Well. Actually, the problem isn't so much with members of a religion committing an atrocity. It's when the *organization* *endorses* the atrocity. Members of any group can do bad things. It's when those members are working in concert that we get things like the Spanish Inquisition.
Which is why I would like to suggest that Athiests have *never* committed an atrocity of this kind, simply because Athiesm isn't an organized religion. There is no organization that could arrange such an atrocity. --
I'm tied to ATI & matrox for exactly this reason.
on
Ask NVIDIA Interview
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· Score: 1
And I'm a linux user who does not play the "Open Source Or Die" game who cannot use the NVIDIA drivers. Because I don't have an Intel CPU. If you give me *any* gnu-style.tar.gz, I can *always* install it.
But the truth is, ATI and Matrox want the Linux market because it isn't as 3d demanding, and they aren't so competitive in that area. NVidia can focus on the 3d performance markets. --
Re:Get used to it. We're in for a wild ride.
on
Spidergoats
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· Score: 1
I like your post a lot, but I think you've misunderstood the poster that you're replying to.
He didn't seem to be decrying genetic engineering, just the hypocrisy that we live with in the US. Not luddite at all. --
They could eliminate cheating. The thing is, with FPS games, where aiming is a source of cheating, client side cheats could never be eliminated by the server. This is not an FPS game. The server could *easily* check every single thing the client reports for plausibility. This is entirely doable.
That's why Quake broke when it went open source - it depends on reflexes, which the client can hack. This is different. So everyone stop bashing open source. It's a little needless here. --
Sounds like Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels...
on
'Snatch'
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· Score: 1
The first movie (LSATSB) was absolutely excellent. And suffered from most of what you describe here, although apparently to a lesser extent.
Thing is, though, LSATSB was really just a two hour long shaggy dog tale. It was entertaining, had no character developement to speak of, and the most excellent punchline ever.
I haven't seen Snatch yet (the movie, that is), but if it's nearly as entertaining as the first, I'll love it despite the lack of character attention. --
Card has said he uses his fiction to take a hard look at personality flaws "such as drug adiction and homosexuality."
So I don't think I'm trying too hard. I didn't look 'till I found out how extreme his beliefs were. And if you reread the passages with this in mind, I'm certain that you'll come to the same conclusion that I did. --
Um, aren't filesystems all databases? So "filesystem-as-database" is essentially meaningless?
Anyway, we already have most of what you're talking about. Just use a filesystem with unlimited attributes, like BeFS. Then index and search. I'm not sure what you think is so special about this idea. --
He uses his novels to push his religious beliefs and his homophobia.
Personally, I'm vaguely opposed to most religions, but I find the Mormon church particularly frightening. His recent books are more overt in their proselytizing, and that (thankfully) is hurting their quality. Unfortunately, some of his older books were more subtle but very very extremist.
The most offensive example was in one of the "Call to Earth" books, a major hero was a homosexual. I remember thinking, "Gee, ain't that progressive," But I later realized that Card only put in the character so that he could do the right thing and marry a woman.
I read his short story collection, where you can *watch* his prose quality degrading, and he does the similar things in many of the stories. It's pretty horrifying. --
This is not, however, the largest source of vanity press material. And it gives vanity press a name it does not deserve.
When an academic press prints a thesis, they are putting their reputation (and good legal standing) on the line in defense of the work. When a person self-publishes their own paper through a vanity press, then they are only putting their own reputation on the line. I agree, that when it comes to an academic paper or something, this could be a little shady, but that doesn't mean that the vanity press should enforce peer review. That was the author's responsibility.
In a more common case, when my grandmother decides to self-publish her memoirs, there's no reason for peer review. And nothing shady at all.
There's no good way you'll be able to compete with Xlibris. I assume that iUniverse "nickles and dimes you with extras" for the same reason that Xlibris does: It costs them a whole lot of money. Every single table, diagram, and peice of formatting takes a lot of attention from a graphic designer. If you think you can do it cheaper, then I'm not sure where you plan on making up for those losses.
