Indeed, Finnish is absolutely crazy as a language, on par with the people who speak it!;)
I speak English and French fluently and tried to learn Finnish back when I lived in Finland. Oh, boy... And I thought German was difficult. It must be the absolute most difficult grammar I've ever encountered! That and the pronounciation, mixed with local slang (changes everything) make it really difficult to grasp, especially since people seem to enjoy "bending" the language at no end!
Eh, no wonder Finns are good at CS and engineering... You need at least a PhD to master the language! Still, most Finns keep saying it's "easy for them";-) More seriously, Finnish is a very thick and extensible language, akin to French when it comes to playing with it for litterary or comic relief, which is nice if you understand it (I can only guess).
Bad pronounciation often triggers general hilarity though, something the locals won't forget. I know four of them who still haven't forgotten when I blurped "Tussula" instead of "Tuusula". The difference? One means "pussy bread" and the other's just a small town North of Helsinki.
I went through the same thing for most of my life... Except nobody would give me anything to help me sleep as both my parents and the doctor claimed "I just didn't want to sleep". It's hard being good at school when you never get more than 4-5 hours of sleep...
The only thing that seems to be working without too many side-effects is smoking some good pot and drink a beer before hitting the sack... That's OK when you're 31 but how to get that when you're 12!:P
> Are there individuals who can display immunity to HIV?
Yes, some occurences of natural immunity to the HIV has been observed in a group of Kenyan prostitutes. It is thought this immunity is caused by repetitive exposure to various strains of the virus, but once this exposure stops the persons become HIV-positive.
More info on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/619316.stm or search Google for "HIV immunity prostitutes".
A good motorcycle like the latest Suzuki GSXR-1000 offers you the same acceleration (but not the same top speed), but much cheaper! It's a matter of power/weight ratio, therefore a bike which has a 180hp engine and weighs 170kgs like the 'zuki will have you cream your pants the same way;)
It's not so terrifying, I assure you. Just... awesome!
I don't dismiss the trackability of GSM phones at all, but on the practical side how does it change things for anyone who wants to remain anonymous? It doesn't, and here's why:
- Buy your phone cash, no price plan attached, or second hand (GSM phone aren't simlocked, ie. tied to an operator/price plan, for the most part here except those sold with... a prepaid card for cheap). Anyway, your name isn't attached to the phone in any way.
- Use a prepaid card, change it often. Each time a new phone number nobody knows about.
Now you can call anyone totally anonymously. If you block your ID from the phone, your correspondent won't even get your number. How much more anonymous can you get? Should anyone want to eavesdrop on you, they'd lack any kind of info to begin with. The phone number? It could be any 7-digit combination for each mobile prefix (3 of them so far), with unused numbers being re-assigned after 18 months (the prepaid cards now "self destruct" if not used for 6 months). That's a lot to listen to and analyze. Oh, don't forget you can transmit data as well on those buggers and they can easily be used as modems.
Where do you start if all parties involved, say various members of a terrorist cell, swap phone number and phone regularly, and use them in locations packed with cellphone users? Good luck:) Unless some phreaking and/or direct bugging of the person is done, I don't see how they could be traced phone-wise.
This isn't new at all - we've heard about it a couple of years ago here in Switzerland. BTW, Swisscom happens to be the not-so-former telecom monopoly here, pretty big stuff, not just some random company exploiting a legal loophole. Thing is it's been possible to buy totally anonymous GSM cards here for ages (8 years or so), effectively providing you pre-paid phone number to use in any GSM phone, in and outside of Switzerland.
For about $50 you get a SIM card that you can put in you GSM mobile. You now have a phone number and some initial credit. You can buy credit (a card with a hidden number to dial) from any news stand anytime. Never in the process does your name appear anywhere. You can even buy the cards in supermarkets.
The question of such anonymity was raised several times, but ultimately the decision was that it wasn't possible to require personal information for such items. Since there's no contract and no bills in the system, there's no reason to ask for your name, address, etc. And there's millions of them in use already.
