Re:I'd only point out that. . .
on
Tai Chi Robots
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· Score: 2
Yeah right. Pit a boxer against a guy doing "flying phoenix pushing sky butt monkey hand" at four miles an hour to be in harmony with the universe is going to be panelled into next year.
Why in GODS NAME are they making a robot that can do Tai Chi? That's what old people are for.
Don't laugh - that argument is made on MANY an occasion on liberal forums.
Their argument is: racism = prejudice + power. And since the only people with the power in the society are white heterosexual WASP males, it's impossible for women to be racist (they're disenfranchised), or for blacks, Jews, Arabs, etc. to be racist.
They charmingly then go on to say that this is FACT and is not to be questioned, or you're banned from their forums. Try www.mamatron.org and see what their policy is on "racism".
Why don't they just have membership drives twice a year, like PBS? That way they can waste tons of money producing content noone watches, save a few brie eaters who'll write their donations off against their taxes?
I remember an ex-roommate who was a sci-fi junkie, who owned a lot of crap books about women with beehive hairdos and silver skirts. Yawn. Dune. Double yawn. The 1st ep. of Star Wars, about trade alliances, taxation, etc. Yawn.
1984 was a good book because it was a good story, asking "what if" and talking about how humanity would deal with a given situation.
The book that my ex-roommate was working on, was not. I made the mistake of asking him to tell me what it was about: 45 minutes later, he was still going on about the physiology of the alien inhabitants and the political-eco whatevermajig construct societies these people lived in.
When I cut him short and asked him to describe the STORY, he went back to his diatribe about 2G cephalods and gas plasma treaties and whatnot.
A "world" only appeals to people as a vehicle for a good story. Luke wants to avenge his father's death, and goes to find some weird hermit in the woods to teach him how to kick ass: the black knight is a fallen hero in search of redemption. The same story that's been told in one form or another since the dawn of time. Frodo needs to find the courage in himself to take on basically every evil entity within a three thousand mile radius. THAT makes for a story, engaging characters, and a world we can believe in. We want Gandalf to have magic because if there's magic there's the kind of heroic quest you just don't get in a 9 to 5 kinda job. Problem is, too many sci-fi writers try to be Faith Popcorn on steroids and ignore the need to tell us something about ourselves, yeah?
Mike Cowpland came out with a good idea, built a business, and made some good money. Bought a vacant lot in the nicest part of town, built a copper-glassed Red Lobster style building with the tackiest, most garish white trash decorating imaginable (the two homes either side went on the market rather shortly after) and at the same time got a trophy wife whose bottle blonde self once made a notable appearance in a skintight leather sheath dresse with an enormous diamond over one nipple - a cross between Pamela Anderson, Ivana Trump and Anna Nicole Smith.
Thereafter, suddendly (between his sambo and okinawan karate classes through personal tutors) decided he was God's Gift to Software and called out Bill Gates. A VERY dumb thing to do, considering Microsoft is not hampered by Canadian taxes and has control over the operating system MS and Corel would compete for space on. As well as having a huge war chest.
So suddenly this little photoshop clone company decides it's in the stock photo business, the crappy office suite business, etc. Diversify massively, buying out failing companies with limited market share. Overextend, fall flat on ass, and then decide Linux is the answer.
Gates eats at Dick's and drives a second hand American car from what I gather. Cowpland drives a bevy of outrageously expensive vehicles and spends money like water. Eventually, reduced to whining that the government of an impoverished nation like Canada SHOULD buy his software on patriotic grounds and being the town joke (what color did we dye our toy poodle today?)
We saw this in the mid-90s. Heck, I was fresh out of school in 1993 just as NOONE was hiring. So I retrained as a programmer analyst to find that every shop in sight was outsourcing to Bangalore (gotta love how cheap Canadians can be). Of course, within a few years it went from scrounge what you can get to the boom of 1999.
This too will pass. Sucks if you're unemployed, but it's part of the rhythm of life. Eventually these guys'll realise that if there isn't anyone to buy the products, noone'll buy them, and the money dries up no matter how low you drive the interest rate. That's when employment will pick up again as they spur capital spending to build new products and try to gain market share.
There was that big hullaballoo over the government going for Office rather than Corel's offering. They yanked the civil servant responsible for the decision off his fishing holiday to explain why he wasn't buying Canadian.
To which the servant coldly replied that their demo crashed multiple times and their products simply didn't do what the contract required. Whereas Microsoft showed up to their demo on time, prepared, with working products that met the requirements. Any questions? Have a good day.
Dude, Corel tried to GIVE away Corel Office to every city government in the Ottawa area. ALL of them turned it down in favor of BUYING office. Waving the flag doesn't sell a crap product.
this is really going to start putting Ottawa in the shit.
First off, houses in places like Beacon Hill, even, are going for at least a quarter mil, thanks to a massive influx of greed and dot com wannabes.
