The shiny, bright Federation needs fascist factions and political problems within.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The fact that the Federation does not include any major social, political or personality conflicts clearly shows that it is in no way "real". It's as blatant a disregard for real human behavior as their disregard for real physics.
Even some kind of internal strife within the Enterprise would be natural.
Suppose[1], for example, a situation occurred in TNG where both Troi and Beverly were threatened and only one of them could be saved. Which one would Picard choose to save? Which one would Ryker choose?
Suppose each man truly believed his decision was the right one (for the good of all), and that the other man was being biased and influenced by sentimentality?
Suppose that Picard gave the order to save Beverly but not Troi (or Ryker ignored Picard and chose to save Troi rather than Beverly). As much as the two men might respect each other, that decision would cause tension between their relationship, even if it turned out that both women were saved somehow.
_That_ would be interesting to me.
[1] This may have been a TV episode for all I know -- I didn't watch them all. But if it was, they've ignored the personal dynamics that such a thing would cause.
Very well put. I'd mod you up if I had the points.
I also was a trekker as a youth, even went to a couple of conventions (rode in the elevator with Mark Lenard, aka Sarek). Started losing interest during TNG. Lost it by DS9 (tho I watched the first few episodes) and never saw Voyager or Enterprise.
Personally, I think they started throwing around too much technobabble and ignoring real physics that it started sounding like Monty Python's Thripshaw's Disease ("We can't beam you up because orange bucket of plaster!").
I still think the ST universe has the potential for many good and original stories. I just haven't seen one for a while. [For the record, I saw Nemesis, and didn't like it that much. Bits of it were good, but it was too formulaic for my tastes.]
More importantly than speed, I think, is the fact that speech recognition could not handle colloquialisms (like/. or CowboyNeal) well, and would barf on things like ee cummings' poetry. Such as:
I admit I did not sift through the articles and blogs, but I very much disagree with Kling's arguments.
First, he suggests that CC and publishers cannot co-exist, that the media world is not big enough for the two of them. I disagree with this notion.
Unless I've missed something, CC does not preclude authors from having their works filtered and distributed by publishers, it just gives them another alternative. Moreover, it gives authors who are ignored by publishers a means to protect their works and seek other distribution methods.
Secondly, Kling's quote
"...publishers are adding value, not simply stealing. They add value by filtering out content that people do not want..."
is highly presumptuous. First, how do the publishers know what I do not want? They've never asked me! But more importantly, it is this attitude that causes publishers to cater to the lowest common denominator -- to distribute only what they think a sizable percentage of the population would like. Without options like CC, works by authors and artists that the publishers deem "crap" might never be available.
I myself read a lot of comic books and zines. Personally, I LIKE independent press works and go out of my way to find them. Some of the most interesting stuff I've found has been created and distributed by the author/artist on a shoe-string budget (photocopied on plain paper, folded down the middle and stapled once).
I disagree that such things are crap, just because they aren't on glossy paper, with airbrushed technocolor, aren't produced by one of the brand name publishers (Marvel, DC, Image, etc.), etc.
Yes, there is a lot of crap out there too, but I'd like to be able to judge for myself, rather than leave that decision up to people whose opinions clearly differ from my own.
Out of curiosity, I checked with the OED Online and here's what it has to say:
b.
Pl. viruses. An infectious organism that is usu. submicroscopic, can multiply only inside certain living host cells (in many cases causing disease) and is now understood to be a non-cellular structure lacking any intrinsic metabolism and usually comprising a DNA or RNA core inside a protein coat
Heh. I still have my old "portable" (size of a suitcase) Zenith with TWO 5-1/4" floppy drives (no HD). TWO! No more swapping floppies when you want to run a program *and* save something, or when you want to copy a file from one floppy to another. L33T!
"When I was a kid, we didn't have 'L33t'. All we had was 'Cool', and we were damned glad to have it!"
This is beyond the limits of my networking expertise, but does this mean it's possible for sensitive client or medical information to be passed in the padding?
If so, it seems that this would be a problem with HIPAA.
Granted, the extra bits of a 46 byte packet isn't much space, but then a social security number is only 9-characters.
Well, it's been discussed on/. that news sites sometimes edit their stories without notice. So, it's possible that the article didn't include the bit about which systems are vulnerable when the poster submitted the story.
I'm not saying that this what happened in this case. On the other hand, the article is three days old.
Still, I agree with you about the assumption regarding Windows.
