Even human translations that do not take culture into account can be problematic. Witness the diplomatic fallout from Khruschev's off-the-cuff comment "History is on our side. We will bury you." Interpreted in US culture, it implied that Russians intended an active role in seeking our death and burial. Khruschev was expressing his belief that historical forces would let them outlast us, and they would still be around when our nation died. A more truthful translation would be "We will be present at your burial."
OF course, this has nothing to do with the article, as it's pretty easy to translate phrases like:
A: REQUEST INDIRECT FIRE MISSION GRID COODINATES FZ30948265. INFANTRY IN THE OPEN.
Democratic? Really? You mean it's ruled by the people? Last time I checked there was no sort of voting process. Perhaps you mean that people vote by buying? If that were democracy, we could legalize bribery.
I suspect that what the author meant was "Lowering the economic barrier to publishing for a wide audience."
The problem with MAD, though, is we've lost both the M and the A. Who else can match our arsenal? Who else can deploy an ABM system?
All your other points are excellent.
The point of a moon base, though, would be a resupply base for all your orbital death stars. It's cheaper to get material out of the moon's gravity well than the earth's. It'd take a while to establish the industrial base needed on the moon, though; I'm thinking a permanent manned facility with a population of around 50,000 would be necessary to supply a ring of battle stations in low earth orbit.
"Fear will keep the third world in line...fear of our Orbital Death Lasers!"
The "government" is not a monolithic entity. To the court system, MS is a monopolist. To the executive branch, what's good for General Motors is good for America.
MyDoom installs a back door on every machine it is run in. If that constitutes "little damage" then I guess we should all set our root password to "root" .
True dat. You haven't LIVED until you've beaten doom on nightmare. HINT: everything respawns. A level that doubles back on itself is deadly. Your only hope is a level that goes straight through.
Those of your who have been playing games for 10+ years ARE newcomers. We old skool types welcome you, but really...unless you were astonished by Adventure on the Atari 2600, you are a babe in the woods.
Yup. I covered that, I think, with "I'll grant that it isn't conclusive and needs to be confirmed..." My point, which I obviously should have clarified, was "...to say that there's no evidence is absurd." There's evidence, but it's not a smoking gun in Microsoft's hand; it's a cold gun on the street in front of Microsoft's house. Time to dust it for fingerprints.
No, it's not. I once worked for a law firm and saw the corporate setup of a small ( $100 million valuation) company. It was printed out on a 11x17 piece of paper and looked like a map of Zork - lots of squares and lines and arrows. It showed all the corporate entities and which owned what percent of the others. Byzantine doesn't begin to approach it.
Microsoft discounting server licenses in exchange for action, a deal that involves only three corporate entities, is, by comparison, positively barbaric in its simplicity.
So you're saying that you think ESR is a liar? That he hasn't received a memo from a reliable source? I'll grant that it isn't conclusive and needs to be confirmed, but to say that there's no evidence is absurd.
Most businesses other than Microsoft ARE NOT MONOPOLISTS!
If I could get one thing through the thick skulls of the "Microsoft is a business" shills here on slashdot, it would be that standard business practices are often illegal for monopolists.
And as for MS not suing anyone, au contraire. MS hired SCO to hire lawyers to sue people. Perhaps you feel there's a moral distinction between a hitman and the mob boss who tells a lieutenant to dispatch the hitman, but I don't.
"I believe that if any voter somehow managed to vote multiple times, that it would be detected within an hour. I have no idea what we would do in that situation. In fact, I think we'd have a serious problem on our hands, but at least we would know it."
Right. If I shot you through both your femoral arteries, you'd know within a second that you were bleeding to death. There's nothing you could do about it, but at least you'd know.
In a close election, all you'd have to do is identify those precincts where your opponent had a strong lead. Find a way to screw up the vote on the Diebold machines. Demand that those votes be thrown out. Demand a recount. Sue all the way to SCOTUS if those votes are included. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Watch the republic turn into an empire.
