Still leftie and still reading Slashdot after 16 years or so and I agree 100%. I only read as far down as the first idiotic comment and that means I don't spend a lot of time reading Slashdot anymore.
I got an HP Stream 13 at Microcenter for $200. It's not a top-of-the-line machine and the keyboard has some annoyances (especially if you're used to quality Thinkpad ones which nobody else even comes close to anymore). It is good enough to play fullscreen video without issues. Ubuntu/Mint seem to work fine (not 100% out-of-the-box but pretty close to it by Linux standards) including wi-fi, webcam, bluetooth, and all the other bells and whistles I'm aware of.
I look forward to the day when somebody makes augmented reality glasses that block meatspace advertising like billboards, TVs in airports and bars, logos on clothes, all it. I'll be the first in line.
It is a Samsung GT-E1080i. Mine's a different edition from the ones I'm seeing online because it has Cyrillic (and English) on the keys. But who cares. You can get one for $4 + another $4 S&H off eBay right now. It'll be the best $8 you ever spent.
Actually, I was wrong. It is a color display. There's no particular reason for it to be a color display, since you're not going to use it to do anything interesting, but it is.
I got a Samsung in the Ukraine for about $10 US at a phone stand in a mall. Once I figured out how to get it into English instead of Cyrillic, it became the most practical phone for travel that I've ever found. The screen is just old one-color LCD with a backlight. The battery lasts for weeks on a good charge. It sends old fashioned texts and makes phone calls with better sound quality than the fancy Android I use now. And I never have to deal with the whole phone "locking" thing US carriers have, I can just buy a new cheap SIM card wherever I travel.
There's plenty of academic, philosophical, and artistic critique of video games out there. The field changes so quickly for technological reasons that the articles (when focusing on a particular game or games) suffer from rapid obsolescence. Nevertheless they exist.
Interactive fiction (e.g. text adventures, remember Infocom?) was a hot topic in the academic world in the early 1980s. As the consumption of video games has increased, so has the academic analysis/criticism. I'm not going to provide a bibliography here since Google, Lexis/Nexis, etc. will make it fairly easy.
Your ignorance of something is not proof of its nonexistence.
As someone who actually studied engineering, then switched to "arts & sciences", (and now has a Master's in a creative field and works in engineering once again) I can say one thing both sides will agree on: Judgments should be based on evidence and sound reasoning, not on personal anecdotes, hearsay, and ignorance. Most of the comments in this thread, and the FA itself, are not based on evidence. (Cue welcome to Slashdot comment.)
The grade inflation thing rings true. But let's not jump and claim Philosophy, or English, or Music, or Biology or Chemistry, are easier than any engineering branch. Grade inflation is a problem between universities-- Harvard competing with Yale to make graduates look better-- far more than it is a problem within specific branches. A GPA from one school will eventually be compared to a GPA from another without regard to the relative merits and failures of each program, so pump up the grades and give your students the edge.
As far as Engineering vs. (say) Philosophy goes, I'll bet (and it's only a bet) that more philosophy students can get a passing grade in a Calculus course than Engineering students could get through Wittgenstein. The imprecision of philosophy and literary criticism is a selling point for some people and for others it is a hindrance. Is truth boolean?
While you're on the subject, Lego has had issues over the years with knock-off Legos made in China under names like "Ligao". I have to admit I bought a bunch of sets of them when I was in Vietnam two years ago. It was impossible to resist the chance to buy a Border Crossing set featuring guards carrying little plastic AK-47s, and other sorts of indoctrination toys (tanks and such) -- http://www.skrzat-online.pl/images/bric%200494.jpg .
Anyway, I guess my point is, Lego could conceivably want to avoid Chinese production. They have squabbled over Chinese trademark violations of their brand in the past, although I think they focused not on the Chinese companies directly but rather on their European importers.
[social networking] is how adults get jobs.... little is known about how [online networking] will impact the more traditional social networking world, but rest assured that it will
I can't wait to be turned down for a job because I don't like Blink 182 or Christina Aguilera, or because I don't number among the interviewer's 983 link-affirmed friends, or because I don't have pictures of supermodels I've never met on my web page, or the right mix of day-glo colors set on a bright yellow background, or annoying noises, or, or, or, {head explodes}.
In all seriousness, the only examples I've heard are of people *not* getting jobs because they were easily Googled and employers found MySpace pictures of them passed out in their own vomit or running around naked with lampshades on their heads....And for god's sake I hope it stays that way. Your post gave me chills.
And neither is a tuba player, who just sits there blowing out of his mouth and moving his fingers like all the other brass players in the orchestra. They barely even move their feet!!
the clueless "webmasters" have died off, leaving the sites to competent programmers and designers
You think that until you look at (for example) the vast majority of OSCommerce 2.2 "modules", or millions of other user-contributed PHP/MySQL scripts that are not only badly coded, but dangerous. I think you will have a hard time convincing me of the competence of these well-intentioned programmers...