Except that those users that can't remember where their shortcuts are aren't going to set up good metadata in the first place. So knowing that it's about loans isn't going to help anyway.
True, but, personally, I'd rather have the ability to set up metadata than not have that option at all.
Help work to keep employees happily employed (not with bribes - with real career paths, personal interest, etc.). If you keep wage-slaves, expect mutiny
I second that motion. Money is only one means of rewarding/compensating your staff. Respect is another one, and one which often is ignored.
I once did a gig as a conslutant for $COMPANY. When the $PHB who hired me introduced me to the SysAdmin, the $SA was visibly displeased. I suspect that
$PHB had failed to mentioned to $SA that this hire was taking place
the $SA didn't have a say in the hiring process (he certainly didn't interview me)
the $PHB may not have mentioned to the $SA that $PROJECT was taking place.
So, when $PHB mentioned to $SA that he needed to set me up with a computer and network account, $SA gave me the list of all of the admin passwords on all of their servers and said I could set up my computer and account myself. $SA quit within a week after I was hired.
Needless to say, that was an interesting experience.:-)
Slightly OT: At this year's Comic Con International, Marina Sirtis mentioned that Michael Dorn didn't have a real good time making parts of this movie -- particularly the ones where they were tooling around in a dune-buggy thing. Apparently, he was in the back seat all the time and got bounced around a lot.
She also mentioned that Dorn joked that this movie should be named "Star Trek: Narcissist" and coyly said that we could figure out who he was talking about ourselves.;-)
As layoffs rise, so does productivity. The Department of Labor reported last week that nonfarm business productivity clocked an annualized gain in the third quarter of 4% over the preceding quarter.
This makes me wonder what measurement they used to quantify 'productivity'. My guess is that it is somehow related to the number of businesses, more like a per capita amount rather than an absolute value.
If so, I can understand the value increasing as companies who were riding the dot.com wave crashed -- like thinning the herd raises the average strength of the remaining beasts.
However, I also think that it's simplistic to assume that the staff who remain were slacking prior to the layoffs. More likely, they remain because they *weren't* the ones who were slacking. At least, I hope that's the way it is.
I agree. The number of stories like this that are cropping up are appalling (such as cases like the girl in Salem who was prohibited from selling bottled water at her school because Pepsi has an exclusive contract there).
I find it ironic (and sad) that the ones who argue the most for Competition and Free Enterprise are the ones who, in reality, want it the least.
IMHO, comparing learning SQL (or m/any technical subjects) to learning chess is a good analogy:
For most IT people it takes a couple of hours to get to grips with basics of select, update etc This coincides with the sphealey's "1 hour to learn"
Joins, sub queries come next. This seems to fit with "8-12 hours to figure out how to play".
The "5000 hours to determine whether or not you actually understand it" may be an exaggeration, but the point is that the nuances take a long time to master.
"you can do useful work in SQL with 20-30 hours of practice" sounds like a ballpark figure to me, but seems reasonable. "useful work" might be a bad choice of words, but I think the point is valid.
In my opinion, it's like the difference between someone who knows how to follow a recipe and someone who knows how to cook: after a couple of hours, one could be trained to follow recipes -- but it takes longer than that (and a lot of hands-on experience) in order to be a good cook.
Who is worse, the people who abuse privileges/freedoms, or the people who limit the privileges/freedoms to curb the abuse.
Hmmm... interesting question and responses. Just out of curiosity, how many people support gun control? If, say, the US gov't were to propose a law banning semi-automatic rifles (like the one used by the DC/Maryland sniper), I wonder how many/.ers would support it?
IBM's idea seems analogous to the car- or furniture-rental business too. While one doesn't use their car or couch every second of every day, I think most of us prefer to own our cars and couches rather than rent them, particularly if the cost-to-rent surpasses the cost-to-buy in a short period of time.
Also, it seems like this depends on the availability of the services and support. If it's truly "on demand", then that's not too bad. But if it's one of those "send a request and wait in the queue..." sorts of things, then that won't fly with a lot of companies, I'm guessing.
And, of course, as it says in the article: Palmisano said the industry would first need to embrace greater standardization. I'm not holding my breath!
Slashdot Mirror
Homer: Doh!
:-)
Lisa: A deer!
Marge: A female deer!
Perfect! Just perfect!
The shiny, bright Federation needs fascist factions and political problems within.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The fact that the Federation does not include any major social, political or personality conflicts clearly shows that it is in no way "real". It's as blatant a disregard for real human behavior as their disregard for real physics.