Note that all operators offer such cards. It's a bit more expensive than regular price plans but damn useful if you're a traveler, want to control expenses or can't get a regular plan because of bad credit. To my knowledge, many other european countries offer such prepaid cards now... We just happened to be the first.
Should your knee had stayed in its original position rather than jerk upwards as one of your cortical synapses collapsed, you would have perhaps seen that I did not dismiss the concept of money entirely (which is OT here anyway), but found quite sad that the very essence of our existence is being turned into a commodity. Now, who's being myopic?
The more such a doctrine enters the collective mind, the more we'll see cases where human life is being coldly weighed against money without raising any sort of public outcry. Is that what you want?
I believe it's time to readjust some values, money has become way too important compared to real, tangible things much more important than wealth. I remember being taught that life and health were priceless, and it's a concept I'd like to flourish again. I miss it.
"logical and dispassionate" What are we to you, Vulcans?
In some ways, I believe Vulcans were inspired by Finns;-) What I meant is that Scandinavians, when it comes to organisational/administrative tasks, do not behave emotionally like their latin counterparts. They're... serious and efficient, they don't divert from their task until it's done.
As a half-Swedish, half-Italian person having lived North and South of Europe, it's my appreciation, nothing insulting here;-)
Well, since USA is so ridiculously overlawyered and Europe is not, I would say that the European system works better.
Ahem. Well, that may be true in Scandinavia, where corruption isn't the institution it is in southern Europe (France, Spain, Italy...) and where the massive governmental machines (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are true nanny-states) seem to be working rather efficiently (from my experience). Also, Scandinavians enjoy the ability of being logical and dispassionate, a good thing when dealing with thechnology and legal mumbojumbo.
Try to have a similar case in France and all of a sudden you'll have "higher interests" showing up, with the judge being threatened by the representative who's being harrassed by some minister, himself under the pressure of some big_ass_industry, to end up with the law being rewritten just to protect said higher interests.
Just my.02
Re:Horse poop isn't that bad.
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 1
The ultimate in shit technology is concentrated bat guano. You cannot visit a bat dwelling for any extended length of time without some sort of protection or you will die.
Holy shit!
Got an URL? There's that particular PHB asking around for unusual holiday destinations...
Daimler-Benz is considering charging automobile manufacturers for the use of its patented Automobile concept. Under this scheme, every car manufacturer will be required to pay a licence fee of $1,499 for each vehicle sold since 1893. Furthermore, the McAdam estate representatives have declared they may charge road builders for using the technique decribed by Mr McAdam in the mid 19th century, an invention that hasn't benefited the estate's shareholders as much as the law allows.
Litigation against aerospace industries for unfair competition and loss of revenue is pending.
Officials at SCO said they didn't know whether they would litigate against the transport industry as a whole, but "they certainly owe us a lot of money, and we're in the process of determining the amount" declared a top executive, who refused to explain the object of the prospective lawsuit, adding that SCO "will inform its partners of its new business plan through regular channels such as subpoenas and Utah court orders".
I remember Intel saying the P4 architecture would only show its real muscle past 2GHz, and that was even before it came out. It came true, since any P4 below that mark sucks goats compared to a P3 at the same frequency.
Still, AMD does it better, no matter the frequency...
I wish there were provisions in the GPL (and in other Open Source licenses) prohibiting the use of OSS in weapon systems (or anything else designed to kill or destroy anything but pixels), unless maybe if ALL the involved developers specifically agree to such use. It is my understanding that the open-source/free software movement's goal was to improve some things in humanity's scheme, not bring further destruction.
For example, I don't believe ALL the people involved in Linux (Linus being the first) would specifically agree to having their work being an instrument of Death & Destruction(tm), so one can wonder about the philosophical approach to such a problem - Free Software belong to all but can it be used for absolutely everything?
I, for one, absolutely refuse that any of my work may be used (directly or indirectly) as an instrument of death. I don't want one of my icons or programs to be linked - and thus associated - to somebody's death or misery. I wonder how other OSS contributors here would react if such a thing came to their knowledge, or if it's already come to their mind if it's happened. Any opinions?
