The SpeakEasy Cafe led me to: A great many friends, and even 4 close ones, including my girlfriend (whom I met at the FreeBSD meetings that gathered there,)... which led to our daughter, who now turns 6. We're a happy family, and we've always felt good about paying SpeakEasy.
SpeakEasy service is out of this world. They never balk that I run Linux & FreeBSD. Whenever we've had problems, it's been our end, but their staff has been responsive and friendly. Their level-1 staff are *very* knowledgeable. Network administrators I know love to recount stories of Speakeasy awesomeness.
First the cafe burns down, and now this.:( So sad. Mike Apgar, send us an email!
If SpeakEasy service degrades in the slightest, I don't see how we can justify the extra expense. We're paying for SpeakEasy: the freedom to run Linux & FreeBSD, the freedom to occasionally host some (ahem) questionable material, the freedom to run weird configurations, their excellent service, their crazy smart staff,...
If any of that goes away, I just don't see the point.
What are you doing, giving free school lessons on Slashdot?
Somebody's eating your lunch, man! Right now!
Shouldn't you be,... I don't know; Memorizing your latest architecture's assembly set, and optimizing your data structures and memory utilization to meet the on-chip cache space your clients are most likely to have?
Yes; Understand too, how the gates work, all the details of how the chips work, (the myriad chips your program may run on,) and have a good understanding of quantum mechanics, as well. Understand all the business supply chains, as well.
Anything else, is just-- pshaw... Black boxing it.
I'm actually proud of who I am, how I was raised, of my girlfriend, and of my daughter Sakura.
Our daughter is 5, turning 6 tomorrow.
My girlfriend and I have been together for 7 years.
We are unmarried, and we have both had a lot of (safe) sex with others, before we were ever even knew each other. We both were exposed to porn at young ages, and are horrified at the thought of people prohibiting that.
She works at health clinics, and is doing incredibly good work. I have been a programmer my whole life.
I think we've done right, and I think we've done well, and we think our daughter is really fun, interesting, smart, and so on and so forth. We get along as a family far better than most of the families I've seen. I got my own views in how to raise kids from observing one of my good friend in high schools family- everyone was looked on as an equal, with equal rights, with freedom of speech and vision. Everyone contributed to family decisions, regardless of age. Sometimes a parent has to trump, but that's only looked at after full reasoning and discussion, unless there's immediacy. It left a very strong impression on me, and that led me to raise my daughter how I do today. No teenage rebellion-- none at all.
At any rate, what I'm trying to say is: "This works," and it's clearly sustainable, and it's clearly healthy.
What's tricky here, is that what works for my family very likely does not apply to all people, in all circumstances. I talked with a black woman in a bus with 3 kids. She was describing to me the world she lives in, and I can't say that the policies that work for my family, would work for hers.
At any rate-- this is what I have to grapple with, when I hear that "extramarital sex is wrong," that "abstaining til marriage is a good, noble idea," and so on. Both are clearly only true in particular circumstances.
I believe that people should have the freedom to determine those things for themselves, and to explore new ways of living. If those ways work, on what grounds are you saying that they're bad?
I have grounds for saying that they're good: (A) They're free. (B) They promote trust. (C) They encourage sex at the time where sex actually happens-- that is, before marriage..! (D) They make for more informed, safer people. (E) They grow real respect, pride, a sense of worth, self-ownership, and dignity. (F) They're not bullies, they don't "rebel" as they become individuals.
(And so on.)
It's a beautiful thing, please don't knock it.
I can't understand how the traditionally minded, who rightfully say, "Do not lie," are so ready to talk about what leads to what, when it clearly doesn't, or only in certain people's circumstances and environments.
If we're cowered into not telling the plain and simple truth, people will walk away entertaining the idea that, "Oh my God, exposure sex really will harm children." The truth is, demonstratably, false, and it's time to speak up about it.
We can make national stories about how so-and-so was sentenced for the simple act of getting a porno from their kid. I'd love to see some Scopes trials on this.