Now, Nortel is tanking, Entrust doesn't seem to be doing so well, and Corel? Well, apart from giving Ottawans yet another interestingly white trash tacky overpriced outfit to look at at every new gallery opening or whatever, it isn't doing much apart from being a big copper eyesore next to the Queensway.
Man, I feel for those employees - but it looks like Ottawa's basket is rapidly emptying of eggs.
You enjoy your taxes being hiked? Oh, it's for health care, sure. The fact that Jean Chretien wants to lay $3B worth of high speed rail to help out Bombardier (who developed a high speed train even though there's NO high speed rail in North America) has NOTHING to do with it, oh no no no nooooooooooo
The government has made all four of its 386s available for this venture, which brings, along with all private computers in Canada, the entire total up to seven.
However, the government is concerned that the supercomputer doesn't properly reflect Canadian values. For example, the color of the cases is a light beige, which is racist. So all computers as part of this net will be painted multi colors.
In addition, they must be used to do CANADIAN computation from a CANADIAN programmer at least one run time out of three.
And, to further show off Canadian innovation, they've developed a new language for this cluster, C eh eh.
The only reason I've ever held my head above water in the programming sphere is because my first languages were BASIC and Assembly.
Actually, it's interesting, but the BASIC language is similar to assembly, in a way, inasmuch as it is a list of instructions to be executed in order. If you want to arse around from one section of the program to the other, you yourself have to goto and figure out how to get the hell back (well, you have gosub, but you get the idea). From that background, assembly was a dead cinch.
I actually wish I'd learned more and more and more about the absolute fundamentals of computer science - lamenting the fact that my first exposures to computers wasn't to something with punch cards or front panel switches and lights.
Re:This project is more difficult than it appears
on
Speech For The Deaf
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· Score: 2
RE: There's all kinds of things we have to teach other countries: Judicial systems,
Got that right. In this country, murderers and rapists get off scot free on technicalities or enjoy better health care and conditions in jail than a lot of people have outside it.
In China, they just execute the bastards.
MOD THIS DOWN - VILE PORN PIC LINK
on
User Friendly 1.0
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· Score: 2
That's really charming. People like you need their cerebral matter reprogrammed with a softball bat.
And yeah, I ain't posting this as Anonymous Coward.
RE: Stop imposing your freaking morality on the rest of the world. It's really annoying, and just because another country or culture's system isn't in line with American thinking does not mean that it's somehow less evolved, or brutal, or wrong. We don't need Americans to run in and "save us from ourselves".
You assume I am American. HA HA HA. Never ASSUME anything cause it makes an ASS of YOU and ME. And can I have that "we don't need Americans" thing in writing? If you ever get invaded or your sovereignty in the Arctic is threatened, you can have your entirety of your armed forces attack the threat, but two bicycles and a canoe won't hack it.
RE: "Hm, well, ask the UN" - yes, ask the UN who continually rate Canada as one of the best countries in the world in which to live...
In terms of "human development". Low job prospects, crippling taxes - no free speech, no right to self-defence, and not even the right to own property (thanks Trudeau) - meaning the government can decide it wants the shirt off your back and it doesn't have to compensate you for it. If that's the UN's definition of "great place to live" I'm on the other side.
RE: Canada is not, by definition, a socialist state - it is one of the world's oldest parliamentary democracies...
90% of the vote belonging to a socialist voting block around Toronto and an ethnic minority. Oh yeah, great democracy. Why do you fight PR so hard? And by the way, who votes for the Prime Minister? I see, noone. But he controls everything and everyone and answers to noone.
RE: Our society and governance do have a slight socialist leaning... Now, if that means being a just society of people that actually care for the well-being of each other, who make an effort to respect one anothers' unique ethnic heritage, and who have access to universal health care, well then, sign me up...
What about if it just means a self-serving dictatorship, lining its own pockets (cough GROUPE ACTION cough cough Shawinigate cough) at others' expense in the name of all this liberty crap?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah right. Pit a boxer against a guy doing "flying phoenix pushing sky butt monkey hand" at four miles an hour to be in harmony with the universe is going to be panelled into next year.
Why in GODS NAME are they making a robot that can do Tai Chi? That's what old people are for.
Don't laugh - that argument is made on MANY an occasion on liberal forums.
Their argument is: racism = prejudice + power. And since the only people with the power in the society are white heterosexual WASP males, it's impossible for women to be racist (they're disenfranchised), or for blacks, Jews, Arabs, etc. to be racist.
They charmingly then go on to say that this is FACT and is not to be questioned, or you're banned from their forums. Try www.mamatron.org and see what their policy is on "racism".
Liberal arseholes.
Refuse to buy anything from any company that does so.
That goes for manufactured goods, too.
Oh, but wait, that would involve an informed consumer making good decisions. Never mind.