I'm amateurish when I work on my car. The fact that I've got no credentials or mechanical comprehension doesn't keep me from trying.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Well, a wiretap is certainly not a seizure, and it's not exactly a search, either; also, it doesn't necessarily occur within the target's physical space but instead examines transmissions that travel from their private space into public (or somebody else's private) space; and it's arguably reasonable (not unreasonable), if you're looking for a crime. So, to my mind there's nothing obvious about the Constitution/B.O.R. protecting wiretaps. It's a right people have had to fight for (and Bush is running roughshod over that right).
If the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant the power, they don't have it.
Yes, the Legislative branch is given the power to make laws, and if those laws contravene the directions of the Constitution they can be struck down. But-- The legislature often creates a law that may be unconstitutional (e.g. Patriot Act) and it must be challenged before being struck down. If the law is not struck down, but upheld, the Constitution has undergone a de facto change, regardless of whether that power is "explicitly granted". Moreover, the larger powers granted by the Constitution encompass areas like interstate commerce, patents, etc.; sometimes these areas encounter restrictions created by the Bill of Rights (e.g. internet-interstate commerce vs freedom of speech) and there is simply no clear demarcation between the government's power (or duty) to legislate and the extent to which that legislation is rendered unconstitutional by the bill of rights.
That's why there is a huge rift in methods of constitutional reading ("judicial activism" versus "originalism" -- although no Justice has ever been particularly consistent in their interpretational strategies).
This is a lot of writing for a 0 point response. I hope somebody mods you up, AC...
Whether or not the words are clearly defined in the language of the day, strict interpretation would leave a lot of loopholes created by changes in technology. (Of course these could be addressed by amendments, but are usually left to the Supremes.) I'm referring to questions like: does the Constitution protect against wiretapping? (This one has swung back and forth many a time, I think, since IIRC Olmstead v. US 1928 and Katz v. US 1967); are assault rifles protected by the 2nd Amendment (not sure if that's come up); is a slogan written on a T-shirt free speech (Cohen v. California 1971), etc.
The terms "wiretapping," "assault rifle," and "t-shirt" do not appear in the Constitution, nor could they have existed in Common Law, obviously. It would be sophistry to claim that "wiretapping" == "searching a house without a warrant", that "assault rifle" == "18th century musket", or that "t-shirt" == "mouth" (or "paper").
That's what the Supreme Court is for, to answer these questions. Your claim (that nefarious types have attempted to coopt the meaning of the words which do exist in the Constitution to the public's detriment) is faulty. Of course, in any legal debate there will be strong opinions on both sides, and in any substantive argument at the Supreme Court there is, ultimately, the definition of the Constitution at stake. But this is not to say that redefinitions, or expanded definitions, are not in the public good.
To my mind, defining the language of the 3rd/4th/5th/7th/8th/9th Amendments to include privacy rights is certainly in the public good (though this, too, is debatable). Or to lump wiretapping in with 4th Amendment protections, and include T-shirt slogans (among other things) as a 1st Amendment right. Or any of the other countless ways in which our rights have been expanded by the reinterpretation of narrowly-defined words. Someone on the opposing side of the fence would feel the same way about how some of the rights have also been reinterpreted or restricted (e.g. "cruel and unusual" still allows execution).
IANAL, but I play one on TV. And I miss the hell out of the Warren Court.
Remember when John Kerry brought up a mention of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter? That kind of backfired.
FOX News link -- too lazy to do better. IMHO the hypocracy of the Republicans is one problem, but the farce of "family values" when your dad is actively legislating against your life is even more astonishing.
Of course, they definitely kept Mary Cheney out of the public eye. In fact, the Cheneys overall seem to be kept in a locked box somewhere and only unleashed when it's time to sling some serious shite.
As one of the small percentage of archaeologists (well, it's my BA) on Slashdot I just wanted to say you nailed it, Volsung. I can also add that very few archaeologists would *want* to pore over a million years of Wikipedia edits. What's being discussed in the OP really is closer to historical research than Archaeology.
Funny, though, that "archaeology" sounds so exciting and "history" sounds so dull. If the OP had used the word history, nobody would have clicked "Read more..."
Slashdot Mirror
Still leftie and still reading Slashdot after 16 years or so and I agree 100%. I only read as far down as the first idiotic comment and that means I don't spend a lot of time reading Slashdot anymore.
Einstein might quibble with the term "simultaneously".