I have successfuly deployed OpenOffice at several of my clients' and they seldom complain about having problems with MS Office files. A little training did the trick and they're very happy with it now. Furthermore, it seems their contacts (who use MS) have less trouble (if at all) opening.doc or.xls files produced by OpenOffice than ones made with various versions of MS Office.
Now, we just need to squash a few annoying bugs (like the print preview in the spreadsheet module, still not fixed in 1.1rc3), make a native OS X build and we got a free, open-source, efficient cross-platform office suite that works, no matter the OS it's running on, with a consistent UI. Hey, Netscape got popular back in the days also because it was available on all platforms...
Furthermore, the openoffice file format is so easy and straightforward (just zipped XML) it could just become the ideal ubiquitous file format we're looking for. Btw, I wonder why no other open-source office application can read and/or write it. Shouldn't be hard writing an import/export filter...
Interface and Cobweb are the two books written under the pseudonum of Stephen Bury.
Funny, I happen to have Interface and it's most definitely authored by Neal Stephenson (& Frederick George). They even put "By the author of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash" under the title. It's a UK edition, ISBN 0-09-942775-3
Slashdot Mirror
Is he related to Simon & Garfunkel?
;)
No, but his parents obviously thought he did
Indeed, Finnish is absolutely crazy as a language, on par with the people who speak it! ;)
;-) More seriously, Finnish is a very thick and extensible language, akin to French when it comes to playing with it for litterary or comic relief, which is nice if you understand it (I can only guess).
I speak English and French fluently and tried to learn Finnish back when I lived in Finland. Oh, boy... And I thought German was difficult. It must be the absolute most difficult grammar I've ever encountered! That and the pronounciation, mixed with local slang (changes everything) make it really difficult to grasp, especially since people seem to enjoy "bending" the language at no end!
Eh, no wonder Finns are good at CS and engineering... You need at least a PhD to master the language! Still, most Finns keep saying it's "easy for them"
Bad pronounciation often triggers general hilarity though, something the locals won't forget. I know four of them who still haven't forgotten when I blurped "Tussula" instead of "Tuusula". The difference? One means "pussy bread" and the other's just a small town North of Helsinki.
If Linux doesn't exist, then Darl shouldn't object to the shoving of the aforementioned inexistent printed source code up his ass, right?
I went through the same thing for most of my life... Except nobody would give me anything to help me sleep as both my parents and the doctor claimed "I just didn't want to sleep". It's hard being good at school when you never get more than 4-5 hours of sleep...
:P
The only thing that seems to be working without too many side-effects is smoking some good pot and drink a beer before hitting the sack... That's OK when you're 31 but how to get that when you're 12!
the Duke Nukem: Foreverathon being held August 32nd in Nigeria.
Awww, I thought it was on February 30th! Gotta book my ticket NOW!
I'd rather go with the triple-breasted whore on Eroticon 6! I hear she's an unforgetable experience!
> Are there individuals who can display immunity to HIV?
Yes, some occurences of natural immunity to the HIV has been observed in a group of Kenyan prostitutes. It is thought this immunity is caused by repetitive exposure to various strains of the virus, but once this exposure stops the persons become HIV-positive.
More info on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/619316.stm or search Google for "HIV immunity prostitutes".
A good motorcycle like the latest Suzuki GSXR-1000 offers you the same acceleration (but not the same top speed), but much cheaper! It's a matter of power/weight ratio, therefore a bike which has a 180hp engine and weighs 170kgs like the 'zuki will have you cream your pants the same way ;)
It's not so terrifying, I assure you. Just... awesome!
I don't dismiss the trackability of GSM phones at all, but on the practical side how does it change things for anyone who wants to remain anonymous? It doesn't, and here's why :
:) Unless some phreaking and/or direct bugging of the person is done, I don't see how they could be traced phone-wise.
- Buy your phone cash, no price plan attached, or second hand (GSM phone aren't simlocked, ie. tied to an operator/price plan, for the most part here except those sold with... a prepaid card for cheap). Anyway, your name isn't attached to the phone in any way.
