Take a look at the "fallacy of composition" sometime. A quick take: you stand up at the ball game, you see better. But then everyone else does it, and you are no better off than if you were all sitting down - in fact, you are worse off, because you are now standing up for the whole game.
If everyone drives a tall vehicle, no one can see over the others. So you build even taller vehicles, and so on... ad infinitum.
Or you all agree to drive something small and light - as the rest of the world does. If you can't all agree, then get your government to tax all the big cars. That'll get people down-sizing.
One would have thought that Stalin was the more obvious reference here than Hitler. He had more people killed, and (mis)ruled for a longer time, and was more obviously opposed to religious belief and more obviously pro-evolution.
I could even imagine Hitler supporting creationism provided it was a blond Nordic Adam that was created in the Garden of Eden. And belief in God would be fine if his name was Woden or Thor. Stalin's Communism was strictly atheistic and pro-science (even if it was sometimes junk science, like Lysenko).
Soviet Communism was based on some kind of scientific rationalism. Nazism was based on crude nationalistic sentiment (irrationalism). Both were quite content to destroy millions of lives in pursuit of their respective ideals. But Stalin was more "efficient", or at least more successful in holding onto power and killing more people.
Hilter was the amateur. Stalin was the professional. But when you are looking from the West, you see Hitler first.
Many languages are popular because they were the first (or the first usable) language to fill a niche.
Look at the longevity of Cobol and Fortran - they started the business language and scientific language niches. They still run heaps of applications - they still have some momentum, decades after they were first mooted as languages.
PHP took out the server-side web page niche; Javascript took out the client-side web niche... where uniformity across all web-clients was particularly important (that is why vbscript never made it on the client side).
Secondly, many languages built on the popularity of the existing languages. Java is more popular than (say) lisp/scheme/etc - regardless of how wonderful they are - because it built on top of people's C skills, and was an incremental change, rather than an entire new way of thinking.
Look at Java, Javascript, PHP, C#, Python... all show the signs of competing for the C (and C++) programmer mindshare. They are not aimed at functional programmers (unless Javascript subtly is).
So... first occupier of a niche, building on existing skills, but extending that power into new areas... that is popularity.
Intellect doesn't need a reward. Intellect is its own reward.
(Meaning: if you really are smart, you will do better than other people anyway. Either that or you will console yourself by sneering at everyone else. Either way, you win.)
Here I am, sitting and eating lunch while I read Slashdot.
I am definitely getting fatter.
Mind you, I find it hard to read Slashdot while I am out pounding the sidewalks getting exercise. So that leaves the other major thinning moment: when I am sitting on the toilet.
But I don't take my laptop into the toilet room (no, it's NOT a bathroom, it has no bath; the bath is in the room next door, oddly enough that room is called the bathroom).
So yes, whenever I am reading an article about IT workers getting fatter, I am likely to be getting fatter too.
Doesn't mean I am any fatter than last year, though.
I wonder when they start refusing entry to people who don't have cell phones because they are obviously some kind of dangerous individual who can't be tracked and manipulated?
John was out in his workshop, putting some last touches on that birdhouse for Miss Hooper next door. He knelt on the floor and hammered a small nail into the roof of the birdhouse, and then laid the hammer down next to it and stood up.
He turned back to his bench, and rummaged around, looking for some grey linoleum to cover the birdhouse roof. Suddenly he stopped. He thought he heard a scraping sound on the floor. He looked, but the only thing there was the hammer - where he had left it.
He turned back to the bench, and kept poking around the stuff there. Another scrape. He turns back and looks. Was that hammer in the same place? He shrugged his shoulders, gave his head a quick shake, and went back to rummaging on the bench top.
Scrape. This time, when he turned around, the hammer was definitely closer. He froze. Should he move? Should he pick it up? Should he run away? What if it attacked him - thoughts raced thought his panicked brain.
The he saw the piece of faint string attached to the hammer and his little brother hiding under the bench, with a big grin on his face. "Had you there for a while, didn't I?"
By uttering my name you agree to abide by the terms of the Ignavus Name End-User Licence Agreement.
(1) The end user is absolutely barred from using my name in any negative fashion whatsoever.
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Slashdot Mirror
What a wonderful reason for people to switch to FOSS to avoid the nasty spywares.
"Come over to the light side, everyone, where your PC is safe from spying eyes!"
"Theft is taking people's property without their permission with the intention to permanently deprive them of it."
That description also applies to taxation.
As TV will show you: killing lots of people is fine, that is G-rated.
Having steamy sex (or simulated sex) with someone is NOT fine, and will get you an R-rating.
Bush is G-rated. Clinton was R-rated.
(Proof that all you need to know can be learned on TV.)
"I like being able to see OVER traffic."
... ad infinitum.
Take a look at the "fallacy of composition" sometime. A quick take: you stand up at the ball game, you see better. But then everyone else does it, and you are no better off than if you were all sitting down - in fact, you are worse off, because you are now standing up for the whole game.
If everyone drives a tall vehicle, no one can see over the others. So you build even taller vehicles, and so on
Or you all agree to drive something small and light - as the rest of the world does. If you can't all agree, then get your government to tax all the big cars. That'll get people down-sizing.
Fight evolution of super-bacteria!
Be a slob!
(That should go down well on Slashdot. Now there is a good reason why we wear the same T-shirt five days in a row and shower once a week.
We're saving the planet from super-bugs.
Cleanliness is next to species extinction!)
One would have thought that Stalin was the more obvious reference here than Hitler. He had more people killed, and (mis)ruled for a longer time, and was more obviously opposed to religious belief and more obviously pro-evolution.