Unfortunately, your situation in San Fransisco wasa very special case. With emphasis mine,...
"Since the mid-1980's, a number of research organizations, universities, and consultants have conducted studies on avian mortality due to wind turbines. In the U.S., these studies were prompted because of the relatively high number of raptors that were found dead at the Altamont Pass Wind Farms near San Francisco."
"After dozens of studies spanning nearly two decades, we now know that the Altamont Pass situation is unusual in the U.S. The high raptor mortality there was the result of a convergence of factors, some of which were due to the bad siting in the local ecosystem while others were due to the wind turbine and tower technology used at the time. In fact, a very different situation exists not far away at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farms near Palm Springs. A 1986 study found that 69 million birds flew though the San Gorgonio Pass during the Spring and Fall migrations. During both migrating seasons, only 38 dead birds were found during that typical year, representing only 0.00006% of the migrating population."
"One television transmitter tower in Eau Claire, WI, was responsible for the deaths of over 1,000 birds on each of 24 consecutive nights. A "record 30,000 birds were estimated killed on one night" at this same tower."
Wow!
To put these in context:
"Collisions with automobiles and trucks result in the deaths of between 60 and 80 million birds annually in the U.S."
"Together, human infrastructure and industrial activities are responsible for one to four million bird deaths per day!"
I definitely don't think we should discount windmill power as an alternative energy source, on the account of birds, especially given the drawbacks of alternative power sources such as coal & oil..! We're talking about exhaustion of supplies, which would (I strongly believe) lead to global war. The environmental consequences of World War III would have a far greater impact on birds than windmills.
The top three points are: Free Redistribution,Source Code, and Derived Wroks.
This research took all of 30 seconds.
Vendors don't have to listen to you, but you definitely have to be allowed to redistribute.
The segregation of Free Software and OpenSource software was a strategic decision: Free Software and rms argue from a moral standpoint (software should be free, proprietary software is wrong,) Open Source argues from an economic&quality standpoint (this is a better & cheaper way to do things.)
No, it shouldn't be done for free. But we should be negotiating for more, because we're on the losing side of this deal. And, hey! Guess what! We can!
If $30/month isn't enough for X bandwidth, of any type of data (not just email & occasional surfing,) then they can just get out of the business; Let someone else take our money to do it.
In MGSIII, There's a part where you actually die, they show the "GAME OVER" sign, and start playing the end of game music, and so on. You have to do something special to get past it, and further through the game.
There is no way of avoiding this scene-- you have to do it. It's a basic part of the story.
If you want to critique a video game story, or describe what it's saying about the world, or argue some point about the story, you need to reference the source materials.
But the game isn't easily browsable. You can't (yet) tell a video game, "Take me to page 274, I need to see what Cecil said right there."
I don't understand; Are you saying that, "because my people were just ignorant, and because everyone in my family thought the Iraq war was a good idea," that you are off the hook?
Save one half of one chapter, it's a very easy read, and makes a lot of fundamental ideas very clear. While he doesn't give an algorithm for Intelligence, he does give a good (and somewhat original) definition of what Intelligence is, and then he describes some elements of what an intelligence probably requires: Time, (as a basic element- not a "training" part segregated away,) massive feedback from brain to "input," hierarchy, and some other things I don't remember at the moment.
He argued that the Neocortex is the same, basically all over. The neocortex is very much a blank slate. If you solve Intelligence for vision, it should also solve Intelligence for hearing. He backs this up with a bunch of pointers to other people's works and papers.
In his theory, an Intelligence builds names, labels, for identified patterns. So, if you were a programmer, you would watch the Intelligence process data, and then see what names it creates and sustains. You look at what lights up inside it whenever you point the sensor at a car, (or perhaps have someone in the scene point to a car!,) and then you have found / discovered the "car" node that it has emerged. Program away from there.
Please consider reading the book; It's really interesting. It totally changed the way I look at Artificial Intelligence. (Which he argues: Can only be Actual Intelligence. He wants to define Intelligence such that: There's only one such thing, "Intelligence." It's either there, or it's not.)