Why don't they just have membership drives twice a year, like PBS? That way they can waste tons of money producing content noone watches, save a few brie eaters who'll write their donations off against their taxes?
For my money, to read the other argument, you can't do better than Jack Chick http://www.chick.com
That is some DARK stuff. Cannibalism, broken necks, violent plane crashes. Gotta love it.
Period.
I remember an ex-roommate who was a sci-fi junkie, who owned a lot of crap books about women with beehive hairdos and silver skirts. Yawn. Dune. Double yawn. The 1st ep. of Star Wars, about trade alliances, taxation, etc. Yawn.
1984 was a good book because it was a good story, asking "what if" and talking about how humanity would deal with a given situation.
The book that my ex-roommate was working on, was not. I made the mistake of asking him to tell me what it was about: 45 minutes later, he was still going on about the physiology of the alien inhabitants and the political-eco whatevermajig construct societies these people lived in.
When I cut him short and asked him to describe the STORY, he went back to his diatribe about 2G cephalods and gas plasma treaties and whatnot.
A "world" only appeals to people as a vehicle for a good story. Luke wants to avenge his father's death, and goes to find some weird hermit in the woods to teach him how to kick ass: the black knight is a fallen hero in search of redemption. The same story that's been told in one form or another since the dawn of time. Frodo needs to find the courage in himself to take on basically every evil entity within a three thousand mile radius. THAT makes for a story, engaging characters, and a world we can believe in. We want Gandalf to have magic because if there's magic there's the kind of heroic quest you just don't get in a 9 to 5 kinda job. Problem is, too many sci-fi writers try to be Faith Popcorn on steroids and ignore the need to tell us something about ourselves, yeah?
Gibson: We're fundamentally evil capitalist grubbing SOBs.
Orwell: We all fundamentally want freedom and will fight for it to the bitter end.
Lucas: Within every farm boy, there is a hero. And buy my toys, fanboy!
Any questions?
He learned the lines phonetically. He does not speak Esperanto.
Have. You. Ever. Considered. Possibly. Using. More. Than. One. Word.... Per...... Sentence?
The Cure have announced an interest in doing exactly that.
Well, what it boils down to is this:
Mike Cowpland came out with a good idea, built a business, and made some good money. Bought a vacant lot in the nicest part of town, built a copper-glassed Red Lobster style building with the tackiest, most garish white trash decorating imaginable (the two homes either side went on the market rather shortly after) and at the same time got a trophy wife whose bottle blonde self once made a notable appearance in a skintight leather sheath dresse with an enormous diamond over one nipple - a cross between Pamela Anderson, Ivana Trump and Anna Nicole Smith.
Thereafter, suddendly (between his sambo and okinawan karate classes through personal tutors) decided he was God's Gift to Software and called out Bill Gates. A VERY dumb thing to do, considering Microsoft is not hampered by Canadian taxes and has control over the operating system MS and Corel would compete for space on. As well as having a huge war chest.
So suddenly this little photoshop clone company decides it's in the stock photo business, the crappy office suite business, etc. Diversify massively, buying out failing companies with limited market share. Overextend, fall flat on ass, and then decide Linux is the answer.
Gates eats at Dick's and drives a second hand American car from what I gather. Cowpland drives a bevy of outrageously expensive vehicles and spends money like water. Eventually, reduced to whining that the government of an impoverished nation like Canada SHOULD buy his software on patriotic grounds and being the town joke (what color did we dye our toy poodle today?)
Well, I would gather that I bollocksed it by a mechanism called a typographical error.
Sorry mate, it won't happen again.
We saw this in the mid-90s. Heck, I was fresh out of school in 1993 just as NOONE was hiring. So I retrained as a programmer analyst to find that every shop in sight was outsourcing to Bangalore (gotta love how cheap Canadians can be). Of course, within a few years it went from scrounge what you can get to the boom of 1999.
This too will pass. Sucks if you're unemployed, but it's part of the rhythm of life. Eventually these guys'll realise that if there isn't anyone to buy the products, noone'll buy them, and the money dries up no matter how low you drive the interest rate. That's when employment will pick up again as they spur capital spending to build new products and try to gain market share.
There was that big hullaballoo over the government going for Office rather than Corel's offering. They yanked the civil servant responsible for the decision off his fishing holiday to explain why he wasn't buying Canadian.
To which the servant coldly replied that their demo crashed multiple times and their products simply didn't do what the contract required. Whereas Microsoft showed up to their demo on time, prepared, with working products that met the requirements. Any questions? Have a good day.
Dude, Corel tried to GIVE away Corel Office to every city government in the Ottawa area. ALL of them turned it down in favor of BUYING office. Waving the flag doesn't sell a crap product.
this is really going to start putting Ottawa in the shit.
First off, houses in places like Beacon Hill, even, are going for at least a quarter mil, thanks to a massive influx of greed and dot com wannabes.