It's a simple typo, you insensitive clod. He meant "dieting." See, unlimited free energy implies life extension, and if you're going to live for a thousand years, you'd want to look GOOD!
Or maybe he meant "dining" - you know, joining together in a celebratory feast. I guess that would mean they already look good and don't have to worry about it?
It's possible he meant "dicing" - either chopping up meat for their dinner, or chopping up celery for their diet. Or maybe rolling a d20 (Save vs Poison or take 10d6 of damage from radiation.)
Hypothetically, the word could be "diving" but that would obviously be ridiculous.
BZZZT! Wrong answer. Bill Gates himself could write a Word macro in an afternoon that would count words the way lawyers wanted. Do you really think that MS is going to let themselves lose out in the most profitable industry in the world over 1000 lines of code?
Pepsi owns Long John Silver's. Pepsi contributed to GWB's campaign. I don't think we have to be wild-eyed conspiracy theorists to think that the CEO of PepsiCo might have contacted someone in the Bush administration and asked them to delay any announcements by a few days...
His response to charges that he is funding SCO's lawsuits: SCO already has like $60 million on hand and our small fee would not go very far defending an action such as this
No single raindrop believes that it is to blame for the flood. Presumably this CEO also believes that donating $25 to Al Qaeda doesn't promote terrorism, or that dumping a gallon of used motor oil in a river doesn't promote pollution. Or that buying somethng from a spammer doesn't promote spam.
"Proof" #1: a=b+c (step 1) implies that a-b-c=0 Thus the division that occurs between step 5 and step 6 is division by zero.
"Proof" #2: Step 4 - (I've an interest in mathematical vocabulary and notation, so this makes me curious. In the US we call this the "binomial" formula. What's your nationality?) In going from step 4 to step 5, you are misapplying the following theorem:
If x>0 and y>0, and if x^2=y^2, then x=y.
Clearly in step 4, the expression on the right-hand side of the equality is negative. There is no other theorem that lets you "take the square root of both sides of an equation.
It ain't a job interview, bud, and the only language that business heeds is $$$. The following hand-written note would be quite effective:
Deer sirs,
Pleez cancl my $1,632,000 accont efectively immeidate. Becus I dont want to be 0WnZ3Erd by the SCO grup.
Send me a bil for the remaning amount.
Sinserly, [SIGNATURE]
Note the dollar amount. On the other hand, an erudite and amusing piece note hand-calligraphed on vellum but mentioning a monthly $19.99 account would receive no attention from anyone who mattered.
FWIW, I agree with you, and give little credence to English illiterates (who don't bother to learn to write) and computer illiterates (who can't click on "Check spelling and grammar). Sadly, I am not running a multi-billion dollar business and have no influence with anyone who is.
"Would you sleep with me for ten million dollars?" "Of course, Groucho!" "OK, how about $5?" "What kind of girl do you take me for?" "We've already established that; now we're just haggling over price."
Judging from your offended statement, I'd guess that you agree with me that there IS a line to be drawn; now it's down to haggling WHERE to draw the line.
A strawman argument would be to suggest that because child bestiality is evil, breasts are evil. I don't believe that and don't mean to suggest that. I mean to suggest that there is a continuum of acceptable content for television. Some things are clearly acceptable, some things are clearly not. Decent, honest people disagree over where to draw the line, but there IS a line to be drawn.
I'm a few days late, but I wanted to say that I liked your metric for rating governmental success - years they lasted * number people governed. As long as you categorize all the people and all the governments, you'll get a good metric.
Still, I think democracy will end up on the short end of the stick; more people have lived under non-democratic governments. It would be an interesting exercise to take a look.
Slashdot Mirror
the intellectual approach is the wrong one
You need to read Feynman before you respond. Feynman approached the problem intellectually and got laid.
A LOT.
