I just finished reading another interesting article on science, and the role of the skeptic in science in order to make it work. In order for the grand leaps to be made, someone has to go against the grain a little bit. It may be wholly possible that the postmodernist literary criticism world needs just such a person to come along in order to shake things up a bit. The only problem is, there are no oppurtunities for that person outside of the academic world that the author is talking about, so it may be doomed to fail at the start.
I agree about there being a lot of crap in that kind of discussion, but I also think it is useful in intangible ways. Being an engineer by education, I feel lucky for having the interest in what my colleagues study, especially since a large number of my friends are artists. It's made me a much more open-minded individual as a result, and I'm not sure if it has helped my programming skills, but it has helped me in that I treat most everyone I meet with full respect until they decide that I'm not worth their respect. It actually is nice to get to know people that are into this stuff and get to a point where you can tell them why you think it's all bullshit, and they won't simply disregard you out of friendship. of course, they will reply with their reasoning as to why it's important...an interesting exercise for all.
If you are willing to go out and win, then why don't you start a software company and take advantage of some of that cheaper off-shore labour?
Win one back from HP, and when you're rich enough you can hire some of those employees who do the same job at twice the price. Or maybe it would be better if the government stepped in and stopped that from happening so that you wouldn't have to compete with those off-shore workers at all...
Of course, you have a choice as to which car to drive. You also have a choice as to where you want to live, so to say it is required to have a car means you haven't asked yourself the important questions: can I be employed in my field while living here? If not, should I change professions? If not should I move elsewhere where I can live on less and get a job in my field?
Yeh, that's true, but you still want to pay the amount that you think it's worth, not the amount that the person who is selling it to you thinks it is worth.
I am uninformed on this issue, but do you own a car? How about a big stereo in your living room to go by that nice new TV? how about some credit card debt? I am not making comments to you personally, please don't take it as that, but I think that if a person really wanted to live on a bit less money than the average in the united states, it can be done, and then that person can undercut the other prospective employees by enough to make it worthwhile to hire them. I also think that the job experience would be more than worthwhile enough for that person in the future, it would just take some sacrifices, and if that person didn't want to make sacrifices, well, tough luck for them
I'm not american, so I can't comment on what the loss of jobs in my field their is going to do to me, but I think this kind of thing should be expected if anybody wants the global economy thing to really happen.
This could still be beneficial to the american economy, it just means that many of these out of work programmers should look into some of their own ideas and start companies around them, hiring out to the cheap labour overseas. That would probably benefit more people anyways.
nice choice...I queried the parent post with a film about BOREDOM and SILENCE, which might not go over well, but since quentin is such a "genius", people will lap it up. It's a shame, because I thought pulp fiction was an original entertaining film, and expected more out of kill bill.
I'm not trying to troll here, but if I were to tell you I was making a movies whose main motifs are BOREDOM and SILENCE, and then produce a movie that's over 2 hours long and makes you thankful to leave the theater due to its being the most boring movie you have ever seen, then you should still like it because it was the movie I was trying to make? I don't think so. If the movies boring and you don't like it, the intentions I had when making it have nothing to do with whether you liked it or not.
So, normally I don't get so worked up over things like this, but I liked the first half of kill bill, and then I got bored, and I knew ahead of time that there were two parts to the film, but the cliffhanger ending, if you can call it that, didn't really strike me as that poetic. I still think the movie is one of my least favourite films of the year.
I actually found myself getting pretty bored with the action scenes. After at leat 20 minutes of uma thurman cutting up bad guys, I began to wonder, "what's the point?", and coupling that with the fact that it didn't really have an ending, and I rank it as one of my least favourite movies this year.
There are tales of an 11th-century monk building a primitive hang glider and flying it off the local Abbey tower in Malmesbury. Apparently he got quite far in it until hit by some form of catastrophe which caused him to plummet to the ground, breaking both legs. After recovering from this he decided that he probably needed to modify his design to add a tail, but the Abbot forbade him from ever trying to fly again. Shame - imagine if he had perfected his glider, almost 1000 years ago...
