> Yes, as always, the things scientists are so definately sure about (and use to prove other theories) turn out to be wrong. Just wait till we find out that man lived before and during dinosaurs, and that the most renound prehistoric fossils and cave paintings are just a few hundred years old.
Sounds typical indeed. Perhaps you were not aware that:
a) it is extremely rare that scientists, other than mathematicians, ever "prove" anything, or claim to do so, and
b) science is self-correcting by nature.
ps - A google on "scientific method" turns up 147,000 hits. Maybe you'll find one or two of them useful.
Feeding the Slashdot trolls since 1999 (or thereabouts).
> I remember when I was 4 years old or so, there was a poster above my bed (I didn't put it there), something to do with the Hobbit. It was a map, IIRC, with a big picture of Smaug on it. It scared the hell out of me. Like Bart Simpson's clown bed. I had nightmares.
I went to see the "Dinomation" mechanically animated dinosaurs (complete with roars coming out the arses of a few with unfortunate internal speaker placements) way back when it toured my local natural sciences museum. A man was there holding his little kid over the fence so the kid could get a closer look. The kid was kicking and screaming bloody murder, but the man apparently thought the kid was complaining about not being able to get a closer view, so the man just kept leaning further over the fence and pushing the kid closer and closer to the nearest dinosaur.
Now I think I know how irrational phobias come about. I wonder if the kid went to see Jurassic Park when he grew up.
> And so, The Hobbit isn't a "perfect fit" with the newer material about the LOTR universe but it is a part of it.
FWIW, from a "Note on the Text" just after the TOC on my Houghton-Mifflin edition of The Hobbit:
The Hobbit was first published in September 1937. Its 1951 second edition (fifth impression) contains a significantly revised portion of Chapter V, Riddles in the Dark, which was done in order to bring the storyline of The Hobbit more in line with its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, then in progress.
> Does anyone here actually know what was the actual content of this declaration?
No, I asked to see it, but they wanted me to sign some kind of declaration of goodwill before showing it to me, and I declined. So they wouldn't show it to me.
Lord of the Rings: The Subtext Chronicle is a retelling of JRR Tolkien's popular Lord of the Rings, but placed in a realistic modern setting.
Stripped of its mythological atmosphere, LOTR:TSC becomes a heartwarming tale about a Little Guy who finds his heart's desire (that One Precious Thing), and about the Big Bully who tries to take it away from him.
We don't want to spoil the ending for you, so we'll just tease you with some comments from people who saw the preview:
"I yelped in surprise when Cute Penguin suddenly bit Little Guy's finger off!"
-- Linus Torvalds
"I thought the way Big Bully got it in the end was most unrealistic, not to mention unpleasant, and it sends the wrong message to young consumers."
-- Bill Gates
"I invented the palantiri, too."
-- Al Gore
"Goblins are Not Uruk-hai, and the men should have been called GNÚ/Menórians. The license on the rings was almost as bad as most software licenses are."
-- Richard Stallman
"That Longbottom Leaf is baaad sh*t!"
-- Anonymous Coward
> Ok Creationists, you can all sit down right now.
In related news, the Institute for Creation Research has announced that recent advances in theology require a correction to the previously established age of the earth. "We now realise that the earth is only 5342 years old, rather than 6005 as calculated by the traditional method," said ICR spokesman Lyle Lott.
> First episode, he possesses Kirk's body and prevents him from obtaining an inappropriate hair weave. Next episode has him entering Jean-Luc Picard's body...
I think he got mixed up and kept Jean-Luc from getting the hair.
> have always had (and still do have) dreams of building...gasp!!...Yes, that's right... a Beowulf cluster. I know it's a running joke and kind of cliche on Slashdot to say so, but I still think the concept is waaaay cool! Just for the pure, geekish enjoyment of it!
I wonder if some geek with a desire for fame, and more space than sense, and a sublime disregard for the magnitude of his power bills, might step forward and start the Team Slashdot Monster Beowulf Project. As we Slashdotters retired our old machines we could ship them off to the project, where they would be added to the cluster upon arival.
We could probably create the world's faster computer just using our junkware. "Just for the pure, geekish enjoyment of it!"
I've been waiting for dual-Athlon + DDR for about a year, but I finally realized that they weren't actually going to come out until I spent my money on something else. So I went and bought something else a couple of weeks, to clear the metaphysical logjam.
> What about in the real world where coding is always done in groups???
The real world can be remarkably like school sometimes. I remember one real-world project where I literally hid from a cow-orker for several weeks, so I could actually get the project done by the time it was needed.
