That is an opinion which I am prepared to defend. I personally believe that it is accurate.
What is the point I made? The point was that people are used to dialog boxes that don't accurately describe the situation. I believe, based on experience, that Windows the OS and Windows programs in general are major offenders in this area.
I firmly believe that people become accustomed to dialog boxes that don't mean anything, or that they don't understand, and just click through them. I believe that this behavior begins with the click-through license and is reinforced in the normal usage over and over.
Don't agree? Fine. Tell me why not. I'll listen. I might even be convinced. Calling me a "ridiculous troll" is nothing more than a gratuitous insult, and says nothing good about you.
Do you have a reasoned response to my original post, or are you incapable? Can you support your conjecture that I am a troll? Note that I did not post AC - you are welcome to examine my posting history.
Perhaps you need to be further educated re: the meaning of the word "troll" here on/.. Hint: it does NOT mean, "person with whose opinon I disagree and whom I wish to annoy." You've got a pretty low/. ID # - you should know the difference by now.
In all fairness, Moofie, you're obviously using iTunes for Windows on.. (wait for it).. a Windows machine. This puts you in a mindset of ignoring dialog boxes, and not bothering to read them fully, because so many Windows dialog boxes are on the level of Clippy - totally fscking useless.
Should it be less easy to miss important messages in a dialog box? Yes. How should it be done? By programs not crying "Wolf!" all the time. If you want to blame someone, don't blame Apple. Blame the people who write programs that pop up dialog boxes for things like, "You have requested a web page from the Internet. Are you sure you wish to continue?" in web browsers.
Oh, and blame yourself for not reading the dialog box. Asking OS mfg's to protect you from your own stupidity only fosters more stupidity.
Negative, sir. Read parent to my post. Parent suggested that if you ever drove even one MPH over the limit, you deserved whatever fine you got.
My point was not, nor did I ever say or imply, that all speed limits are bad. I said, and will say again if you want, that MANY speed limits are set artificially low for reasons of revenue.
Your case, the Chattanooga stretch of I-75, clearly does not fall into that category. Therefore, it is irrelevant and your argument is dismissed. What part of my post made you think I didn't want speed limits?
You need to be able to differentiate between driving fast and driving dangerously. Clearly, driving too fast for the road is different from driving fast enough that the local gendarmerie can make more money off of you. I am entirely in favor of state troopers LIVING in places like the curve you're talking about.
I personally support rational speed limits based on safety concerns. I object strenuously to revenue-based speed limits. I also object strongly to shortened yellow lights at intersections with camera-based ticketing. I support stronger and more through driver education. However, I STRONGLY object to the notion that speed, alone, is dangerous. Inappropriate speed is dangerous. So are poor drivers. Why don't we worry about that?
Horseshit. The point of all this discussion is that the LAW is what's wrong. The LAW - in this case, the speed limit - is far too often designed to increase revenue, not to promote increased safety.
Your logic is fine, within a very narrowly defined set of limits. Your logic falls apart when the laws are misdirected or inappropriate, when the punishment is disproportionate to the crime, and when the law is applied selectively and unequally.
And if you try to tell me that none of those apply to traffic laws, you are either a fool or a liar. Possibly both.
I spent every day this last summer driving through one of the most notorious speed traps in the state of Florida. The speed limits are deliberately set artificially low, and deceivingly so wherever possible. State laws were passed specifically to curb the behavior of this town, and to discourage others. AAA specifically refers to this place as a speed trap, and has even taken out billboards warning motorists that a speed trap is 6 miles ahead. This town actually turns a profit on speeding tickets - completely funds the police department, and money left over. Until the law was passed, in one stretch of road the speed limit went from 65 to 45 back to 65 in under a mile. Why? Flea market. Lots of places for the cops to hide.
THAT, my friend, is in no way just.
When you see that the non-compliance rate (speeding) on a section of Beltline around DC is over 80% - is it the drivers who are wrong? Or the laws? WHO DECIDES?
I've just looked at your posting history, and I see that you are fond of trolling. I should have known.
Well, that's one of the things we're studying. We have a section of power line set up - not energized or attached to the grid - which we strike directly and indirectly, i.e. very close to the line. We trigger lightning with rockets so that we can exert SOME control over where it hits.