That's alright, didn't all those monk guys go on to perfect beer instead? Not too shabby a tradeoff in my humble opinion.
Is the parent comment supposed to be funny? I really want to know...
Solaris 8/9 and CDE, what could be better...
At first glance, this sentence seems devoid of humour, the Solaris 8/9 could be considered a deal closer by some, but what's throwing me off is the CDE line. Maybe the fact that I've used CDE is why I'm struggling to understand the possible humour content of this joke.
If it's meant to be a joke, than it sure is a good example of sarcasm...if not, than I feel sorry for the guy who hasn't gotten off a box using CDE to try a different desktop enviro.
If the incentive to produce "good" music goes down (less profit), then "good" music will diminish. As there is less and less "good" music, the supply will go down. Demand for "good" music will go up. People who are taking music for free will have less and less music to take for free. The free market over rides copyright and other bad laws by removing the supply of good music, as the incentive to profit is lost.
Of course, it has to be pointed out that humans will still create good music. There is a creative urge within people that doesn't work according to supply and demand. What you are talking about isn't the creation or non-creation of "good" music, you are talking about the means of getting it to peoples ears, whether by the millions, or just to ones friends.
Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your statement. What I'm excited for is the day in the future when I can just send twenty bucks directly to my favourite artists through pay-pal or some similar system, and cut around all of the bullshit. The internet will make that happen, and if you use it right, it can help you find all the "good" music you will ever need out there.
I hope some of the bright-eyed folk who want to use an unapproved 'open' system decide to hop out of whatever country that institutes such a crazy law. It won't happen everywhere, I'm sure.
I remember working at a research firm for an internship, and the head of our department said over lunch one day that he actually spent more time dealing with problems he was having with his computer than actually doing any useful work. I've noticed this with myself also, and even though I enjoy figuring out what's going on with my computer, I imagine many people don't. Email and websurfing always suck away my working hours, what with a PC right here on my desk, and not to mention that I get asked to help other people out with their machines every once in a while, it wastes both our time.
Makes me think though...wasn't it always implied that computers would save peoples time? Has that assumption yet proved that it is indeed true? I'm not so sure it has, although maybe that's because we aren't using the things the right way. Perhaps we are waiting for a computer savvy workforce and then this might be true...but then again, who knows...
I agree with you totally. It's one thing to say that Linux is rock-solid secure, but in the real world this just might not always be true. It is however, a good thing to be able to say that the parties concerned with this particular security breach have been forthcoming to the community. A large part of security is just that. Hats off to the debian people.
That's crazy...I was under the impression that there was no such word. It just seems kind of nonsensical to me...anyways, I've gotten used to it now, so even though I don't use it myself, I can still understand someone that uses it.
Re:Address to spelling mistakes...
on
20 Years of Virii
·
· Score: 1
hehe...cool. I was thinking the exact same thing, because if I didn't make that spelling mistake I wouldn't have gone to the perl.com page to learn the common fallacy. I agree with your sentiments that sometimes you have to tell people the hard shit, and most of the time I have no time doing it, but I just question the degree to which we need to be learned in things...ah well...In any case I'm going to stop commenting on this fecking story...it's a stupid distraction.
best of luck to you
Re:Address to spelling mistakes...
on
20 Years of Virii
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Whatever happened to the playfulness with words that is supposed to be one of the earmarks of the hacker culture?
I dunno, it beats me. I usually like making up words that suit my fancy or that sound 'right', and if done properly, intelligent people will respond favourably to that, even if the word isn't in the dictionary. As for the nitpickers though, I guess I just get kind of bugged when someone points out that 'virii' is wrong in english because of some latin stuff. Cripes, I don't know any latin, how was I supposed to know...