Even human translations that do not take culture into account can be problematic. Witness the diplomatic fallout from Khruschev's off-the-cuff comment "History is on our side. We will bury you." Interpreted in US culture, it implied that Russians intended an active role in seeking our death and burial. Khruschev was expressing his belief that historical forces would let them outlast us, and they would still be around when our nation died. A more truthful translation would be "We will be present at your burial."
OF course, this has nothing to do with the article, as it's pretty easy to translate phrases like:
A: REQUEST INDIRECT FIRE MISSION GRID COODINATES FZ30948265. INFANTRY IN THE OPEN.
B: ON THE WAY.
A: ADJUST 100M SOUTH. FIRE FOR EFFECT.
B: ON THE WAY
Machine translation was made for this.
Democratic? Really? You mean it's ruled by the people? Last time I checked there was no sort of voting process. Perhaps you mean that people vote by buying? If that were democracy, we could legalize bribery.
I suspect that what the author meant was "Lowering the economic barrier to publishing for a wide audience."
The problem with MAD, though, is we've lost both the M and the A. Who else can match our arsenal? Who else can deploy an ABM system?
All your other points are excellent.
The point of a moon base, though, would be a resupply base for all your orbital death stars. It's cheaper to get material out of the moon's gravity well than the earth's. It'd take a while to establish the industrial base needed on the moon, though; I'm thinking a permanent manned facility with a population of around 50,000 would be necessary to supply a ring of battle stations in low earth orbit.
"Fear will keep the third world in line...fear of our Orbital Death Lasers!"
The "government" is not a monolithic entity. To the court system, MS is a monopolist. To the executive branch, what's good for General Motors is good for America.
MyDoom installs a back door on every machine it is run in. If that constitutes "little damage" then I guess we should all set our root password to "root" .
True dat. You haven't LIVED until you've beaten doom on nightmare. HINT: everything respawns. A level that doubles back on itself is deadly. Your only hope is a level that goes straight through.
Those of your who have been playing games for 10+ years ARE newcomers. We old skool types welcome you, but really...unless you were astonished by Adventure on the Atari 2600, you are a babe in the woods.
Drudge got a sitting president impeached. That and a dollare will have you set for life.
Maybe ESR was lied TO.
Yup. I covered that, I think, with "I'll grant that it isn't conclusive and needs to be confirmed..." My point, which I obviously should have clarified, was "...to say that there's no evidence is absurd." There's evidence, but it's not a smoking gun in Microsoft's hand; it's a cold gun on the street in front of Microsoft's house. Time to dust it for fingerprints.
Oh, they've got balls, alright. They're kept in jars in the basement of the White House.
"that's a bit too much tin-foil-hat thinking"
No, it's not. I once worked for a law firm and saw the corporate setup of a small ( $100 million valuation) company. It was printed out on a 11x17 piece of paper and looked like a map of Zork - lots of squares and lines and arrows. It showed all the corporate entities and which owned what percent of the others. Byzantine doesn't begin to approach it.
Microsoft discounting server licenses in exchange for action, a deal that involves only three corporate entities, is, by comparison, positively barbaric in its simplicity.
So you're saying that you think ESR is a liar? That he hasn't received a memo from a reliable source? I'll grant that it isn't conclusive and needs to be confirmed, but to say that there's no evidence is absurd.
"Businesses other than Microsoft..."
Most businesses other than Microsoft ARE NOT MONOPOLISTS!
If I could get one thing through the thick skulls of the "Microsoft is a business" shills here on slashdot, it would be that standard business practices are often illegal for monopolists.
And as for MS not suing anyone, au contraire. MS hired SCO to hire lawyers to sue people. Perhaps you feel there's a moral distinction between a hitman and the mob boss who tells a lieutenant to dispatch the hitman, but I don't.
"I believe that if any voter somehow managed to vote multiple times, that it would be detected within an hour. I have no idea what we would do in that situation. In fact, I think we'd have a serious problem on our hands, but at least we would know it."
