Actually, there are probably more cyberbvoyeurs in the countries you mention, per capita, then there are here. Of course, they all work for the government...
Yeah, and they all point to overpriced "kits" that take five minutes to assemble. Which isn't exactly going to turn you into a skilled technician who can fix everything themselves.
Sorry, taking a bunch of modular components and sticking them into a laptop chassis (10 minutes work, 15 if you're clumsy) doesn't count as "building".
Your "what I really meant" followup doesn't change the fact that your previous post was glib nonsense. Less lip, more thought.
Astonishing. The Turbo Pascal/Delphi meme just won't die, despite one commercial failure after another.
I can understand that. I worked at Borland for 3 years, documenting the Delphi APIs, before the dysfunctional corporate culture drove me away. It really is a simpler, more powerful approach to procedural/object programming. Now I can't stand to go near it — too depressing.
Those parasitic species know how to do cellular reproduction. They also know how to metabolize stuff. They interact with their environment, even if that environment is another species. Virus are just reproduction machines. If RNA is the software of biology, the individual living things are the computers, and a virus is just a floppy disk that can't do anything until you stick it into the computer.
Actually, I think the whole issue is kind of meaningless. "Alive" is a concept we invented when it seemed pretty easy to tell living things from not-living things. Like all such concepts, it tends to break down as our knowledge of the world grows, and the old definitions become hard to apply. We just went through a similar issue with the word "planet".
You are a solid jerk, aren't you? For a counter-example, you had to read no further than the post I was responding to. I don't suppose you took the trouble.
In ordinary English, a hacker is somebody who hacks into a computer system. That's not the way you and I use the word, but we're not most people. "Hacker" is one many words that means different things depending on who uses it and in one context. Language is not a map.
Hackers (in the senses of "improvisational programmer" or "ethical student of security technology") often don't grasp this, and insist that the common usage of "hacker" is "incorrect" — even though the people who use it that way are in the majority. They've tried to get people to say "cracker" instead, ignoring the very small role Nabisco plays in computer security issues.
That would explain it. Probably after the hotly contested election to the Federation High Council of Dubya from the Shrub Planet and his evil minion, The Chaney.
It's harder to run out of magnetic fields than it is to run out of copper.
So Star Fleet puts all its people at risk to save money? Does Federation OSHA know about this?
Exploding Plasma is way cooler than non-exploding copper. I suppose you could make copper plasma, but see number 1.
Which speaks to the number one principle of TV/Movie SF: Whiz-bang is more important than logic.
Except that TOS developed its following by having exactly the opposite priority. The inability of TNG to make that same priority work tells me that Roddenberry actually contributed little to TOS. Then after he died, they gave up on it altogether and went to the old standby of Blowing Things Up.
The old Constitution class used copper wiring, but the space rats and non-corporeal vampiric fart-wraiths kept chewing through it (begin dramatic STOS music). With plasma conduits, the whole ship is one big giant bug zapper.
I don't remember the episode with no-corporeal vampiric fart-wraiths. Was that the episode with the Girl from the Green Dimension? No wait, that was Lost In Space, never mind.
EPS conduits can also predict pregnancy when you pee on them. I'd like to see your copper wire do that!
I think I speak for fans everywhere when I say: EWWWWW!
Except that the bridge doesn't have (or shouldn't have) high-energy devices, it has controls for high-energy devices. When you have dangerous devices that tend to explode, you don't put your desk right next to the device, you put it somewhere a safe distance away and operate the device by remote control.
As for low-bidder construction, I seem to recall that the Federation has banished greed and competition. But I suppose that's just government propaganda.
It took longer for somebody come up with a Star Trek tie-in than I thought. Are we finally tired of that particular franchise?
As I recall, the plasma conduits on Star Trek were always blowing up. Very convenient for the writers in case they need to stage a tragic death on the bridge, though it seems strange that they'd route such a dangerous device into an area populated by so many key people. In any case, plasma is obviously dangerous and unreliable, and I wonder at NASA using it!
I haven't studied COBOL in several decades, but I seem to recall that it's a really dreary language to work in. I knew one woman who was working as a webmaster, but who claimed to be an expert COBOL programmer. This was in 1998, when everybody was desperately updating their COBOL code in anticipation of Y2K. I asked her why she wasn't out raking it in as a COBOL consultant; she replied that she hated working with the language.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, there are probably more cyberbvoyeurs in the countries you mention, per capita, then there are here. Of course, they all work for the government...
Yeah, and they all point to overpriced "kits" that take five minutes to assemble. Which isn't exactly going to turn you into a skilled technician who can fix everything themselves.
So? A usage having more history doesn't make it more "correct". "Awful" used to mean "awe inspiring".
Sorry, taking a bunch of modular components and sticking them into a laptop chassis (10 minutes work, 15 if you're clumsy) doesn't count as "building".