Address to spelling mistakes...
on
20 Years of Virii
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Alright, alright...enough people have commented on my misspelling of the plural form of virus, rightly so, as their dictionaries tell them 'virii' is not a word. Also, I did misspell the word 'applied' as 'applyed'. I used to get A's in spelling when I was younger, but maybe I'm getting rusty, sorry for that. Maybe I shouldn't smoke dope before posting stories...
My question is whether it really matters or not. I don't think the blurb of text is incomprehensible, and since it's not a legal brief or anything like that, there is no binding meaning to the words. I've looked at the comments, and some people have also used the word 'virii', probably without thinking it was wrong. Is there anybody out there who read '20 years of virii' and didn't know what that meant? I'm really interested, as I would be willing to bet that most people who read that statement would be thinking within seconds that the story concerned a plural form of the virus being around for 20 years, or something very similar (unless they were a native latin speaker, in which case they might have been a bit fucked up).
I'm not trying to slam on the nitpickers or anything, but really, what is communication? Is it being able to form coherent thoughts in another human being's brain, or is it following a bunch of rules that need to be updated every once in a while to keep up with our own language mutation that takes place daily?
hehe...I've never been put on a soapbox before because I made spelling mistakes, so to those who really take offense to my spelling, I'm sorry that you weren't able to understand the words I wrote, and to those that 'got it', I hope you thought the story was interesting.
Re:Is there as secret to getting stuff submitted?
on
20 Years of Virii
·
· Score: 1
hehe...I submitted the story, I'll let you in on the trick...you have to misspell a critical word in the subject line of your story, and then slashdot will publish it straight-away. That way, readers with such diverse backgrounds as linguistics, english, and philosophy can get in on the comment action, and the geeks aren't the only ones with something to say. Linguistics nerds are nerds too, as they say.
As the submitter of the story, I feel the same way, although I do get annoyed when a certain friend of mine uses the word 'irregardless'. I would be willing to bet that most people that read the subject line of the story will understand exactly what it means...and someday, when they put 'virii' in a dictionary somewhere, I hope they'll put my name beside it...yeh!!!
Slashdot Mirror
I just finished reading another interesting article on science, and the role of the skeptic in science in order to make it work. In order for the grand leaps to be made, someone has to go against the grain a little bit. It may be wholly possible that the postmodernist literary criticism world needs just such a person to come along in order to shake things up a bit. The only problem is, there are no oppurtunities for that person outside of the academic world that the author is talking about, so it may be doomed to fail at the start.
I agree about there being a lot of crap in that kind of discussion, but I also think it is useful in intangible ways. Being an engineer by education, I feel lucky for having the interest in what my colleagues study, especially since a large number of my friends are artists. It's made me a much more open-minded individual as a result, and I'm not sure if it has helped my programming skills, but it has helped me in that I treat most everyone I meet with full respect until they decide that I'm not worth their respect. It actually is nice to get to know people that are into this stuff and get to a point where you can tell them why you think it's all bullshit, and they won't simply disregard you out of friendship. of course, they will reply with their reasoning as to why it's important...an interesting exercise for all.
Neglecting the fact that all corporations were start-up's at some point in time, I accept your argument.
If you are willing to go out and win, then why don't you start a software company and take advantage of some of that cheaper off-shore labour? Win one back from HP, and when you're rich enough you can hire some of those employees who do the same job at twice the price. Or maybe it would be better if the government stepped in and stopped that from happening so that you wouldn't have to compete with those off-shore workers at all...
Of course, you have a choice as to which car to drive. You also have a choice as to where you want to live, so to say it is required to have a car means you haven't asked yourself the important questions: can I be employed in my field while living here? If not, should I change professions? If not should I move elsewhere where I can live on less and get a job in my field?
Yeh, that's true, but you still want to pay the amount that you think it's worth, not the amount that the person who is selling it to you thinks it is worth.