Even some kind of internal strife within the Enterprise would be natural.
Suppose[1], for example, a situation occurred in TNG where both Troi and Beverly were threatened and only one of them could be saved. Which one would Picard choose to save? Which one would Ryker choose?
Suppose each man truly believed his decision was the right one (for the good of all), and that the other man was being biased and influenced by sentimentality?
Suppose that Picard gave the order to save Beverly but not Troi (or Ryker ignored Picard and chose to save Troi rather than Beverly). As much as the two men might respect each other, that decision would cause tension between their relationship, even if it turned out that both women were saved somehow.
_That_ would be interesting to me.
[1] This may have been a TV episode for all I know -- I didn't watch them all. But if it was, they've ignored the personal dynamics that such a thing would cause.
Very well put. I'd mod you up if I had the points.
I also was a trekker as a youth, even went to a couple of conventions (rode in the elevator with Mark Lenard, aka Sarek). Started losing interest during TNG. Lost it by DS9 (tho I watched the first few episodes) and never saw Voyager or Enterprise.
Personally, I think they started throwing around too much technobabble and ignoring real physics that it started sounding like Monty Python's Thripshaw's Disease ("We can't beam you up because orange bucket of plaster!").
I still think the ST universe has the potential for many good and original stories. I just haven't seen one for a while. [For the record, I saw Nemesis, and didn't like it that much. Bits of it were good, but it was too formulaic for my tastes.]
First, he suggests that CC and publishers cannot co-exist, that the media world is not big enough for the two of them. I disagree with this notion.
Unless I've missed something, CC does not preclude authors from having their works filtered and distributed by publishers, it just gives them another alternative. Moreover, it gives authors who are ignored by publishers a means to protect their works and seek other distribution methods.
Secondly, Kling's quote
is highly presumptuous. First, how do the publishers know what I do not want? They've never asked me! But more importantly, it is this attitude that causes publishers to cater to the lowest common denominator -- to distribute only what they think a sizable percentage of the population would like. Without options like CC, works by authors and artists that the publishers deem "crap" might never be available.
I myself read a lot of comic books and zines. Personally, I LIKE independent press works and go out of my way to find them. Some of the most interesting stuff I've found has been created and distributed by the author/artist on a shoe-string budget (photocopied on plain paper, folded down the middle and stapled once).
I disagree that such things are crap, just because they aren't on glossy paper, with airbrushed technocolor, aren't produced by one of the brand name publishers (Marvel, DC, Image, etc.), etc.
Yes, there is a lot of crap out there too, but I'd like to be able to judge for myself, rather than leave that decision up to people whose opinions clearly differ from my own.
How about a video game controlled by eating donuts?
Diabelch III, brought to you by Donutech. "Mmmm... Sprinkles..."
The OED -- do you subscribe?
I work at an educational institution so we get it for free. It's a bummer though because I can't use it at home. Oh well.
Personally, I wouldn't have guessed that the official plural form would be "viruses", it sounds too much like "walruses" to me.
So, I guess it's "viruses" after all.
Heh. I still have my old "portable" (size of a suitcase) Zenith with TWO 5-1/4" floppy drives (no HD). TWO! No more swapping floppies when you want to run a program *and* save something, or when you want to copy a file from one floppy to another. L33T!
"When I was a kid, we didn't have 'L33t'. All we had was 'Cool', and we were damned glad to have it!"
This is beyond the limits of my networking expertise, but does this mean it's possible for sensitive client or medical information to be passed in the padding?
If so, it seems that this would be a problem with HIPAA.
Granted, the extra bits of a 46 byte packet isn't much space, but then a social security number is only 9-characters.
Well, it's been discussed on /. that news sites sometimes edit their stories without notice. So, it's possible that the article didn't include the bit about which systems are vulnerable when the poster submitted the story.
I'm not saying that this what happened in this case. On the other hand, the article is three days old.
Still, I agree with you about the assumption regarding Windows.
with some bad dialog (e.g. "if you want him come and get him")
;-)
Bad dialog? I dunno -- PJ has some classic lines in his earlier movies:
"The bastards have landed!" -- Bad Taste
"Kicking ass for the Lord!" -- Braindead
"Your mother ate my dog!" -- Braindead
I mean, come on, what more do you want?
Except that those users that can't remember where their shortcuts are aren't going to set up good metadata in the first place. So knowing that it's about loans isn't going to help anyway.