- Use a prepaid card, change it often. Each time a new phone number nobody knows about.
Now you can call anyone totally anonymously. If you block your ID from the phone, your correspondent won't even get your number. How much more anonymous can you get? Should anyone want to eavesdrop on you, they'd lack any kind of info to begin with. The phone number? It could be any 7-digit combination for each mobile prefix (3 of them so far), with unused numbers being re-assigned after 18 months (the prepaid cards now "self destruct" if not used for 6 months). That's a lot to listen to and analyze. Oh, don't forget you can transmit data as well on those buggers and they can easily be used as modems.
Where do you start if all parties involved, say various members of a terrorist cell, swap phone number and phone regularly, and use them in locations packed with cellphone users? Good luck
This isn't new at all - we've heard about it a couple of years ago here in Switzerland. BTW, Swisscom happens to be the not-so-former telecom monopoly here, pretty big stuff, not just some random company exploiting a legal loophole. Thing is it's been possible to buy totally anonymous GSM cards here for ages (8 years or so), effectively providing you pre-paid phone number to use in any GSM phone, in and outside of Switzerland.
For about $50 you get a SIM card that you can put in you GSM mobile. You now have a phone number and some initial credit. You can buy credit (a card with a hidden number to dial) from any news stand anytime. Never in the process does your name appear anywhere. You can even buy the cards in supermarkets.
The question of such anonymity was raised several times, but ultimately the decision was that it wasn't possible to require personal information for such items. Since there's no contract and no bills in the system, there's no reason to ask for your name, address, etc. And there's millions of them in use already.
Note that all operators offer such cards. It's a bit more expensive than regular price plans but damn useful if you're a traveler, want to control expenses or can't get a regular plan because of bad credit. To my knowledge, many other european countries offer such prepaid cards now... We just happened to be the first.
Tell me Mr.Politician, what is more important: Survival of mankind or playing the powermonger game with your politician-buddys?
;)
If the asteroid were a political party, you'd find a great deal of people supporting any effort at crushing it.
I think it's time to label asteroids as "liberal" or "terrorist" to get things moving
Should your knee had stayed in its original position rather than jerk upwards as one of your cortical synapses collapsed, you would have perhaps seen that I did not dismiss the concept of money entirely (which is OT here anyway), but found quite sad that the very essence of our existence is being turned into a commodity. Now, who's being myopic?
The more such a doctrine enters the collective mind, the more we'll see cases where human life is being coldly weighed against money without raising any sort of public outcry. Is that what you want?
I believe it's time to readjust some values, money has become way too important compared to real, tangible things much more important than wealth. I remember being taught that life and health were priceless, and it's a concept I'd like to flourish again. I miss it.
I find it sad that such things like privacy, love and even life itself are being compared to money. It tells a long way about a society's values.
Some things will never have a "replacement value" (that's what it is), but some believe they can change that. How much more materialistic can you get?
Decadence, here we come!
"logical and dispassionate" What are we to you, Vulcans?
;-) What I meant is that Scandinavians, when it comes to organisational/administrative tasks, do not behave emotionally like their latin counterparts. They're... serious and efficient, they don't divert from their task until it's done.
;-)
In some ways, I believe Vulcans were inspired by Finns
As a half-Swedish, half-Italian person having lived North and South of Europe, it's my appreciation, nothing insulting here
Cheers
Well, since USA is so ridiculously overlawyered and Europe is not, I would say that the European system works better.
.02
Ahem. Well, that may be true in Scandinavia, where corruption isn't the institution it is in southern Europe (France, Spain, Italy...) and where the massive governmental machines (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are true nanny-states) seem to be working rather efficiently (from my experience). Also, Scandinavians enjoy the ability of being logical and dispassionate, a good thing when dealing with thechnology and legal mumbojumbo.
Try to have a similar case in France and all of a sudden you'll have "higher interests" showing up, with the judge being threatened by the representative who's being harrassed by some minister, himself under the pressure of some big_ass_industry, to end up with the law being rewritten just to protect said higher interests.