I got an HP Stream 13 at Microcenter for $200. It's not a top-of-the-line machine and the keyboard has some annoyances (especially if you're used to quality Thinkpad ones which nobody else even comes close to anymore). It is good enough to play fullscreen video without issues. Ubuntu/Mint seem to work fine (not 100% out-of-the-box but pretty close to it by Linux standards) including wi-fi, webcam, bluetooth, and all the other bells and whistles I'm aware of.
I look forward to the day when somebody makes augmented reality glasses that block meatspace advertising like billboards, TVs in airports and bars, logos on clothes, all it. I'll be the first in line.
I believe they're called Hoffman Lenses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.nuskool.com/learn/w...
It is a Samsung GT-E1080i. Mine's a different edition from the ones I'm seeing online because it has Cyrillic (and English) on the keys. But who cares. You can get one for $4 + another $4 S&H off eBay right now. It'll be the best $8 you ever spent.
Actually, I was wrong. It is a color display. There's no particular reason for it to be a color display, since you're not going to use it to do anything interesting, but it is.
It's just a big solid mess, ok?
Technically the liquid crystals are one color.
I got a Samsung in the Ukraine for about $10 US at a phone stand in a mall. Once I figured out how to get it into English instead of Cyrillic, it became the most practical phone for travel that I've ever found. The screen is just old one-color LCD with a backlight. The battery lasts for weeks on a good charge. It sends old fashioned texts and makes phone calls with better sound quality than the fancy Android I use now. And I never have to deal with the whole phone "locking" thing US carriers have, I can just buy a new cheap SIM card wherever I travel.
It's just a 2XL and a Radio Shack Armatron glued together... I had this in 1985...
http://www.retrothing.com/2006...
http://www1.pcmag.com/media/im...
Also, a fax machine is just a waffle iron with a phone attached.
Go beat the straw man for a while...
There's plenty of academic, philosophical, and artistic critique of video games out there. The field changes so quickly for technological reasons that the articles (when focusing on a particular game or games) suffer from rapid obsolescence. Nevertheless they exist.
Interactive fiction (e.g. text adventures, remember Infocom?) was a hot topic in the academic world in the early 1980s. As the consumption of video games has increased, so has the academic analysis/criticism. I'm not going to provide a bibliography here since Google, Lexis/Nexis, etc. will make it fairly easy.
Your ignorance of something is not proof of its nonexistence.
Or if someone tries to vote for Barack Obama and the vote comes up as "George Bush". ...It was true in 2000 and 2004 too!
!maybe.
As someone who actually studied engineering, then switched to "arts & sciences", (and now has a Master's in a creative field and works in engineering once again) I can say one thing both sides will agree on: Judgments should be based on evidence and sound reasoning, not on personal anecdotes, hearsay, and ignorance. Most of the comments in this thread, and the FA itself, are not based on evidence. (Cue welcome to Slashdot comment.)
The grade inflation thing rings true. But let's not jump and claim Philosophy, or English, or Music, or Biology or Chemistry, are easier than any engineering branch. Grade inflation is a problem between universities-- Harvard competing with Yale to make graduates look better-- far more than it is a problem within specific branches. A GPA from one school will eventually be compared to a GPA from another without regard to the relative merits and failures of each program, so pump up the grades and give your students the edge.
As far as Engineering vs. (say) Philosophy goes, I'll bet (and it's only a bet) that more philosophy students can get a passing grade in a Calculus course than Engineering students could get through Wittgenstein. The imprecision of philosophy and literary criticism is a selling point for some people and for others it is a hindrance. Is truth boolean?
While you're on the subject, Lego has had issues over the years with knock-off Legos made in China under names like "Ligao". I have to admit I bought a bunch of sets of them when I was in Vietnam two years ago. It was impossible to resist the chance to buy a Border Crossing set featuring guards carrying little plastic AK-47s, and other sorts of indoctrination toys (tanks and such) -- http://www.skrzat-online.pl/images/bric%200494.jpg .
Anyway, I guess my point is, Lego could conceivably want to avoid Chinese production. They have squabbled over Chinese trademark violations of their brand in the past, although I think they focused not on the Chinese companies directly but rather on their European importers.
[social networking] is how adults get jobs .... little is known about how [online networking] will impact the more traditional social networking world, but rest assured that it will
...And for god's sake I hope it stays that way. Your post gave me chills.
I can't wait to be turned down for a job because I don't like Blink 182 or Christina Aguilera, or because I don't number among the interviewer's 983 link-affirmed friends, or because I don't have pictures of supermodels I've never met on my web page, or the right mix of day-glo colors set on a bright yellow background, or annoying noises, or, or, or, {head explodes}.
In all seriousness, the only examples I've heard are of people *not* getting jobs because they were easily Googled and employers found MySpace pictures of them passed out in their own vomit or running around naked with lampshades on their heads.
You And Your Laptop Are Not A Live Act!
And neither is a tuba player, who just sits there blowing out of his mouth and moving his fingers like all the other brass players in the orchestra. They barely even move their feet!!