And Xlibris already lets you keep the rights to your book. That's the whole point. They are a company that offers services to authors. They make their money when authors pay them for those services, and not so much off of royalties. The service that they currently offer is basically a print-on-demand management service. And they do it really well. --
At least, not entirely. People from Sorensen have said things to the effect of "We would, but Apple doesn't want us to." about less restrictive licensing. --
Why is that right wing propoganda? As opposed to left wing? It's an honest question. Sure, maybe a third of the liberals opposed Desert Storm on pacifist grounds, and maybe another third just because Bush Sr. was a Republican, but plenty of liberals were all for the war.
I think it's just nationalist propoganda, if anything. --
Of course. If you are writing... say... a high-level sysadmin tool, or a mail client, or any other sort of application that is far, far from the machine, printfs are perfect.
But if you start doing anything low level at all, printfs are *completely* inadequate. Writing a user-land threading library, for example. If you're handling context switching, or stack size, or anything even remotely close to the hardware, it becomes fantastically easy to... break printf. In which case it's nice to have a debugger handy.
Of course, for most of the higher level stuff, printfs should be all you need. What our VB coding friends would call "business logic," rarely escapes beyond the scope of printf. But everything underneath that really requires more powerful tools. In fact, debuggers are certainly the best way to tell if 'n' where you're overruning stack size. And they're even more necesary when you're working on machines without preemptive multitasking or protected memory. --
If I remember Robot Odyssey properly, you would complete various logic tasks with a little robot that you controlled. In ChipWits, you don't control your robot. You program it ahead of time, and then let it go do what it's got to do. --
I once tried to figure out who owned the rights to this game. It was really vague, because one of the chain of bankruptcies & selloffs sold itself two different ways. So it's impossible to know who owns the rights to this game.
It involved a little robot that you would program with logic to allow it to get through a room. Pretty tight, considering the limitations it had. --
Most of these NymIP style systems (Zero Knowledge's Freedom, at least) make you have some persistence in your anonymous identity. That is, no one can tell who you are, but they can still tell that all of your activity is coming from the same place. And they could block you just the same as they would in regular TCP/IP. --
Yes. But what if they disagree about the nature of their polution. What if they feel that they have not polluted. It is up to the government to prove that they have done something wrong. Then, they may take money from the company. There is no other safe way to do things.
How about speeding. You might need to speed home 'cause you're late, but that costs society some risk. So. Tax speeding. It would then be up to *you* to appeal.
I feel that this is a very dangerous way of chipping away at personal freedoms. It was one of the few reasons why I disagreed with Nader. I'm fantastically liberal, but I cannot see how increasing the scope of vice taxes could be done safely. --
I didn't mean to pick on X so much, actually. I don't hate X. I don't think X is necesarily the biggest barrier to Linux on the desktop. It was just an example.
If you want another example, just look around. I think that Windows is going to remain king for a long time simply because of the uniformity of the programs available. Not that this has anything to do with the OS design of Linux or Windows. Nonstandard interfaces, like Quicktime, Winamp, Napster, are *not* the norm on Windows. In Linux, even on the CLI, very few apps work alike. If you want to use *only* gnome apps, or *only* KDE apps, then they look alike. Otherwise, there is very little conformity in Linux apps. Even in command line argument input.
Is some distro going to change *every* program so that they're a little more alike? And then modify *every* script in the system? I hope so. I also don't think many old-school unix users will appreciate the change. --
Linux does not have the capability to replace Windows in it's current incarnation, and I can't imagine a way that it could change in the necesary direction.
Any Linux distribution needs to have the proper geek toolset if they want any help from developers. That geek toolset is exactly what a consumer OS cannot abide. X Windows, for example. I wouldn't run Linux if I couldn't do remote windowing (overlapping, not like VNC), but I can't imagine any non geek would prefer that to the GDI accelerated Windows interface. No matter what pretty interface you put on top of it, it will be too unresponsive.
So. If a Linux distro wants to slay Windows on the desktop, they might need to do something drastic like ditch X. And then they wouldn't get enough attention from the geeks they need to survive in the interim. --
Slashdot Mirror
See, that's just funny. I *do* judge Judaism by the JDL, and I *do* judge Christianity by Jim Jones.
The post you replied to suggests, similarly, that all of these religions preach violence.
--
Atheists, even.
--
Well. Actually, the problem isn't so much with members of a religion committing an atrocity. It's when the *organization* *endorses* the atrocity. Members of any group can do bad things. It's when those members are working in concert that we get things like the Spanish Inquisition.