Just my
The ultimate in shit technology is concentrated bat guano. You cannot visit a bat dwelling for any extended length of time without some sort of protection or you will die.
Holy shit!
Got an URL? There's that particular PHB asking around for unusual holiday destinations...
It also illustrates the sort of nightmares any attempts at computerised natural language processing will have.
;)
C'mon, this is slashdot, it's funny!
What was the mod smoking? Too much fertilizer in that one, bro
Funny, I had never seen his ugly face, and the very first second I saw the pic I wanted to beat him up...
Ruined 7 years of yoga! Darl, you bastard!
Daimler-Benz is considering charging automobile manufacturers for the use of its patented Automobile concept. Under this scheme, every car manufacturer will be required to pay a licence fee of $1,499 for each vehicle sold since 1893. Furthermore, the McAdam estate representatives have declared they may charge road builders for using the technique decribed by Mr McAdam in the mid 19th century, an invention that hasn't benefited the estate's shareholders as much as the law allows.
Litigation against aerospace industries for unfair competition and loss of revenue is pending.
Officials at SCO said they didn't know whether they would litigate against the transport industry as a whole, but "they certainly owe us a lot of money, and we're in the process of determining the amount" declared a top executive, who refused to explain the object of the prospective lawsuit, adding that SCO "will inform its partners of its new business plan through regular channels such as subpoenas and Utah court orders".
So they saw Uranus and two small moons...
;)
Is the left moon a little lower than the right one?
Uranus is a gas giant? OK.
My guess it was some prankster mooning (and farting) in front of the telescope.
I remember Intel saying the P4 architecture would only show its real muscle past 2GHz, and that was even before it came out. It came true, since any P4 below that mark sucks goats compared to a P3 at the same frequency.
Still, AMD does it better, no matter the frequency...
***A bit offtopic, but...
I wish there were provisions in the GPL (and in other Open Source licenses) prohibiting the use of OSS in weapon systems (or anything else designed to kill or destroy anything but pixels), unless maybe if ALL the involved developers specifically agree to such use. It is my understanding that the open-source/free software movement's goal was to improve some things in humanity's scheme, not bring further destruction.
For example, I don't believe ALL the people involved in Linux (Linus being the first) would specifically agree to having their work being an instrument of Death & Destruction(tm), so one can wonder about the philosophical approach to such a problem - Free Software belong to all but can it be used for absolutely everything?
I, for one, absolutely refuse that any of my work may be used (directly or indirectly) as an instrument of death. I don't want one of my icons or programs to be linked - and thus associated - to somebody's death or misery. I wonder how other OSS contributors here would react if such a thing came to their knowledge, or if it's already come to their mind if it's happened. Any opinions?
I have successfuly deployed OpenOffice at several of my clients' and they seldom complain about having problems with MS Office files. A little training did the trick and they're very happy with it now. Furthermore, it seems their contacts (who use MS) have less trouble (if at all) opening .doc or .xls files produced by OpenOffice than ones made with various versions of MS Office.
Now, we just need to squash a few annoying bugs (like the print preview in the spreadsheet module, still not fixed in 1.1rc3), make a native OS X build and we got a free, open-source, efficient cross-platform office suite that works, no matter the OS it's running on, with a consistent UI. Hey, Netscape got popular back in the days also because it was available on all platforms...
Furthermore, the openoffice file format is so easy and straightforward (just zipped XML) it could just become the ideal ubiquitous file format we're looking for. Btw, I wonder why no other open-source office application can read and/or write it. Shouldn't be hard writing an import/export filter...
Just my 2 cents there...
You can use Fire for OS X, which works with ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, irc and Jabber. Works OK for me! And it's free!
Get it from http://fire.sourceforge.net/
Cheers,
max
Funny, I happen to have Interface and it's most definitely authored by Neal Stephenson (& Frederick George). They even put "By the author of Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash" under the title. It's a UK edition, ISBN 0-09-942775-3