Now, Nortel is tanking, Entrust doesn't seem to be doing so well, and Corel? Well, apart from giving Ottawans yet another interestingly white trash tacky overpriced outfit to look at at every new gallery opening or whatever, it isn't doing much apart from being a big copper eyesore next to the Queensway.
Man, I feel for those employees - but it looks like Ottawa's basket is rapidly emptying of eggs.
The poster might be Canadian. Blank CDs are extremely expensive, lots of taxes added so that Celine Dion can buy another mansion.
Actually, all of it.
You enjoy your taxes being hiked? Oh, it's for health care, sure. The fact that Jean Chretien wants to lay $3B worth of high speed rail to help out Bombardier (who developed a high speed train even though there's NO high speed rail in North America) has NOTHING to do with it, oh no no no nooooooooooo
The government has made all four of its 386s available for this venture, which brings, along with all private computers in Canada, the entire total up to seven.
However, the government is concerned that the supercomputer doesn't properly reflect Canadian values. For example, the color of the cases is a light beige, which is racist. So all computers as part of this net will be painted multi colors.
In addition, they must be used to do CANADIAN computation from a CANADIAN programmer at least one run time out of three.
And, to further show off Canadian innovation, they've developed a new language for this cluster, C eh eh.
Here's an example.
#define EH EH
#include "political_correctness.eh"
#include "Liberal_Party_Donation.eh"
#include "Kickback_via_golf_course.eh"
#include "Payoff_to_Bombardier.eh"
eh main (eh)
eh
printefe(FONT_DOUBLE_SIZE, "Bonjour, monde")eh
printf(FONT_HALF_SIZE, "Hello, world")eh
eh
Ok, now THAT was funny.
Wish I had mod points, dude.
The good news is, your furniture is now programmed to tell you how to build it.
The problem is, you have one of three options.
1) Listen to the instructions in Japanese
2) Listen to very broken English mushmouthed by a Swede "Fronken A, B tab slot do in be putting. Shmicken C Swivel Trocker B connect do be."
3) Destroying the microprocessors with a very large ball peen hammer.
I'm in TOTAL agreement.
The only reason I've ever held my head above water in the programming sphere is because my first languages were BASIC and Assembly.
Actually, it's interesting, but the BASIC language is similar to assembly, in a way, inasmuch as it is a list of instructions to be executed in order. If you want to arse around from one section of the program to the other, you yourself have to goto and figure out how to get the hell back (well, you have gosub, but you get the idea). From that background, assembly was a dead cinch.
I actually wish I'd learned more and more and more about the absolute fundamentals of computer science - lamenting the fact that my first exposures to computers wasn't to something with punch cards or front panel switches and lights.
Can they comprehend speech too as well?
RE: There's all kinds of things we have to teach other countries: Judicial systems,
Got that right. In this country, murderers and rapists get off scot free on technicalities or enjoy better health care and conditions in jail than a lot of people have outside it.
In China, they just execute the bastards.
That's really charming. People like you need their cerebral matter reprogrammed with a softball bat.
And yeah, I ain't posting this as Anonymous Coward.
RE: Stop imposing your freaking morality on the rest of the world. It's really annoying, and just because another country or culture's system isn't in line with American thinking does not mean that it's somehow less evolved, or brutal, or wrong. We don't need Americans to run in and "save us from ourselves".
You assume I am American. HA HA HA. Never ASSUME anything cause it makes an ASS of YOU and ME. And can I have that "we don't need Americans" thing in writing? If you ever get invaded or your sovereignty in the Arctic is threatened, you can have your entirety of your armed forces attack the threat, but two bicycles and a canoe won't hack it.
RE: "Hm, well, ask the UN" - yes, ask the UN who continually rate Canada as one of the best countries in the world in which to live ...
...
... Now, if that means being a just society of people that actually care for the well-being of each other, who make an effort to respect one anothers' unique ethnic heritage, and who have access to universal health care, well then, sign me up ...
In terms of "human development". Low job prospects, crippling taxes - no free speech, no right to self-defence, and not even the right to own property (thanks Trudeau) - meaning the government can decide it wants the shirt off your back and it doesn't have to compensate you for it.
If that's the UN's definition of "great place to live" I'm on the other side.
RE: Canada is not, by definition, a socialist state - it is one of the world's oldest parliamentary democracies
90% of the vote belonging to a socialist voting block around Toronto and an ethnic minority. Oh yeah, great democracy. Why do you fight PR so hard? And by the way, who votes for the Prime Minister? I see, noone. But he controls everything and everyone and answers to noone.
RE: Our society and governance do have a slight socialist leaning
What about if it just means a self-serving dictatorship, lining its own pockets (cough GROUPE ACTION cough cough Shawinigate cough) at others' expense in the name of all this liberty crap?