Florida Power and Light want to know how bad their lines (and their customers' houses) get damaged by nearby strikes. They've been paying us to find out. It's extraordinarily cool, actually. We launch rockets trailing a wire into a thundercloud, and trigger lightning. For the indirect stuff we have a rocket launcher mounted on an old, tired FPL bucket truck that we can drive around and park wherever we want to launch.
The upshot is that nearby strikes don't induce as much current as direct ones inject, but it's enough to screw stuff up. It usually is induced in the power distribution, not in the house.
Oh, and let me apologize for getting snippy. I've been at the school ALL freakin' day, trying to get the thesis (yes, lightning) finished this semester, and I haven't eaten. I get mean when I'm hungry.
Guess again, chief. A lightning stroke is a piss-pot of current flowing down the equivalent of a big-assed antenna. The effects of this include, as you said, current flowing all over the place from direct injection. However, the effects also include large radiated magnetic and electric fields.
Do you know what happens when a conductor sits in a moving magnetic field? Current. Depending on how close you are, possibly lots of current.
I, personally, have participated over the last year and a half in experiments involving measuring the currents induced in power lines by nearby (50 m, 30 m, 15 m, 7 m) lightning strokes. It's there. It's real. The electric and magnetic fields are real, too. Not only that...
but we've seen evidence (good evidence) of X-rays and gamma rays associated with lightning.
If you're going to make strong, definite comments like, "No, you didn't have an EMP experience" you should probably make sure you have a solid understanding of the subject. Unlike this one, for example.
For a while, I've really been concerned about the falling quality of trolls here on Slashdot. Then along comes [parent], and restores my faith in trolldom.
See, kiddies, this is how you troll. Keen. Subtle. I'm especially fond of the way that the AC doesn't explicitly call Fox News unbiased, unclouded - but he implies the hell out of it. He shows you the troll, but doesn't let you touch it. Kinda like MJ in his prime.
To frost this cake, he throws in a couple of mild insults in. Not weak enough to ignore, but he's not abusing the 7 famous wordy-dirds. It bypasses your builtin four-letter discrimination routines and actually feels like he might mean it! You can't ignore it! He means it! Meanwhile, you're so browned off you slide right past the logical flaws and attack the red cape. Ole!
He waves the red cape some more; you lumber around chasing it, eventually tire, and it's over. YHBT.
The cause of the problem *can* be fixed, although it won't be. However, the symptoms cannot be. Sure, you could make it legal for alternative suppliers who are no longer under state control to supply the booze - but there aren't any. Not in Mississippi, that is. Not any with booze in stock.
So even if the state of Mississippi told me I could start supplying all the booze in the world to all the bars I care to, I don't have the booze to give 'em. Nor does anyone else... except the state beverage control board. And we're back to square one.
It's a great argument for decentralization of beverage sales, but this is Mississippi. Freedom of MS's citizens to drink what or when they want isn't high on the state govt's list of priorities, unfortunately. I was really annoyed, once, trying to find a drink after midnight in Meridien. Had to drive to Alabama.
Hey, dj'a hear the one about the Alabamian who moved to Mississippi? Raised the IQ of both states.
Well, considering that SCO actually ARE a software company and can't seem to figure out what they own and whether code in linux infringes or not, I'd be fairly willing to bet Baystar's $50 million that Baystar's "experts" have even less clue than SCO... or you, for that matter.
Easy bet, too. It's not my money:-)
Put another way - I'd trust SGI's assertions that SCO ain't got shit for a case more than I trust some VC firm's experts. Exhibit A: thousands of failed dot-com IPO's. Exhibit B: SGI's actual experience writing and selling IRIX.
I kinda suspect that SGI know the Unix codebase better than SCO right now.
Well, then. We shall consider the Bug/Jetta construct to be a sphere with diameter equal to the length of a football field, thereby reducing it to the previous problem. The answer is left as an exercise for the student.
A Purple Jetta III GLS strapped to a 1970 mexican release Beetle.
Aw, come on. I need more than that. Strapped which way? Vertically? Laterally? Longitudinally? How many coats of Purple are there? How fast are they going? (Relativity, don'cha know?)