The original poster said: tell it to bush and the republicans, we wouldn't be in there if it weren't for them
You reply with: If that is the case, you would have to tell it to every Democrat that voted for the war as well.
Democrat congresspeople voted for the war, it is true. But most of the Democrats that I know were against the war from the beginning. It was the Republican population that was supporting the war.
Do you remember that neat little debate, within the population? Do you remember how divided everyone was, and how the newspapers were writing about it? The "misinformed" + "watching Fox News" numbers going around? Remember?
Now, if the Republican population had been against the war, none of this would have happened.
Us non-Congressperson Democrats were firmly against the war in Iraq. We said things like, "We don't believe that there are WMD there," we said things like, "Let's listen to the inspectors," we said things like, "This evidence is really shoddy," and we said "This is going to be a disaster. You can't spread Democracy like this." We said all sorts of things. And you know what? We were right on just about every damn single one of them!
It was the Republican-voting population that allowed for this present reality to exist.
Not the Democrats' population.
So, tell it to the Republicans: Stop warmongering, and soldiers will stay in one piece.
People's wants are interesting things; People are multi-layered creatures.
Most people know that descriptions of wants at surface detail are not adequate. This goes beyond just desire for money and sex, and goes far deeper. Similarly, I think people recognize that they have fears and passions that can oversway them, and when you're looking for a leader, you're often looking for something more stable than yourself in many situations.
It's a very complicated question. Answering what only the Litany wants, (by the CLA,) isn't such a good idea. And if you see someone answering mainly to Litany, to the panics and fears of the day, it can be cause for pause.
I'm of the school of thought that focusing on the negative past does not help. Today's psychology climate disagrees strongly with this idea, but that's where I'm at.
I would (personally) focus my mind on how I wanted to relate with other people, and then do some role playing with friends, to train to get there.
As for the past: Re-interpret it so that you see what good and what unique perspective it gave to you, in a positive way. That is, I believe it's crucial to understand how (though you wouldn't wish it on anybody,) good things happened to you in the past.
There is no one way of doing Democracy. Democracy does not mean "voting," and so on. (What are we going to vote on?)
One idea I've heard is to create bodies of citizens, selected randomly, who, when an issue comes up, are given a week to talk and research an issue, and then publish a report on what they think about it, and possible things that could be done.
You get (A) ordinary people, (B) performing research and thinking and talking about things, and then (C) issuing a representation of what they think.
This way, you don't get "OMG F$*$ing Panic!" Rather, you get something more like a jury decision. When the media receives the representations, they then can say, "Well, here's what citizen's council X thought," and an explanation from "the people."
Whether people would pay attention to this, I don't know. There's probably a way to make it work, though.
Slashdot Mirror
The SpeakEasy Cafe led me to: A great many friends, and even 4 close ones, including my girlfriend (whom I met at the FreeBSD meetings that gathered there,) ... which led to our daughter, who now turns 6. We're a happy family, and we've always felt good about paying SpeakEasy.
:( So sad. Mike Apgar, send us an email!
...
SpeakEasy service is out of this world. They never balk that I run Linux & FreeBSD. Whenever we've had problems, it's been our end, but their staff has been responsive and friendly. Their level-1 staff are *very* knowledgeable. Network administrators I know love to recount stories of Speakeasy awesomeness.
First the cafe burns down, and now this.
If SpeakEasy service degrades in the slightest, I don't see how we can justify the extra expense. We're paying for SpeakEasy: the freedom to run Linux & FreeBSD, the freedom to occasionally host some (ahem) questionable material, the freedom to run weird configurations, their excellent service, their crazy smart staff,
If any of that goes away, I just don't see the point.
What are you doing, giving free school lessons on Slashdot?
... I don't know; Memorizing your latest architecture's assembly set, and optimizing your data structures and memory utilization to meet the on-chip cache space your clients are most likely to have?
Somebody's eating your lunch, man! Right now!