I am uninformed on this issue, but do you own a car? How about a big stereo in your living room to go by that nice new TV? how about some credit card debt? I am not making comments to you personally, please don't take it as that, but I think that if a person really wanted to live on a bit less money than the average in the united states, it can be done, and then that person can undercut the other prospective employees by enough to make it worthwhile to hire them. I also think that the job experience would be more than worthwhile enough for that person in the future, it would just take some sacrifices, and if that person didn't want to make sacrifices, well, tough luck for them
I'm not american, so I can't comment on what the loss of jobs in my field their is going to do to me, but I think this kind of thing should be expected if anybody wants the global economy thing to really happen.
This could still be beneficial to the american economy, it just means that many of these out of work programmers should look into some of their own ideas and start companies around them, hiring out to the cheap labour overseas. That would probably benefit more people anyways.
nice choice...I queried the parent post with a film about BOREDOM and SILENCE, which might not go over well, but since quentin is such a "genius", people will lap it up. It's a shame, because I thought pulp fiction was an original entertaining film, and expected more out of kill bill.
I'm not trying to troll here, but if I were to tell you I was making a movies whose main motifs are BOREDOM and SILENCE, and then produce a movie that's over 2 hours long and makes you thankful to leave the theater due to its being the most boring movie you have ever seen, then you should still like it because it was the movie I was trying to make? I don't think so. If the movies boring and you don't like it, the intentions I had when making it have nothing to do with whether you liked it or not.
So, normally I don't get so worked up over things like this, but I liked the first half of kill bill, and then I got bored, and I knew ahead of time that there were two parts to the film, but the cliffhanger ending, if you can call it that, didn't really strike me as that poetic. I still think the movie is one of my least favourite films of the year.
I actually found myself getting pretty bored with the action scenes. After at leat 20 minutes of uma thurman cutting up bad guys, I began to wonder, "what's the point?", and coupling that with the fact that it didn't really have an ending, and I rank it as one of my least favourite movies this year.
My favourites: Mystic River, and X-Men 2.
There are tales of an 11th-century monk building a primitive hang glider and flying it off the local Abbey tower in Malmesbury. Apparently he got quite far in it until hit by some form of catastrophe which caused him to plummet to the ground, breaking both legs. After recovering from this he decided that he probably needed to modify his design to add a tail, but the Abbot forbade him from ever trying to fly again. Shame - imagine if he had perfected his glider, almost 1000 years ago...
That's alright, didn't all those monk guys go on to perfect beer instead? Not too shabby a tradeoff in my humble opinion.
Is the parent comment supposed to be funny? I really want to know...
Solaris 8/9 and CDE, what could be better...
At first glance, this sentence seems devoid of humour, the Solaris 8/9 could be considered a deal closer by some, but what's throwing me off is the CDE line. Maybe the fact that I've used CDE is why I'm struggling to understand the possible humour content of this joke.
If it's meant to be a joke, than it sure is a good example of sarcasm...if not, than I feel sorry for the guy who hasn't gotten off a box using CDE to try a different desktop enviro.
If the incentive to produce "good" music goes down (less profit), then "good" music will diminish. As there is less and less "good" music, the supply will go down. Demand for "good" music will go up. People who are taking music for free will have less and less music to take for free. The free market over rides copyright and other bad laws by removing the supply of good music, as the incentive to profit is lost.
Of course, it has to be pointed out that humans will still create good music. There is a creative urge within people that doesn't work according to supply and demand. What you are talking about isn't the creation or non-creation of "good" music, you are talking about the means of getting it to peoples ears, whether by the millions, or just to ones friends.
Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your statement. What I'm excited for is the day in the future when I can just send twenty bucks directly to my favourite artists through pay-pal or some similar system, and cut around all of the bullshit. The internet will make that happen, and if you use it right, it can help you find all the "good" music you will ever need out there.
I hope some of the bright-eyed folk who want to use an unapproved 'open' system decide to hop out of whatever country that institutes such a crazy law. It won't happen everywhere, I'm sure.
This isn't similar except for the fact that I also saw it scrawled on a chalkboard at school:
There are 10 kinds of people, those that understand binary, and those that don't.