Right. If I shot you through both your femoral arteries, you'd know within a second that you were bleeding to death. There's nothing you could do about it, but at least you'd know.
In a close election, all you'd have to do is identify those precincts where your opponent had a strong lead. Find a way to screw up the vote on the Diebold machines. Demand that those votes be thrown out. Demand a recount. Sue all the way to SCOTUS if those votes are included. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Watch the republic turn into an empire.
It's a simple typo, you insensitive clod. He meant "dieting." See, unlimited free energy implies life extension, and if you're going to live for a thousand years, you'd want to look GOOD!
Or maybe he meant "dining" - you know, joining together in a celebratory feast. I guess that would mean they already look good and don't have to worry about it?
It's possible he meant "dicing" - either chopping up meat for their dinner, or chopping up celery for their diet. Or maybe rolling a d20 (Save vs Poison or take 10d6 of damage from radiation.)
Hypothetically, the word could be "diving" but that would obviously be ridiculous.
BZZZT! Wrong answer. Bill Gates himself could write a Word macro in an afternoon that would count words the way lawyers wanted. Do you really think that MS is going to let themselves lose out in the most profitable industry in the world over 1000 lines of code?
Why do you think it DIDN'T come sooner?
Pepsi owns Long John Silver's. Pepsi contributed to GWB's campaign. I don't think we have to be wild-eyed conspiracy theorists to think that the CEO of PepsiCo might have contacted someone in the Bush administration and asked them to delay any announcements by a few days...
Good thing Richard M. Stallman isn't 10-20% greater.
Och! You've managed to out-pedant me!
=)
His response to charges that he is funding SCO's lawsuits:
SCO already has like $60 million on hand and our small fee would not go very far defending an action such as this
No single raindrop believes that it is to blame for the flood. Presumably this CEO also believes that donating $25 to Al Qaeda doesn't promote terrorism, or that dumping a gallon of used motor oil in a river doesn't promote pollution. Or that buying somethng from a spammer doesn't promote spam.
"Proof" #1:
a=b+c (step 1) implies that a-b-c=0
Thus the division that occurs between step 5 and step 6 is division by zero.
"Proof" #2:
Step 4 - (I've an interest in mathematical vocabulary and notation, so this makes me curious. In the US we call this the "binomial" formula. What's your nationality?)
In going from step 4 to step 5, you are misapplying the following theorem:
If x>0 and y>0, and if x^2=y^2, then x=y.
Clearly in step 4, the expression on the right-hand side of the equality is negative. There is no other theorem that lets you "take the square root of both sides of an equation.
[/pedant]
Note the dollar amount. On the other hand, an erudite and amusing piece note hand-calligraphed on vellum but mentioning a monthly $19.99 account would receive no attention from anyone who mattered.
FWIW, I agree with you, and give little credence to English illiterates (who don't bother to learn to write) and computer illiterates (who can't click on "Check spelling and grammar). Sadly, I am not running a multi-billion dollar business and have no influence with anyone who is.
I'm reminded of a story about Groucho Marx:
"Would you sleep with me for ten million dollars?"
"Of course, Groucho!"
"OK, how about $5?"
"What kind of girl do you take me for?"
"We've already established that; now we're just haggling over price."
Judging from your offended statement, I'd guess that you agree with me that there IS a line to be drawn; now it's down to haggling WHERE to draw the line.
A strawman argument would be to suggest that because child bestiality is evil, breasts are evil. I don't believe that and don't mean to suggest that. I mean to suggest that there is a continuum of acceptable content for television. Some things are clearly acceptable, some things are clearly not. Decent, honest people disagree over where to draw the line, but there IS a line to be drawn.
I'm a few days late, but I wanted to say that I liked your metric for rating governmental success - years they lasted * number people governed. As long as you categorize all the people and all the governments, you'll get a good metric.
Still, I think democracy will end up on the short end of the stick; more people have lived under non-democratic governments. It would be an interesting exercise to take a look.