Shouldn't you be,
Right now, somebody's eating your lunch!
No excuses! Out! Right now!
Yes; Your response is quite fair.
What I mean to say is: Black boxes are a fact of life. We simply cannot, as individuals, know everything.
You can be a perfectly good programmer, and not know what's in a great many black boxes.
You can be a perfectly good scientist, and now know what's in a great many black boxes.
Yes; Understand too, how the gates work, all the details of how the chips work, (the myriad chips your program may run on,) and have a good understanding of quantum mechanics, as well. Understand all the business supply chains, as well.
Anything else, is just-- pshaw... Black boxing it.
Eh...
Sadly, "previous performance" is not indicative of "future performance" in this respect...
Once you are effectively married, regardless of whether you actually got married or not, things can change quite a bit, as far as sex goes.
Not necessarily, but it easily can.
I'm actually proud of who I am, how I was raised, of my girlfriend, and of my daughter Sakura.
Our daughter is 5, turning 6 tomorrow.
My girlfriend and I have been together for 7 years.
We are unmarried, and we have both had a lot of (safe) sex with others, before we were ever even knew each other. We both were exposed to porn at young ages, and are horrified at the thought of people prohibiting that.
She works at health clinics, and is doing incredibly good work. I have been a programmer my whole life.
I think we've done right, and I think we've done well, and we think our daughter is really fun, interesting, smart, and so on and so forth. We get along as a family far better than most of the families I've seen. I got my own views in how to raise kids from observing one of my good friend in high schools family- everyone was looked on as an equal, with equal rights, with freedom of speech and vision. Everyone contributed to family decisions, regardless of age. Sometimes a parent has to trump, but that's only looked at after full reasoning and discussion, unless there's immediacy. It left a very strong impression on me, and that led me to raise my daughter how I do today. No teenage rebellion-- none at all.
At any rate, what I'm trying to say is: "This works," and it's clearly sustainable, and it's clearly healthy.
What's tricky here, is that what works for my family very likely does not apply to all people, in all circumstances. I talked with a black woman in a bus with 3 kids. She was describing to me the world she lives in, and I can't say that the policies that work for my family, would work for hers.
At any rate-- this is what I have to grapple with, when I hear that "extramarital sex is wrong," that "abstaining til marriage is a good, noble idea," and so on. Both are clearly only true in particular circumstances.
I believe that people should have the freedom to determine those things for themselves, and to explore new ways of living. If those ways work, on what grounds are you saying that they're bad?
I have grounds for saying that they're good: (A) They're free. (B) They promote trust. (C) They encourage sex at the time where sex actually happens-- that is, before marriage..! (D) They make for more informed, safer people. (E) They grow real respect, pride, a sense of worth, self-ownership, and dignity. (F) They're not bullies, they don't "rebel" as they become individuals.
(And so on.)
It's a beautiful thing, please don't knock it.
I can't understand how the traditionally minded, who rightfully say, "Do not lie," are so ready to talk about what leads to what, when it clearly doesn't, or only in certain people's circumstances and environments.
No, I say: Let him speak.
If we're cowered into not telling the plain and simple truth, people will walk away entertaining the idea that, "Oh my God, exposure sex really will harm children." The truth is, demonstratably, false, and it's time to speak up about it.
We can make national stories about how so-and-so was sentenced for the simple act of getting a porno from their kid. I'd love to see some Scopes trials on this.
"Since the mid-1980's, a number of research organizations, universities, and consultants have conducted studies on avian mortality due to wind turbines. In the U.S., these studies were prompted because of the relatively high number of raptors that were found dead at the Altamont Pass Wind Farms near San Francisco."
"After dozens of studies spanning nearly two decades, we now know that the Altamont Pass situation is unusual in the U.S. The high raptor mortality there was the result of a convergence of factors, some of which were due to the bad siting in the local ecosystem while others were due to the wind turbine and tower technology used at the time. In fact, a very different situation exists not far away at the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farms near Palm Springs. A 1986 study found that 69 million birds flew though the San Gorgonio Pass during the Spring and Fall migrations. During both migrating seasons, only 38 dead birds were found during that typical year, representing only 0.00006% of the migrating population."