> Fret not, because the good coders are often recognised rather quickly, and are the first to be promoted.
Not in my experience. I have never worked in any environment where there was anything approaching a concensus that the best programmers got the best pay.
Usually, the dumb fucks make the rounds of the experts until someone tells them how to fix the problem (if only to get the DF out of their hair), and then the dummy makes a bee-line for the supervisor's office so he can announce his "discovery" of the problem.
But perhaps Joe Supervisor does see through this nonsense; usually the good programmers get assigned about five times as much responsibility, and get 2-3% more pay in compensation.
> It is gaining acceptance in the software industry. One indication of this is the number of talks on XP at the SD2001 West conference in San Jose 8-12 April.
Or maybe that just indicates the intensity of the hype surrounding it.
I wonder how often we'd hear about it on Slashdot if it were called Quality and Productivity Assurance Methodology for Software Development instead of eXtreme Programming.
> Having read many articles on XP, I am still left wondering exactly how it is implemented. Programming in pair could mean many different things -- but what/does/ it in the case of XP?
Ever hear how the Spartans and the Theban Sacred Band used the "buddy system" to acheive their elite status?
Slashdot Mirror
> and Medieval peasants could certainly be a rowdy bunch.
The big churches actually had to have bouncers, who were called "dog beadles" (for reasons that escape me).
--
> unless of course, you are a troll
Whew! For a moment I thought I was going to have trouble finding a loophole.
--
> Yes, as always, the things scientists are so definately sure about (and use to prove other theories) turn out to be wrong. Just wait till we find out that man lived before and during dinosaurs, and that the most renound prehistoric fossils and cave paintings are just a few hundred years old.
Sounds typical indeed. Perhaps you were not aware that:
a) it is extremely rare that scientists, other than mathematicians, ever "prove" anything, or claim to do so, and
b) science is self-correcting by nature.
ps - A google on "scientific method" turns up 147,000 hits. Maybe you'll find one or two of them useful.
Feeding the Slashdot trolls since 1999 (or thereabouts).
--
> I remember when I was 4 years old or so, there was a poster above my bed (I didn't put it there), something to do with the Hobbit. It was a map, IIRC, with a big picture of Smaug on it. It scared the hell out of me. Like Bart Simpson's clown bed. I had nightmares.
I went to see the "Dinomation" mechanically animated dinosaurs (complete with roars coming out the arses of a few with unfortunate internal speaker placements) way back when it toured my local natural sciences museum. A man was there holding his little kid over the fence so the kid could get a closer look. The kid was kicking and screaming bloody murder, but the man apparently thought the kid was complaining about not being able to get a closer view, so the man just kept leaning further over the fence and pushing the kid closer and closer to the nearest dinosaur.
Now I think I know how irrational phobias come about. I wonder if the kid went to see Jurassic Park when he grew up.
--
FWIW, from a "Note on the Text" just after the TOC on my Houghton-Mifflin edition of The Hobbit:
--
> We all know we'll see it regardless. The hype and buildup over the past year have been phenomenal.
Your second sentence is what has me worried -- especially after what happened with SWE1.
A decent movie version of LoTR shouldn't need any hype; they could release it unannounced on a Friday and still have sell-out crowds by Saturday.
For LoTR (and SWE2), I'm going to stay away in droves until I hear what my friends say about it. (Nice way of avoiding the worst crowds, too.)
--
> Does anyone here actually know what was the actual content of this declaration?
No, I asked to see it, but they wanted me to sign some kind of declaration of goodwill before showing it to me, and I declined. So they wouldn't show it to me.
--
Lord of the Rings: The Subtext Chronicle
Lord of the Rings: The Subtext Chronicle is a retelling of JRR Tolkien's popular Lord of the Rings, but placed in a realistic modern setting.
Stripped of its mythological atmosphere, LOTR:TSC becomes a heartwarming tale about a Little Guy who finds his heart's desire (that One Precious Thing), and about the Big Bully who tries to take it away from him.
We don't want to spoil the ending for you, so we'll just tease you with some comments from people who saw the preview:
"I yelped in surprise when Cute Penguin suddenly bit Little Guy's finger off!"
-- Linus Torvalds
"I thought the way Big Bully got it in the end was most unrealistic, not to mention unpleasant, and it sends the wrong message to young consumers."
-- Bill Gates
"I invented the palantiri, too."
-- Al Gore
"Goblins are Not Uruk-hai, and the men should have been called GNÚ/Menórians. The license on the rings was almost as bad as most software licenses are."