This is science. We must maintain precision if our results are to mean anything.
A more useful unit might be San Franciscos; according to sfvisitor.org, the longest street in San Fran is "Longest: Mission Street, 7.29 miles" This means that a femtosecond laser makes pulses that are 2.5571x10^-11 San Franciscos long, or just over 25 picoSanFranciscos.
Were you using pens for calligraphy? Those are the ones with the squared-off nib. The size of the line varies with the direction you move it, etc., and the alignment is critical. A proper fountain pen with a round nib will be (as noted by siblings) smooth and effortless, and much more forgiving of angle. Moreover, a fountain pen will tend to wear into your personal writing style (angle, etc), although the Shaeffer mentioned in the parent(s) has a steel nib and thus takes longer to wear.
Plus, of course, there's the uniqueness factor. Not many people use 'em, and it can (occasionally) even be a conversation starter.
No question that a $0.10 ballpoint is a better instrument technically - fountain pens leak, ink takes time to dry, they cost money, the refills for the Shaeffer cost more than a complete ballpoint, etc.
Basically, for me, it boils down to comfort and character. I can be more expressive and write more comfortably. Isn't that what it's all about?
Slashdot Mirror
Ha. Ha Ha. Ha Ha HA!
H EHEHEHEHE!
HooHooHOOHOOOHOO!HAAH!!HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That.. You... The...HA! HAAHHAHA!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
HEHEHEHEHEHEEEEHE
HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAA!
HM! HM! HAhAHAHAHAHAahahahahahHAHAHAHA!
Damn, man, you funny!
Troll? Not in the slightest.
/.. Hint: it does NOT mean, "person with whose opinon I disagree and whom I wish to annoy." You've got a pretty low /. ID # - you should know the difference by now.
That is an opinion which I am prepared to defend. I personally believe that it is accurate.
What is the point I made? The point was that people are used to dialog boxes that don't accurately describe the situation. I believe, based on experience, that Windows the OS and Windows programs in general are major offenders in this area.
I firmly believe that people become accustomed to dialog boxes that don't mean anything, or that they don't understand, and just click through them. I believe that this behavior begins with the click-through license and is reinforced in the normal usage over and over.
Don't agree? Fine. Tell me why not. I'll listen. I might even be convinced. Calling me a "ridiculous troll" is nothing more than a gratuitous insult, and says nothing good about you.
Do you have a reasoned response to my original post, or are you incapable? Can you support your conjecture that I am a troll? Note that I did not post AC - you are welcome to examine my posting history.
Perhaps you need to be further educated re: the meaning of the word "troll" here on
Right. "'Reorganize your collection' is hardly descriptive". Is that the exact phrasing he was given?
If so, I agree. Completely. That is insufficiently descriptive. That did not accurately and unequivocally describe what it was going to do.
So he did it anyway.
He *is* partially to blame. Which is what I said, and what you said.
So why am I the dick?
In all fairness, Moofie, you're obviously using iTunes for Windows on .. (wait for it).. a Windows machine. This puts you in a mindset of ignoring dialog boxes, and not bothering to read them fully, because so many Windows dialog boxes are on the level of Clippy - totally fscking useless.
Should it be less easy to miss important messages in a dialog box? Yes. How should it be done? By programs not crying "Wolf!" all the time. If you want to blame someone, don't blame Apple. Blame the people who write programs that pop up dialog boxes for things like, "You have requested a web page from the Internet. Are you sure you wish to continue?" in web browsers.
Oh, and blame yourself for not reading the dialog box. Asking OS mfg's to protect you from your own stupidity only fosters more stupidity.
Sorry. Tough love, and all that.
Judge who? Y.H. Barrett Thompson?
His monogram: YHBT.
Nice one. Keep up the good work.
All you young trollsters out there, take note: this is how it's done.
Ah. And in New Orleans, you pay extra for that.
Yessir. Gainesville to Starke and back, every frickin' day. Only during the summer, though.
Negative, sir. Read parent to my post. Parent suggested that if you ever drove even one MPH over the limit, you deserved whatever fine you got.
My point was not, nor did I ever say or imply, that all speed limits are bad. I said, and will say again if you want, that MANY speed limits are set artificially low for reasons of revenue.