That's from an article on Windmills and bird deaths, that includes full references.
If we're going to cite special cases:
"One television transmitter tower in Eau Claire, WI, was responsible for the deaths of over 1,000 birds on each of 24 consecutive nights. A "record 30,000 birds were estimated killed on one night" at this same tower."
Wow!
To put these in context:
I won't argue for complacency, if we can spend a few cents more, and save the lives of birds, I'm all for it.
I definitely don't think we should discount windmill power as an alternative energy source, on the account of birds, especially given the drawbacks of alternative power sources such as coal & oil..! We're talking about exhaustion of supplies, which would (I strongly believe) lead to global war. The environmental consequences of World War III would have a far greater impact on birds than windmills.
Wow. It's just like a planetary analysis in Starflight. Will we find Molybdenum, Mercury, and Tungsten in little patches? Perhaps some Endurium?
Blatantly false; Read the OSI definition yourself.
The top three points are: Free Redistribution, Source Code, and Derived Wroks.
This research took all of 30 seconds.
Vendors don't have to listen to you, but you definitely have to be allowed to redistribute.
The segregation of Free Software and OpenSource software was a strategic decision: Free Software and rms argue from a moral standpoint (software should be free, proprietary software is wrong,) Open Source argues from an economic&quality standpoint (this is a better & cheaper way to do things.)
No, it shouldn't be done for free. But we should be negotiating for more, because we're on the losing side of this deal. And, hey! Guess what! We can!
If $30/month isn't enough for X bandwidth, of any type of data (not just email & occasional surfing,) then they can just get out of the business; Let someone else take our money to do it.
Metal Gear III took this a step further, even:
In MGSIII, There's a part where you actually die, they show the "GAME OVER" sign, and start playing the end of game music, and so on. You have to do something special to get past it, and further through the game.
There is no way of avoiding this scene-- you have to do it. It's a basic part of the story.
If you want to critique a video game story, or describe what it's saying about the world, or argue some point about the story, you need to reference the source materials.
But the game isn't easily browsable. You can't (yet) tell a video game, "Take me to page 274, I need to see what Cecil said right there."
It makes citations a real problem, too.
I don't understand; Are you saying that, "because my people were just ignorant, and because everyone in my family thought the Iraq war was a good idea," that you are off the hook?
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it and been mod up, but... ...this is all very neatly explained by Jeff Hawkin in his book, "On Intelligence," where he describes what he calls a "memory prediction framework."
Save one half of one chapter, it's a very easy read, and makes a lot of fundamental ideas very clear. While he doesn't give an algorithm for Intelligence, he does give a good (and somewhat original) definition of what Intelligence is, and then he describes some elements of what an intelligence probably requires: Time, (as a basic element- not a "training" part segregated away,) massive feedback from brain to "input," hierarchy, and some other things I don't remember at the moment.
He argued that the Neocortex is the same, basically all over. The neocortex is very much a blank slate. If you solve Intelligence for vision, it should also solve Intelligence for hearing. He backs this up with a bunch of pointers to other people's works and papers.
In his theory, an Intelligence builds names, labels, for identified patterns. So, if you were a programmer, you would watch the Intelligence process data, and then see what names it creates and sustains. You look at what lights up inside it whenever you point the sensor at a car, (or perhaps have someone in the scene point to a car!,) and then you have found / discovered the "car" node that it has emerged. Program away from there.
Please consider reading the book; It's really interesting. It totally changed the way I look at Artificial Intelligence. (Which he argues: Can only be Actual Intelligence. He wants to define Intelligence such that: There's only one such thing, "Intelligence." It's either there, or it's not.)
How does that make sense?
The original poster said: tell it to bush and the republicans, we wouldn't be in there if it weren't for them
You reply with: If that is the case, you would have to tell it to every Democrat that voted for the war as well.