-- Richard Stallman
"That Longbottom Leaf is baaad sh*t!"
-- Anonymous Coward
--
> There are probably a lot of Jack Chick satire sites
Actually, Jack Chick makes its own best satire. I think the phrase "over the top" must have been coined so there would be a way to describe JC's work.
--
> It's worth noting that intuition tells us that the sun goes around the Earth.
Of course our intuition tells us that. Did you expect it to lead us astray or something?
--
> Ok Creationists, you can all sit down right now.
In related news, the Institute for Creation Research has announced that recent advances in theology require a correction to the previously established age of the earth. "We now realise that the earth is only 5342 years old, rather than 6005 as calculated by the traditional method," said ICR spokesman Lyle Lott.
--
> female starship personell all wore skirts that showed their asses
I quit watching Voyager when I reluctantly concluded that the cameraman was always going to flinch when 7 o'9 bent over.
The series didn't offer anythink else to keep me tuning in.
--
> First episode, he possesses Kirk's body and prevents him from obtaining an inappropriate hair weave. Next episode has him entering Jean-Luc Picard's body...
I think he got mixed up and kept Jean-Luc from getting the hair.
--
> How the hell is a 'me too' off topic!?!?
LMAO.
It should be a simple inductive proof: if the parent was on topic, then a 'me too' is on topic.
--
Shopping elsewhere is now a circumvention, eh?
--
> have always had (and still do have) dreams of building...gasp!!...Yes, that's right... a Beowulf cluster. I know it's a running joke and kind of cliche on Slashdot to say so, but I still think the concept is waaaay cool! Just for the pure, geekish enjoyment of it!
I wonder if some geek with a desire for fame, and more space than sense, and a sublime disregard for the magnitude of his power bills, might step forward and start the Team Slashdot Monster Beowulf Project. As we Slashdotters retired our old machines we could ship them off to the project, where they would be added to the cluster upon arival.
We could probably create the world's faster computer just using our junkware. "Just for the pure, geekish enjoyment of it!"
--
> Now when I go to Tom's site I get not just one, but TWO visa card ads!
Visa thought that would be appropriate for the dual-Athlon article.
--
> Of course, it is in Japanese, but the pictures are *great*.
Yeah, I visit that kind of Web site now and then too.
--
I've been waiting for dual-Athlon + DDR for about a year, but I finally realized that they weren't actually going to come out until I spent my money on something else. So I went and bought something else a couple of weeks, to clear the metaphysical logjam.
Think of me when you boot your dualie.
--
> To the extent that he denies a software author the right to do with his code as he pleases, the man is a maniac.
How does he do that?
> For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom!
Which perhaps explains why they call it a "license".
--
> What about in the real world where coding is always done in groups???
The real world can be remarkably like school sometimes. I remember one real-world project where I literally hid from a cow-orker for several weeks, so I could actually get the project done by the time it was needed.
> Fret not, because the good coders are often recognised rather quickly, and are the first to be promoted.
Not in my experience. I have never worked in any environment where there was anything approaching a concensus that the best programmers got the best pay.
Usually, the dumb fucks make the rounds of the experts until someone tells them how to fix the problem (if only to get the DF out of their hair), and then the dummy makes a bee-line for the supervisor's office so he can announce his "discovery" of the problem.
But perhaps Joe Supervisor does see through this nonsense; usually the good programmers get assigned about five times as much responsibility, and get 2-3% more pay in compensation.
--
> Nah, Microsoft said XP is going to be Practically Perfect in Every Way
Hey everyone, the guy reading over my shoulder said I was thinking about the wrong kind of XP.
--
> XP Code CAN be broken --
Nah, Microsoft said XP is going to be Practically Perfect in Every Way, free of bugs, and immune to cracks.
If you don't believe it, just grab the nearest MS exec and ask him.
--
> It is gaining acceptance in the software industry. One indication of this is the number of talks on XP at the SD2001 West conference in San Jose 8-12 April.
Or maybe that just indicates the intensity of the hype surrounding it.
I wonder how often we'd hear about it on Slashdot if it were called Quality and Productivity Assurance Methodology for Software Development instead of eXtreme Programming.
--
> Having read many articles on XP, I am still left wondering exactly how it is implemented. Programming in pair could mean many different things -- but what /does/ it in the case of XP?
Ever hear how the Spartans and the Theban Sacred Band used the "buddy system" to acheive their elite status?
Same kind of thing here.
--