In other words... someday people will say "What a load of shit!" and they'll mean it as a compliment!
the clueless "webmasters" have died off, leaving the sites to competent programmers and designers
You think that until you look at (for example) the vast majority of OSCommerce 2.2 "modules", or millions of other user-contributed PHP/MySQL scripts that are not only badly coded, but dangerous. I think you will have a hard time convincing me of the competence of these well-intentioned programmers...
I'm amateurish when I work on my car. The fact that I've got no credentials or mechanical comprehension doesn't keep me from trying.
From TFC:
"Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Well, a wiretap is certainly not a seizure, and it's not exactly a search, either; also, it doesn't necessarily occur within the target's physical space but instead examines transmissions that travel from their private space into public (or somebody else's private) space; and it's arguably reasonable (not unreasonable), if you're looking for a crime. So, to my mind there's nothing obvious about the Constitution/B.O.R. protecting wiretaps. It's a right people have had to fight for (and Bush is running roughshod over that right).
If the Constitution doesn't explicitly grant the power, they don't have it.
Yes, the Legislative branch is given the power to make laws, and if those laws contravene the directions of the Constitution they can be struck down. But--
The legislature often creates a law that may be unconstitutional (e.g. Patriot Act) and it must be challenged before being struck down. If the law is not struck down, but upheld, the Constitution has undergone a de facto change, regardless of whether that power is "explicitly granted". Moreover, the larger powers granted by the Constitution encompass areas like interstate commerce, patents, etc.; sometimes these areas encounter restrictions created by the Bill of Rights (e.g. internet-interstate commerce vs freedom of speech) and there is simply no clear demarcation between the government's power (or duty) to legislate and the extent to which that legislation is rendered unconstitutional by the bill of rights.
That's why there is a huge rift in methods of constitutional reading ("judicial activism" versus "originalism" -- although no Justice has ever been particularly consistent in their interpretational strategies).
This is a lot of writing for a 0 point response. I hope somebody mods you up, AC...
Whether or not the words are clearly defined in the language of the day, strict interpretation would leave a lot of loopholes created by changes in technology. (Of course these could be addressed by amendments, but are usually left to the Supremes.) I'm referring to questions like: does the Constitution protect against wiretapping? (This one has swung back and forth many a time, I think, since IIRC Olmstead v. US 1928 and Katz v. US 1967); are assault rifles protected by the 2nd Amendment (not sure if that's come up); is a slogan written on a T-shirt free speech (Cohen v. California 1971), etc.
The terms "wiretapping," "assault rifle," and "t-shirt" do not appear in the Constitution, nor could they have existed in Common Law, obviously. It would be sophistry to claim that "wiretapping" == "searching a house without a warrant", that "assault rifle" == "18th century musket", or that "t-shirt" == "mouth" (or "paper").
That's what the Supreme Court is for, to answer these questions. Your claim (that nefarious types have attempted to coopt the meaning of the words which do exist in the Constitution to the public's detriment) is faulty. Of course, in any legal debate there will be strong opinions on both sides, and in any substantive argument at the Supreme Court there is, ultimately, the definition of the Constitution at stake. But this is not to say that redefinitions, or expanded definitions, are not in the public good.
To my mind, defining the language of the 3rd/4th/5th/7th/8th/9th Amendments to include privacy rights is certainly in the public good (though this, too, is debatable). Or to lump wiretapping in with 4th Amendment protections, and include T-shirt slogans (among other things) as a 1st Amendment right. Or any of the other countless ways in which our rights have been expanded by the reinterpretation of narrowly-defined words. Someone on the opposing side of the fence would feel the same way about how some of the rights have also been reinterpreted or restricted (e.g. "cruel and unusual" still allows execution).
IANAL, but I play one on TV. And I miss the hell out of the Warren Court.
echo *
It's 1% pornography and 99% erotica.
Remember when John Kerry brought up a mention of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter? That kind of backfired.
FOX News link -- too lazy to do better. IMHO the hypocracy of the Republicans is one problem, but the farce of "family values" when your dad is actively legislating against your life is even more astonishing.
Of course, they definitely kept Mary Cheney out of the public eye. In fact, the Cheneys overall seem to be kept in a locked box somewhere and only unleashed when it's time to sling some serious shite.
The "blogosphere" didn't do that; the voters of Connecticut did.
As one of the small percentage of archaeologists (well, it's my BA) on Slashdot I just wanted to say you nailed it, Volsung. I can also add that very few archaeologists would *want* to pore over a million years of Wikipedia edits. What's being discussed in the OP really is closer to historical research than Archaeology.
Funny, though, that "archaeology" sounds so exciting and "history" sounds so dull. If the OP had used the word history, nobody would have clicked "Read more..."