Your "what I really meant" followup doesn't change the fact that your previous post was glib nonsense. Less lip, more thought.
Or does the headline evoke images of Steve Jobs firing up some kind of Mind Control Ray?
Yeah, and the way the Euro is declining against the Dollar proves your point. No, wait a minute...
There comes a time when you just have to do what is necessary and remove the cruft from society.
If I were German, I'd say, Been there. Done that.
That's an unfriendly comment. You are so dead. I mean literally.
Great idea! Can you tell me how I can build my own laptop?
Astonishing. The Turbo Pascal/Delphi meme just won't die, despite one commercial failure after another.
I can understand that. I worked at Borland for 3 years, documenting the Delphi APIs, before the dysfunctional corporate culture drove me away. It really is a simpler, more powerful approach to procedural/object programming. Now I can't stand to go near it — too depressing.
Also in tennis, and probably any other sport where people swing at a ball with more enthusiasm than skill.
Well, ringtop to your snark, old penguin.
Actually, Zorastrians believe that fire is alive. And many religions teach that everything is alive in some sense.
Hmm. That means your security is paper-thin!
Need to work on your sarcasm skills. That one made no sense.
Those parasitic species know how to do cellular reproduction. They also know how to metabolize stuff. They interact with their environment, even if that environment is another species. Virus are just reproduction machines. If RNA is the software of biology, the individual living things are the computers, and a virus is just a floppy disk that can't do anything until you stick it into the computer.
Actually, I think the whole issue is kind of meaningless. "Alive" is a concept we invented when it seemed pretty easy to tell living things from not-living things. Like all such concepts, it tends to break down as our knowledge of the world grows, and the old definitions become hard to apply. We just went through a similar issue with the word "planet".
You are a solid jerk, aren't you? For a counter-example, you had to read no further than the post I was responding to. I don't suppose you took the trouble.
In ordinary English, a hacker is somebody who hacks into a computer system. That's not the way you and I use the word, but we're not most people. "Hacker" is one many words that means different things depending on who uses it and in one context. Language is not a map.
Hackers (in the senses of "improvisational programmer" or "ethical student of security technology") often don't grasp this, and insist that the common usage of "hacker" is "incorrect" — even though the people who use it that way are in the majority. They've tried to get people to say "cracker" instead, ignoring the very small role Nabisco plays in computer security issues.
That would explain it. Probably after the hotly contested election to the Federation High Council of Dubya from the Shrub Planet and his evil minion, The Chaney.
It's harder to run out of magnetic fields than it is to run out of copper.
So Star Fleet puts all its people at risk to save money? Does Federation OSHA know about this?
Exploding Plasma is way cooler than non-exploding copper. I suppose you could make copper plasma, but see number 1.
Which speaks to the number one principle of TV/Movie SF: Whiz-bang is more important than logic.
Except that TOS developed its following by having exactly the opposite priority. The inability of TNG to make that same priority work tells me that Roddenberry actually contributed little to TOS. Then after he died, they gave up on it altogether and went to the old standby of Blowing Things Up.
The old Constitution class used copper wiring, but the space rats and non-corporeal vampiric fart-wraiths kept chewing through it (begin dramatic STOS music). With plasma conduits, the whole ship is one big giant bug zapper.
I don't remember the episode with no-corporeal vampiric fart-wraiths. Was that the episode with the Girl from the Green Dimension? No wait, that was Lost In Space, never mind.
EPS conduits can also predict pregnancy when you pee on them. I'd like to see your copper wire do that!
I think I speak for fans everywhere when I say: EWWWWW!
Except that the bridge doesn't have (or shouldn't have) high-energy devices, it has controls for high-energy devices. When you have dangerous devices that tend to explode, you don't put your desk right next to the device, you put it somewhere a safe distance away and operate the device by remote control.
As for low-bidder construction, I seem to recall that the Federation has banished greed and competition. But I suppose that's just government propaganda.
And this is superior to simple (relatively non-lethal) copper wires because...?
It took longer for somebody come up with a Star Trek tie-in than I thought. Are we finally tired of that particular franchise?
As I recall, the plasma conduits on Star Trek were always blowing up. Very convenient for the writers in case they need to stage a tragic death on the bridge, though it seems strange that they'd route such a dangerous device into an area populated by so many key people. In any case, plasma is obviously dangerous and unreliable, and I wonder at NASA using it!
I'm reminded of a song popular in my 3rd grade class:
Brush your teeth with Sani-Flush.
You don't even need a brush.
1-2-3 you put it on.
4-5-6 your teeth are gone!
I haven't studied COBOL in several decades, but I seem to recall that it's a really dreary language to work in. I knew one woman who was working as a webmaster, but who claimed to be an expert COBOL programmer. This was in 1998, when everybody was desperately updating their COBOL code in anticipation of Y2K. I asked her why she wasn't out raking it in as a COBOL consultant; she replied that she hated working with the language.