Your case, the Chattanooga stretch of I-75, clearly does not fall into that category. Therefore, it is irrelevant and your argument is dismissed. What part of my post made you think I didn't want speed limits?
You need to be able to differentiate between driving fast and driving dangerously. Clearly, driving too fast for the road is different from driving fast enough that the local gendarmerie can make more money off of you. I am entirely in favor of state troopers LIVING in places like the curve you're talking about.
I personally support rational speed limits based on safety concerns. I object strenuously to revenue-based speed limits. I also object strongly to shortened yellow lights at intersections with camera-based ticketing. I support stronger and more through driver education. However, I STRONGLY object to the notion that speed, alone, is dangerous. Inappropriate speed is dangerous. So are poor drivers. Why don't we worry about that?
Horseshit. The point of all this discussion is that the LAW is what's wrong. The LAW - in this case, the speed limit - is far too often designed to increase revenue, not to promote increased safety.
Your logic is fine, within a very narrowly defined set of limits. Your logic falls apart when the laws are misdirected or inappropriate, when the punishment is disproportionate to the crime, and when the law is applied selectively and unequally.
And if you try to tell me that none of those apply to traffic laws, you are either a fool or a liar. Possibly both.
I spent every day this last summer driving through one of the most notorious speed traps in the state of Florida. The speed limits are deliberately set artificially low, and deceivingly so wherever possible. State laws were passed specifically to curb the behavior of this town, and to discourage others. AAA specifically refers to this place as a speed trap, and has even taken out billboards warning motorists that a speed trap is 6 miles ahead. This town actually turns a profit on speeding tickets - completely funds the police department, and money left over. Until the law was passed, in one stretch of road the speed limit went from 65 to 45 back to 65 in under a mile. Why? Flea market. Lots of places for the cops to hide.
THAT, my friend, is in no way just.
When you see that the non-compliance rate (speeding) on a section of Beltline around DC is over 80% - is it the drivers who are wrong? Or the laws? WHO DECIDES?
I've just looked at your posting history, and I see that you are fond of trolling. I should have known.
Well, that's one of the things we're studying. We have a section of power line set up - not energized or attached to the grid - which we strike directly and indirectly, i.e. very close to the line. We trigger lightning with rockets so that we can exert SOME control over where it hits.
Florida Power and Light want to know how bad their lines (and their customers' houses) get damaged by nearby strikes. They've been paying us to find out. It's extraordinarily cool, actually. We launch rockets trailing a wire into a thundercloud, and trigger lightning. For the indirect stuff we have a rocket launcher mounted on an old, tired FPL bucket truck that we can drive around and park wherever we want to launch.
The upshot is that nearby strikes don't induce as much current as direct ones inject, but it's enough to screw stuff up. It usually is induced in the power distribution, not in the house.
Oh, and let me apologize for getting snippy. I've been at the school ALL freakin' day, trying to get the thesis (yes, lightning) finished this semester, and I haven't eaten. I get mean when I'm hungry.
Guess again, chief. A lightning stroke is a piss-pot of current flowing down the equivalent of a big-assed antenna. The effects of this include, as you said, current flowing all over the place from direct injection. However, the effects also include large radiated magnetic and electric fields.
Do you know what happens when a conductor sits in a moving magnetic field? Current. Depending on how close you are, possibly lots of current.
I, personally, have participated over the last year and a half in experiments involving measuring the currents induced in power lines by nearby (50 m, 30 m, 15 m, 7 m) lightning strokes. It's there. It's real. The electric and magnetic fields are real, too. Not only that...
but we've seen evidence (good evidence) of X-rays and gamma rays associated with lightning.
If you're going to make strong, definite comments like, "No, you didn't have an EMP experience" you should probably make sure you have a solid understanding of the subject. Unlike this one, for example.
Yes, I AM a lightning scientist.
Ah. Michael Jordan. Shows you the rock, and then blows past you to the hoop.
It's a basketball term.
For a while, I've really been concerned about the falling quality of trolls here on Slashdot. Then along comes [parent], and restores my faith in trolldom.