True, but, personally, I'd rather have the ability to set up metadata than not have that option at all.
I second that motion. Money is only one means of rewarding/compensating your staff. Respect is another one, and one which often is ignored.
I once did a gig as a conslutant for $COMPANY. When the $PHB who hired me introduced me to the SysAdmin, the $SA was visibly displeased. I suspect that
- $PHB had failed to mentioned to $SA that this hire was taking place
- the $SA didn't have a say in the hiring process (he certainly didn't interview me)
- the $PHB may not have mentioned to the $SA that $PROJECT was taking place.
So, when $PHB mentioned to $SA that he needed to set me up with a computer and network account, $SA gave me the list of all of the admin passwords on all of their servers and said I could set up my computer and account myself. $SA quit within a week after I was hired.Needless to say, that was an interesting experience.
Slightly OT:
;-)
At this year's Comic Con International, Marina Sirtis mentioned that Michael Dorn didn't have a real good time making parts of this movie -- particularly the ones where they were tooling around in a dune-buggy thing. Apparently, he was in the back seat all the time and got bounced around a lot.
She also mentioned that Dorn joked that this movie should be named "Star Trek: Narcissist" and coyly said that we could figure out who he was talking about ourselves.
The ASIMO's lawyer was quoted as saying "1001001110001010".
As layoffs rise, so does productivity. The Department of Labor reported last week that nonfarm business productivity clocked an annualized gain in the third quarter of 4% over the preceding quarter.
This makes me wonder what measurement they used to quantify 'productivity'. My guess is that it is somehow related to the number of businesses, more like a per capita amount rather than an absolute value.
If so, I can understand the value increasing as companies who were riding the dot.com wave crashed -- like thinning the herd raises the average strength of the remaining beasts.
However, I also think that it's simplistic to assume that the staff who remain were slacking prior to the layoffs. More likely, they remain because they *weren't* the ones who were slacking. At least, I hope that's the way it is.
I agree. The number of stories like this that are cropping up are appalling (such as cases like the girl in Salem who was prohibited from selling bottled water at her school because Pepsi has an exclusive contract there).
I find it ironic (and sad) that the ones who argue the most for Competition and Free Enterprise are the ones who, in reality, want it the least.
IMHO, comparing learning SQL (or m/any technical subjects) to learning chess is a good analogy:
For most IT people it takes a couple of hours to get to grips with basics of select, update etc
This coincides with the sphealey's "1 hour to learn"
Joins, sub queries come next.
This seems to fit with "8-12 hours to figure out how to play".
The "5000 hours to determine whether or not you actually understand it" may be an exaggeration, but the point is that the nuances take a long time to master.
"you can do useful work in SQL with 20-30 hours of practice" sounds like a ballpark figure to me, but seems reasonable. "useful work" might be a bad choice of words, but I think the point is valid.
In my opinion, it's like the difference between someone who knows how to follow a recipe and someone who knows how to cook: after a couple of hours, one could be trained to follow recipes -- but it takes longer than that (and a lot of hands-on experience) in order to be a good cook.
In another study, researchers have discovered that the tech industry emits lethal amounts of PHBs[1].
Common symptoms of exposure to PHBs includes irritability, fatigue, nausea and rectal leakage.
If you suspect that you are one of the millions of workers who have been exposed, you are encouraged to visit your nearest BAR[2] for treatment.
[1] Pointy-Haired Boss
[2] Benevolent Alcohol Repository
Soon, all your text editors will be pico! Bwahahaha!
Who is worse, the people who abuse privileges/freedoms, or the people who limit the privileges/freedoms to curb the abuse.
/.ers would support it?
Hmmm... interesting question and responses. Just out of curiosity, how many people support gun control? If, say, the US gov't were to propose a law banning semi-automatic rifles (like the one used by the DC/Maryland sniper), I wonder how many
It is All Saint's Day, though, and a Day of the Dead.
Good points.
IBM's idea seems analogous to the car- or furniture-rental business too. While one doesn't use their car or couch every second of every day, I think most of us prefer to own our cars and couches rather than rent them, particularly if the cost-to-rent surpasses the cost-to-buy in a short period of time.
Also, it seems like this depends on the availability of the services and support. If it's truly "on demand", then that's not too bad. But if it's one of those "send a request and wait in the queue..." sorts of things, then that won't fly with a lot of companies, I'm guessing.
And, of course, as it says in the article: Palmisano said the industry would first need to embrace greater standardization. I'm not holding my breath!