Democrat congresspeople voted for the war, it is true. But most of the Democrats that I know were against the war from the beginning. It was the Republican population that was supporting the war.
Do you remember that neat little debate, within the population? Do you remember how divided everyone was, and how the newspapers were writing about it? The "misinformed" + "watching Fox News" numbers going around? Remember?
Now, if the Republican population had been against the war, none of this would have happened.
Us non-Congressperson Democrats were firmly against the war in Iraq. We said things like, "We don't believe that there are WMD there," we said things like, "Let's listen to the inspectors," we said things like, "This evidence is really shoddy," and we said "This is going to be a disaster. You can't spread Democracy like this." We said all sorts of things. And you know what? We were right on just about every damn single one of them!
It was the Republican-voting population that allowed for this present reality to exist.
Not the Democrats' population.
So, tell it to the Republicans: Stop warmongering, and soldiers will stay in one piece.
It always hangs, RIGHT as I'm about to knock the last two hit points off the Grim Reaper in Castlevania...
ARGH!
"Support the opinion that the people want"...
People's wants are interesting things; People are multi-layered creatures.
Most people know that descriptions of wants at surface detail are not adequate. This goes beyond just desire for money and sex, and goes far deeper. Similarly, I think people recognize that they have fears and passions that can oversway them, and when you're looking for a leader, you're often looking for something more stable than yourself in many situations.
Consider the Causal Layered Analysis understanding of human media, for example, and then ask, "What do people want?"
It's a very complicated question. Answering what only the Litany wants, (by the CLA,) isn't such a good idea. And if you see someone answering mainly to Litany, to the panics and fears of the day, it can be cause for pause.
No; Don't you know? Only certified psychiatrists have anything useful to say about minds. Anything anyone else says can only be mad mumbling.
I'm of the school of thought that focusing on the negative past does not help. Today's psychology climate disagrees strongly with this idea, but that's where I'm at.
I would (personally) focus my mind on how I wanted to relate with other people, and then do some role playing with friends, to train to get there.
As for the past: Re-interpret it so that you see what good and what unique perspective it gave to you, in a positive way. That is, I believe it's crucial to understand how (though you wouldn't wish it on anybody,) good things happened to you in the past.
This brings up a very interesting point --
We're not interested in computers, but rather, we're interested in the people on the other side of the computers.
"Internet addiction" is "interesting people addiction."
The Wii can't be that strong, can it?
The vast majority of people who want Wii's simply can't get them. I think there are far more PS2s and GameCubes and DS's out there, than Wii's.
There is no one way of doing Democracy. Democracy does not mean "voting," and so on. (What are we going to vote on?)
One idea I've heard is to create bodies of citizens, selected randomly, who, when an issue comes up, are given a week to talk and research an issue, and then publish a report on what they think about it, and possible things that could be done.
You get (A) ordinary people, (B) performing research and thinking and talking about things, and then (C) issuing a representation of what they think.
This way, you don't get "OMG F$*$ing Panic!" Rather, you get something more like a jury decision. When the media receives the representations, they then can say, "Well, here's what citizen's council X thought," and an explanation from "the people."
Whether people would pay attention to this, I don't know. There's probably a way to make it work, though.
At no point did I say anything beyond the fact that these people do not understand the scientific method and presented an explanation thereof.
... I was referring to the basic act of conversation, which involves trying to explain to people what you think, which alters their perceptions of the world.
Ah.. I was responding to: Religion doesn't teach logic, it teaches anti-logic, and these well-indoctrinated fools are thus unable to follow the above arguments.
So we're talking past each other.
And as for, My challenge is not to figure out how to convert them, because it is not my position or responsibility to alter people's perceptions of the world.
Unless you regularly talk to walls, and such, and talking with people is just another exercise like talking with walls, or flowers, or the wind.
No, that's the Internets. {;)}=
Look, if you don't like what I'm saying, fine. But if you've got a serious rebuttal, I'm ready to hear it.