to fight no wars, because you'd have no enemies. Of course, you could argue there's no stopping you right now, the very way you are... but that'd just be you being yourselves.
(end of rant)
That's one cool motherf#cker...
SG1 was a silly show, IMO. I challenge you to watch its first chapter now, about 12 years later. You'll be ashamed of yourself, for sure. On the other hand, ten years from now BSG will be as great as it is today.
[...]dry-humping Tricia Helfer (which got tiresome after the second or fifth time).
It most certainly did not! :P
You should read more. There're probably more great sci-fi books out there than you think. In fact, you shouldn't watch TV at all...
Complaining that a lot of people have enough time on their hands? Welcome to Slashdot (but personally, I like being on Slashdot[...].
I didn't complain or say that I didn't like Slashdot.
[...]it's a good way to enjoy myself and you cannot be productive all of the time).
Oh, so you participated in the discussion for the amusement value... We agree more than it'd seem at a first glance then, since I posted in this thread for the same reason. ;)
Still, many people seem to feel personally under attack by this kind of things. The tone of their posts, if not their words, suggests that. I thing the term "nerd rage" applies quite well. So, I try to tune it down a notch and put it under some kind of perspective (you know, something like "don't worry, mate, it's not the end of the world"), without trying to insult or offend.
Ignoring the feelings of millions of Java devs by going after Google does constitute evil.
I disagree. That's not evil. Using the word "evil" just because one doesn't like something - even if it affects millions - is a mistake. I'd use the word "evil" for important affairs of the world, not for corportate policies - no matter how wrong or injust - or commercial litigations.
Now, if instead of Google and Oracle and their torts, we'd be talking about a pharmeceutical company deliberately selling expired drugs because it's profitable, or a car manufacturer delivering faulty brake systems, or a food comany dumping food to raise market-price... well, that certainly would qualify as evil in my book. Two big software vendors fighting in court over a patent is an interesting case study, an important piece of news for us in the industry... but under no circumstances it's a "good vs evil" epic battle, us Java devs on the "good" side, them the "merciless suits" on the "evil" side.
I think that people who have no real problems in their lives tend to find reasons to uproar in the most insignificant events of daily life. I understand that "real" is a subjective measure, so what's unreal and unimportant to me, might a a very important thing in someone else's life... That's just natural. It's a fact that humans , once satisfied one level of comfort, struggle to satisfy the next. I think those investing time and effort in complaining about this kind of stuff actually have a lot of time in their hands...
If by "hungry" you mean "I want another Twinkie to go with my Red Bull before the season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ends, and I don't give a damn about anything else as long as I get what I want", then yes, I am, and I consider your hunger a joke.
Oh! Now I get it! ;)
It HAD its chance... and used it to become a boring piece of crap. They cancelled Heroes because it became boring after a great start. Angel was for teenage girls who are now in their thirties and read Twilight, so that's that. Bionic Woman, what the hell are you talking about? That was a hideous "Dark Angel" clone reusing the name of a classic TV show, so that's a no-go. Enterprise... I think that was OK, being yet another Star Trek sibling. I agree with you, though: you SHOULD stop watching TV...
Evil? Are you serious? Oracle is not "evil", at least not by my understanding of the word. Evil would be to stealing food from a starving crowd, selling weapons to terrorists, secretly building atomic arsenals to launch surprise attacks, creating an ever-mutating virus targeting a specific ethnic group, and the like... A company buying another one and filing a lawsuit for a patent against a competitor might be silly, unfair, wrong... but never "evil".
My attempt at being funny has been unsuccessful, evidently.... ;)
I *do* take a share, by the way, so all's good. Keep the wast going.
So I've been running a buggy browser? Crap, I want my money back.
F#ck yeah, and I want my share!
Avatar had more technology than just 3D. All the other stuff made it impressive, the 3D just contributed a bit, IMO.
I'm out of mod-points. If i'd had, you'd know what I think of you comments.
I came up with a "your mom" joke, but I think I better keep it to myself...
There are. Java has Applets and WebStart. You can do RIA with those.
Java Applets or WebStart. Why not?
A colony on Mars would be great challenge. Eventually, someone *will* go there, just because they can. It is human nature. But... we have enought problems here on earth right now. Some of them are more urgent than others. I believe any goverment on Earth can think of a better investment than sending a crewed mission to mars right now. Humanity itself should condem such a mission. In a a few decades, though (and once the most annoying problems we have as a species, not a particular country, are finally solved), humanity should applaud projects like this.
I don't think he was talking about Cylons; I think he referred to one of the stories in "I, Robot", by Isaac Asimov.
The team "evolved" new generations of robots by copying and combining the artificial neural networksof the most successful robots. The scientists also added a few random changes to their code to mimic biological mutations.
They did not reprogram themselves. The team "evolved" them. Note the quotation marks used by the author of the article. They picked the most successful robots by hand, manually reprogrammed them and modified the code to mimic genetic mutations.
The AI didn't learn anything.
I think you're right. If the robots had, without reprogramming, efectively turned off their blue lights, then we could talk about "learning". Or, if the robots could reproduce based on their success on finding food, we could talk about evolution. Or we could make up new meanings for the words "learning" and "evolution" thus making the statement a correct one ;)
welcome our new wireless overlords.
It was a matter of time before someone pulled the overlord joke... I laugh every single time, though.
You beat me to it... I was going with the warehouse analogy. Or even further: should the owner of the appartment I rent be hold liable for printouts of the ebooks I make at home? Nonesense.