The wedding wasn't too great, but the reception was awesome.
ba-dum ching
...and orders a beer. He asks the bartender: 'how much?', and the bartender says, 'for you, no charge.'
ba-dum ching
I remember working at a research firm for an internship, and the head of our department said over lunch one day that he actually spent more time dealing with problems he was having with his computer than actually doing any useful work. I've noticed this with myself also, and even though I enjoy figuring out what's going on with my computer, I imagine many people don't. Email and websurfing always suck away my working hours, what with a PC right here on my desk, and not to mention that I get asked to help other people out with their machines every once in a while, it wastes both our time.
Makes me think though...wasn't it always implied that computers would save peoples time? Has that assumption yet proved that it is indeed true? I'm not so sure it has, although maybe that's because we aren't using the things the right way. Perhaps we are waiting for a computer savvy workforce and then this might be true...but then again, who knows...
I agree with you totally. It's one thing to say that Linux is rock-solid secure, but in the real world this just might not always be true. It is however, a good thing to be able to say that the parties concerned with this particular security breach have been forthcoming to the community. A large part of security is just that. Hats off to the debian people.
That's crazy...I was under the impression that there was no such word. It just seems kind of nonsensical to me...anyways, I've gotten used to it now, so even though I don't use it myself, I can still understand someone that uses it.
hehe...cool. I was thinking the exact same thing, because if I didn't make that spelling mistake I wouldn't have gone to the perl.com page to learn the common fallacy. I agree with your sentiments that sometimes you have to tell people the hard shit, and most of the time I have no time doing it, but I just question the degree to which we need to be learned in things...ah well...In any case I'm going to stop commenting on this fecking story...it's a stupid distraction.
best of luck to you
Whatever happened to the playfulness with words that is supposed to be one of the earmarks of the hacker culture?
I dunno, it beats me. I usually like making up words that suit my fancy or that sound 'right', and if done properly, intelligent people will respond favourably to that, even if the word isn't in the dictionary. As for the nitpickers though, I guess I just get kind of bugged when someone points out that 'virii' is wrong in english because of some latin stuff. Cripes, I don't know any latin, how was I supposed to know...
Alright, alright...enough people have commented on my misspelling of the plural form of virus, rightly so, as their dictionaries tell them 'virii' is not a word. Also, I did misspell the word 'applied' as 'applyed'. I used to get A's in spelling when I was younger, but maybe I'm getting rusty, sorry for that. Maybe I shouldn't smoke dope before posting stories...
My question is whether it really matters or not. I don't think the blurb of text is incomprehensible, and since it's not a legal brief or anything like that, there is no binding meaning to the words. I've looked at the comments, and some people have also used the word 'virii', probably without thinking it was wrong. Is there anybody out there who read '20 years of virii' and didn't know what that meant? I'm really interested, as I would be willing to bet that most people who read that statement would be thinking within seconds that the story concerned a plural form of the virus being around for 20 years, or something very similar (unless they were a native latin speaker, in which case they might have been a bit fucked up).
I'm not trying to slam on the nitpickers or anything, but really, what is communication? Is it being able to form coherent thoughts in another human being's brain, or is it following a bunch of rules that need to be updated every once in a while to keep up with our own language mutation that takes place daily?
hehe...I've never been put on a soapbox before because I made spelling mistakes, so to those who really take offense to my spelling, I'm sorry that you weren't able to understand the words I wrote, and to those that 'got it', I hope you thought the story was interesting.
hehe...I submitted the story, I'll let you in on the trick...you have to misspell a critical word in the subject line of your story, and then slashdot will publish it straight-away. That way, readers with such diverse backgrounds as linguistics, english, and philosophy can get in on the comment action, and the geeks aren't the only ones with something to say. Linguistics nerds are nerds too, as they say.
As the submitter of the story, I feel the same way, although I do get annoyed when a certain friend of mine uses the word 'irregardless'. I would be willing to bet that most people that read the subject line of the story will understand exactly what it means...and someday, when they put 'virii' in a dictionary somewhere, I hope they'll put my name beside it...yeh!!!