See, kiddies, this is how you troll. Keen. Subtle. I'm especially fond of the way that the AC doesn't explicitly call Fox News unbiased, unclouded - but he implies the hell out of it. He shows you the troll, but doesn't let you touch it. Kinda like MJ in his prime.
To frost this cake, he throws in a couple of mild insults in. Not weak enough to ignore, but he's not abusing the 7 famous wordy-dirds. It bypasses your builtin four-letter discrimination routines and actually feels like he might mean it! You can't ignore it! He means it! Meanwhile, you're so browned off you slide right past the logical flaws and attack the red cape. Ole!
He waves the red cape some more; you lumber around chasing it, eventually tire, and it's over. YHBT.
I salute you, AC. We need more with your skills.
Note, of course, that I meant it can't be *quickly* fixed. Not overnight. Might take a few days or so.
Err.... no.
The cause of the problem *can* be fixed, although it won't be. However, the symptoms cannot be. Sure, you could make it legal for alternative suppliers who are no longer under state control to supply the booze - but there aren't any. Not in Mississippi, that is. Not any with booze in stock.
So even if the state of Mississippi told me I could start supplying all the booze in the world to all the bars I care to, I don't have the booze to give 'em. Nor does anyone else... except the state beverage control board. And we're back to square one.
It's a great argument for decentralization of beverage sales, but this is Mississippi. Freedom of MS's citizens to drink what or when they want isn't high on the state govt's list of priorities, unfortunately. I was really annoyed, once, trying to find a drink after midnight in Meridien. Had to drive to Alabama.
Hey, dj'a hear the one about the Alabamian who moved to Mississippi? Raised the IQ of both states.
Well, considering that SCO actually ARE a software company and can't seem to figure out what they own and whether code in linux infringes or not, I'd be fairly willing to bet Baystar's $50 million that Baystar's "experts" have even less clue than SCO... or you, for that matter.
:-)
Easy bet, too. It's not my money
Put another way - I'd trust SGI's assertions that SCO ain't got shit for a case more than I trust some VC firm's experts. Exhibit A: thousands of failed dot-com IPO's. Exhibit B: SGI's actual experience writing and selling IRIX.
I kinda suspect that SGI know the Unix codebase better than SCO right now.
It always comes back to pr0n, doesn't it?
Well, then. We shall consider the Bug/Jetta construct to be a sphere with diameter equal to the length of a football field, thereby reducing it to the previous problem. The answer is left as an exercise for the student.
Hell, I don't know. The pulses were specified in terms of length, not power. Depends on the ambient temperature at the time, I suppose.
Aw, come on. I need more than that. Strapped which way? Vertically? Laterally? Longitudinally? How many coats of Purple are there? How fast are they going? (Relativity, don'cha know?)
This is science. We must maintain precision if our results are to mean anything.
Which model VW?
Of course, this is wrong. Stupid me; multiplied where I should have divided.
The correct answer is 2.7432x10^-9 football fields, or two and three-quarters nanofootballfields.
Assuming, of course, that you meant American football.
A more useful unit might be San Franciscos; according to sfvisitor.org, the longest street in San Fran is "Longest: Mission Street, 7.29 miles"
This means that a femtosecond laser makes pulses that are 2.5571x10^-11 San Franciscos long, or just over 25 picoSanFranciscos.
Hope this helps.
Well, it's about 3.2808 millionths of a football field.
Assuming, of course, that the football field is made of air or some other material in which the propagation of light occurs at 3x10^8 meters/second.
Were you using pens for calligraphy? Those are the ones with the squared-off nib. The size of the line varies with the direction you move it, etc., and the alignment is critical. A proper fountain pen with a round nib will be (as noted by siblings) smooth and effortless, and much more forgiving of angle. Moreover, a fountain pen will tend to wear into your personal writing style (angle, etc), although the Shaeffer mentioned in the parent(s) has a steel nib and thus takes longer to wear.
Plus, of course, there's the uniqueness factor. Not many people use 'em, and it can (occasionally) even be a conversation starter.
No question that a $0.10 ballpoint is a better instrument technically - fountain pens leak, ink takes time to dry, they cost money, the refills for the Shaeffer cost more than a complete ballpoint, etc.
Basically, for me, it boils down to comfort and character. I can be more expressive and write more comfortably. Isn't that what it's all about?