I could even imagine Hitler supporting creationism provided it was a blond Nordic Adam that was created in the Garden of Eden. And belief in God would be fine if his name was Woden or Thor. Stalin's Communism was strictly atheistic and pro-science (even if it was sometimes junk science, like Lysenko).
Soviet Communism was based on some kind of scientific rationalism. Nazism was based on crude nationalistic sentiment (irrationalism). Both were quite content to destroy millions of lives in pursuit of their respective ideals. But Stalin was more "efficient", or at least more successful in holding onto power and killing more people.
Hilter was the amateur. Stalin was the professional. But when you are looking from the West, you see Hitler first.
The *AA has gotten the government to do things (like pass pro-*AA legislation).
The government has never gotten the *AA to do anything.
Therefore I conclude that the government is an *AA agency.
So I guess this new paper always wins in "rock, scissors, paper"?
"From a place where one makes memories with the kids, to a place where one wishes nothing remembered."
I can understand why you want to forget Disneyland, but do you really want your kids making memories with you in Las Vegas?
"Here kid, hold these coins so I can put them into the slot machine". Yeah, like I can see how that would be an exciting memory for a kid.
Linux from Scratch?
That must be where you develop your own Linux-compatible kernel without looking at any of the Linux kernel code.
That's hard core!
First we captured their server market.
Then we captured their subnotebook market.
Now we have got their desktop and laptop market surrounded!
Bwahahahaha!
"Something sure smells fishy."
Well, in Azerbaijan, that would be the sturgeon and the beluga taken from the Caspian Sea, according to Wikipedia.
Though you will be glad to know that Azerbaijan stocks of sturgeon and beluga are going down, so the fishy smell should diminish over time.
Many languages are popular because they were the first (or the first usable) language to fill a niche.
... where uniformity across all web-clients was particularly important (that is why vbscript never made it on the client side).
... all show the signs of competing for the C (and C++) programmer mindshare. They are not aimed at functional programmers (unless Javascript subtly is).
... first occupier of a niche, building on existing skills, but extending that power into new areas ... that is popularity.
Look at the longevity of Cobol and Fortran - they started the business language and scientific language niches. They still run heaps of applications - they still have some momentum, decades after they were first mooted as languages.
PHP took out the server-side web page niche; Javascript took out the client-side web niche
Secondly, many languages built on the popularity of the existing languages. Java is more popular than (say) lisp/scheme/etc - regardless of how wonderful they are - because it built on top of people's C skills, and was an incremental change, rather than an entire new way of thinking.
Look at Java, Javascript, PHP, C#, Python
So
Intellect doesn't need a reward. Intellect is its own reward.
(Meaning: if you really are smart, you will do better than other people anyway. Either that or you will console yourself by sneering at everyone else. Either way, you win.)
No - it is hard to throw the *same* egg back.
Obviously Ballmer forgot to bring his own supply.
"and having it's habitat still almost entirely intact"
But we are trying to chop it down as fast as we can.
"It also has bindings to just about every imaginable language."
What? Bindings to Klingon (you didn't say "programming language")? Fortran I? Dartmouth Basic? z80 Assembler? SGML? Postcript? VBA?
Shall I go on?
Here I am, sitting and eating lunch while I read Slashdot.
I am definitely getting fatter.
Mind you, I find it hard to read Slashdot while I am out pounding the sidewalks getting exercise. So that leaves the other major thinning moment: when I am sitting on the toilet.
But I don't take my laptop into the toilet room (no, it's NOT a bathroom, it has no bath; the bath is in the room next door, oddly enough that room is called the bathroom).
So yes, whenever I am reading an article about IT workers getting fatter, I am likely to be getting fatter too.
Doesn't mean I am any fatter than last year, though.
"We will need to rely exclusively on the good faith of the companies that guard our information."
Well, it's a good thing we long ago greeted our old corporate overlords.
I wonder when they start refusing entry to people who don't have cell phones because they are obviously some kind of dangerous individual who can't be tracked and manipulated?
Until then I am safe.
"Of course, geography might be an issue since they all live relatively close to me."
On the internet we all live relatively close to one another.
(PS: I live in the southern hemisphere.)
"thinking you won't be affected if half the world disappeared is incredibly naive"
Yeah. Imagine if all the females disappeared!
Wait. This is Slashdot. We *wouldn't* be affected if all the females disappeared.
John was out in his workshop, putting some last touches on that birdhouse for Miss Hooper next door. He knelt on the floor and hammered a small nail into the roof of the birdhouse, and then laid the hammer down next to it and stood up.
He turned back to his bench, and rummaged around, looking for some grey linoleum to cover the birdhouse roof. Suddenly he stopped. He thought he heard a scraping sound on the floor. He looked, but the only thing there was the hammer - where he had left it.
He turned back to the bench, and kept poking around the stuff there. Another scrape. He turns back and looks. Was that hammer in the same place? He shrugged his shoulders, gave his head a quick shake, and went back to rummaging on the bench top.
Scrape. This time, when he turned around, the hammer was definitely closer. He froze. Should he move? Should he pick it up? Should he run away? What if it attacked him - thoughts raced thought his panicked brain.
The he saw the piece of faint string attached to the hammer and his little brother hiding under the bench, with a big grin on his face. "Had you there for a while, didn't I?"
(OK, so it has plot holes. Sue me.)
By uttering my name you agree to abide by the terms of the Ignavus Name End-User Licence Agreement.
(1) The end user is absolutely barred from using my name in any negative fashion whatsoever.
(2) The end user will only use my name to say good things about me.
(3) The use of my name in any summons, charge, indictment or other coercive legal document is strictly forbidden without prior permission of the owner of the name.
(4) All the usual requirements of one-sided licences, such as your first-born belonging to me, are applicable to end users of my name.
"This site best viewed in telnet."
<put all your jokes inside tags - only the telnet users will be able to read them>