Which is why I would like to suggest that Athiests have *never* committed an atrocity of this kind, simply because Athiesm isn't an organized religion. There is no organization that could arrange such an atrocity.
--
And I'm a linux user who does not play the "Open Source Or Die" game who cannot use the NVIDIA drivers. Because I don't have an Intel CPU. If you give me *any* gnu-style .tar.gz, I can *always* install it.
But the truth is, ATI and Matrox want the Linux market because it isn't as 3d demanding, and they aren't so competitive in that area. NVidia can focus on the 3d performance markets.
--
I like your post a lot, but I think you've misunderstood the poster that you're replying to.
He didn't seem to be decrying genetic engineering, just the hypocrisy that we live with in the US. Not luddite at all.
--
That's a really really expensive hour of battery time. You coulda just bought fifteen extra batteries.
--
They could eliminate cheating. The thing is, with FPS games, where aiming is a source of cheating, client side cheats could never be eliminated by the server. This is not an FPS game. The server could *easily* check every single thing the client reports for plausibility. This is entirely doable.
That's why Quake broke when it went open source - it depends on reflexes, which the client can hack. This is different. So everyone stop bashing open source. It's a little needless here.
--
The first movie (LSATSB) was absolutely excellent. And suffered from most of what you describe here, although apparently to a lesser extent.
Thing is, though, LSATSB was really just a two hour long shaggy dog tale. It was entertaining, had no character developement to speak of, and the most excellent punchline ever.
I haven't seen Snatch yet (the movie, that is), but if it's nearly as entertaining as the first, I'll love it despite the lack of character attention.
--
Card has said he uses his fiction to take a hard look at personality flaws "such as drug adiction and homosexuality."
So I don't think I'm trying too hard. I didn't look 'till I found out how extreme his beliefs were. And if you reread the passages with this in mind, I'm certain that you'll come to the same conclusion that I did.
--
Um, aren't filesystems all databases? So "filesystem-as-database" is essentially meaningless?
Anyway, we already have most of what you're talking about. Just use a filesystem with unlimited attributes, like BeFS. Then index and search. I'm not sure what you think is so special about this idea.
--
Other fun slashdot stories:
Is Windows9x more stable than Linux?
Are home-row commands more efficient than modeless operation?
Do yard-narcs pick on geeks?
--
He uses his novels to push his religious beliefs and his homophobia.
Personally, I'm vaguely opposed to most religions, but I find the Mormon church particularly frightening. His recent books are more overt in their proselytizing, and that (thankfully) is hurting their quality. Unfortunately, some of his older books were more subtle but very very extremist.
The most offensive example was in one of the "Call to Earth" books, a major hero was a homosexual. I remember thinking, "Gee, ain't that progressive," But I later realized that Card only put in the character so that he could do the right thing and marry a woman.
I read his short story collection, where you can *watch* his prose quality degrading, and he does the similar things in many of the stories. It's pretty horrifying.
--
Like those poor unemployed folks that didn't see the "casino" trend dying before it was too late?
--
This is not, however, the largest source of vanity press material. And it gives vanity press a name it does not deserve.
When an academic press prints a thesis, they are putting their reputation (and good legal standing) on the line in defense of the work. When a person self-publishes their own paper through a vanity press, then they are only putting their own reputation on the line. I agree, that when it comes to an academic paper or something, this could be a little shady, but that doesn't mean that the vanity press should enforce peer review. That was the author's responsibility.
In a more common case, when my grandmother decides to self-publish her memoirs, there's no reason for peer review. And nothing shady at all.
Am I making sense?
--
Xlibris rules! (I used to work there as a temp.)
There's no good way you'll be able to compete with Xlibris. I assume that iUniverse "nickles and dimes you with extras" for the same reason that Xlibris does: It costs them a whole lot of money. Every single table, diagram, and peice of formatting takes a lot of attention from a graphic designer. If you think you can do it cheaper, then I'm not sure where you plan on making up for those losses.
And Xlibris already lets you keep the rights to your book. That's the whole point. They are a company that offers services to authors. They make their money when authors pay them for those services, and not so much off of royalties. The service that they currently offer is basically a print-on-demand management service. And they do it really well.
--
At least, not entirely. People from Sorensen have said things to the effect of "We would, but Apple doesn't want us to." about less restrictive licensing.
--
Yeah. Remember when an article was posted about taking a 486 and a Voodoo 1 graphics card & overclocking it using beer and liquor as coolant?
Well, I'd *think* it would be needless to say that it was a hoax....
It was a hoax.
--
Why is that right wing propoganda? As opposed to left wing? It's an honest question. Sure, maybe a third of the liberals opposed Desert Storm on pacifist grounds, and maybe another third just because Bush Sr. was a Republican, but plenty of liberals were all for the war.
I think it's just nationalist propoganda, if anything.
--
Of course. If you are writing... say... a high-level sysadmin tool, or a mail client, or any other sort of application that is far, far from the machine, printfs are perfect.
But if you start doing anything low level at all, printfs are *completely* inadequate. Writing a user-land threading library, for example. If you're handling context switching, or stack size, or anything even remotely close to the hardware, it becomes fantastically easy to... break printf. In which case it's nice to have a debugger handy.
Of course, for most of the higher level stuff, printfs should be all you need. What our VB coding friends would call "business logic," rarely escapes beyond the scope of printf. But everything underneath that really requires more powerful tools. In fact, debuggers are certainly the best way to tell if 'n' where you're overruning stack size. And they're even more necesary when you're working on machines without preemptive multitasking or protected memory.
--
If I remember Robot Odyssey properly, you would complete various logic tasks with a little robot that you controlled. In ChipWits, you don't control your robot. You program it ahead of time, and then let it go do what it's got to do.
--
ChipWits for the Mac 512K.
I once tried to figure out who owned the rights to this game. It was really vague, because one of the chain of bankruptcies & selloffs sold itself two different ways. So it's impossible to know who owns the rights to this game.
It involved a little robot that you would program with logic to allow it to get through a room. Pretty tight, considering the limitations it had.
--
Most of these NymIP style systems (Zero Knowledge's Freedom, at least) make you have some persistence in your anonymous identity. That is, no one can tell who you are, but they can still tell that all of your activity is coming from the same place. And they could block you just the same as they would in regular TCP/IP.
--
Yes. But what if they disagree about the nature of their polution. What if they feel that they have not polluted. It is up to the government to prove that they have done something wrong. Then, they may take money from the company. There is no other safe way to do things.
How about speeding. You might need to speed home 'cause you're late, but that costs society some risk. So. Tax speeding. It would then be up to *you* to appeal.
I feel that this is a very dangerous way of chipping away at personal freedoms. It was one of the few reasons why I disagreed with Nader. I'm fantastically liberal, but I cannot see how increasing the scope of vice taxes could be done safely.
--
I didn't mean to pick on X so much, actually. I don't hate X. I don't think X is necesarily the biggest barrier to Linux on the desktop. It was just an example.
If you want another example, just look around. I think that Windows is going to remain king for a long time simply because of the uniformity of the programs available. Not that this has anything to do with the OS design of Linux or Windows. Nonstandard interfaces, like Quicktime, Winamp, Napster, are *not* the norm on Windows. In Linux, even on the CLI, very few apps work alike. If you want to use *only* gnome apps, or *only* KDE apps, then they look alike. Otherwise, there is very little conformity in Linux apps. Even in command line argument input.
Is some distro going to change *every* program so that they're a little more alike? And then modify *every* script in the system? I hope so. I also don't think many old-school unix users will appreciate the change.
--
Linux does not have the capability to replace Windows in it's current incarnation, and I can't imagine a way that it could change in the necesary direction.
Any Linux distribution needs to have the proper geek toolset if they want any help from developers. That geek toolset is exactly what a consumer OS cannot abide. X Windows, for example. I wouldn't run Linux if I couldn't do remote windowing (overlapping, not like VNC), but I can't imagine any non geek would prefer that to the GDI accelerated Windows interface. No matter what pretty interface you put on top of it, it will be too unresponsive.
So. If a Linux distro wants to slay Windows on the desktop, they might need to do something drastic like ditch X. And then they wouldn't get enough attention from the geeks they need to survive in the interim.
--