I disagree - I had Vista on my Laptop for a while (modern spec, came with Vista pre installed)- I could have been waiting over 10 minutes for it to kick back up after going to sleep. It was well over a minute just to boot. Plenty of times it would spend time 'thinking' and ignoring me. YMMV, but I think the fact that a modern system & OS _CAN_ be slower than one 20 years ago (a long time in IT land) is a sad indication of how badly OS development can go.
With the 8086, I was booting in maybe 15 seconds (time has hazed my memory), loading turbo pascal, and programming away with only some minor waiting times. Sure there was a noticible delay when compiling, but even then it would be less than a program of comparible usefulness on visual studio.
As an aside, I think my most productive system (both in terms of how responsive it was, and how much I got done) was a 40Mhz 386 with, if memory serves, 2MB of RAM. I played with Linux, accelerrated my programming abilities with learning C, Assembly, the intricsies of gcc, gas, ld, make, awk etc. etc. I build my own OS on that system (sure it didn't do anything useful, but it had all the framework (multitasking, mem manger etc.) in place).
Indeed, that is a ridiculous number to boast about. That is not much under 512 MB, which many machines out there are still using. If you have 2 Gigs, which should be more than plenty for an average desktop system, then 1/4 of the memory is used before you even do anything. It just emphasises that there is no such thing as a windows upgrade, it just expands to fill the resources available (much like a fart in a room). Personally, when I have a 2Ghz Dual core 64Bit system with 4GB of RAM on my desktop, I want it to be _slightly_ more responsive than the 8Mhz 8086 system with 640 KB I started my PC experience on.
Particular if you consider how easy it could be to do (you copy the template from some previous site for another site and forget to update the meta tags).
"If it was done unintentionally then you would lack the requisite intent and not be guilty."
Indeed, but its hardly something that is clear cut, it is down to someone to decide if they believe you or not.
And who judges whether a tag is valid or not?
"The same people who usually make determinations of fact in a criminal trial, the jury."
No, since someone will need to make that decision before you ever get to a jury.
The only, and obvious, solution to the minor problem of children accessing inappropriate content is for parents to be responsible in how their children can access the net.
"Unfortunately, many children are not fortunate enough to have parents who are responsible adults. A civilized society doesn't look at these children and simply say "sucks to be you." Instead we develop laws and policies that strike an appropriate balance between our freedoms and the responsibility we have to help such kids. As such, this seems to be a perfectly reasonable response to the efforts of those who seek to exploit children."
This is a trickier one. Certainly, there are black and white cases where children need supported beyond their parents, but there is plenty of grey areas in between. People in general are lazy, and the more control that is excerised over a persons responsibility, the more responsibility they will relinquish. Unfortuently, the no government has the resource to properly raise children, therefore a large void appears between what is needed and what is available for children.
This idea is far from resonable. Giving a jail sentence to a person for 20 years for causing little jimmy to accidently see a picture or their arse because they used a few ill advised keywords is not reasonable.
As mentioned in my previous post, I have never come across such a site from innocent keywords. It is creating a whole lot of work to accomplish nothing, while allowing parents think 'oh, the government is making the internet safe, I can let little jimmy sit in his room chatting to his 'friends' safe in the knowledge the good old u s of a will keep him safe'.
Consider this - rather than teaching children to be wary of strangers, should we make giving sweets to children illegal? The former, while I do have some problems with breeding suspicion into minors, is a sensible way of education children to the ways of the world. The latter would have zero impact of child abuse, take finite resources away from other endeavers, and create a false sence of 'things are being done'.
The idea is completely ridiculous. First off, 20 years for using a misleading meta tag? Does that sound appropriate? Particular if you consider how easy it could be to do (you copy the template from some previous site for another site and forget to update the meta tags).
And who judges whether a tag is valid or not? While there may be a few that are clear cut, most will be highly ambiguous and down to some arbitrary decision process, and likely used backwards (i.e. find a site you do not like, then see if you can find some law it breaks, such as this one).
Again, it used 'think of the children' to role in crappy, unenforceable laws which steal away people freedom, and solve a non-existent problem. I have two daughters, and frequently searched various keywords such as Barbie, and never encountered any pron sites. The only, and obvious, solution to the minor problem of children accessing inappropriate content is for parents to be responsible in how their children can access the net.
Unsurprisingly there are a lot of 'omfg css is so easy, you are just doing it wrong' and 'its the implementers problem' type replies. While both these statements are true, they are missing the point.
CSS in principle is a good idea, and in practice, even in its current state, is a great improvement on the alternative, but the fact remains that in order to do a non trivial design that works across all in-use browsers it is going to take a lot of work. To do this in a standard way (without relying on browser quirks) takes more work still. Not particularly hard work, but can be very time consuming. Granted, this is the fault of the implementations, but that is a bit of a moot point to the person who has to spend the hours trying to remove a 1 pixel gap from the side on image in ie, without breaking the appearance in firefox.
As a professional web developer, I rarely am meet with issues that I have any difficultly understanding, the problems come when you design an elegant solution for a problem, implement 99% of it, then find some bug in one of the technologies used requires you to throw it all out and start again, rushing a ugly and hard to maintain solution in order to meet deadlines and avoid the broken bits. Experience help to avoid this, but when you multiply the amount of technologies typical in a web project (server, db, client side scripting, server side scripting, content (html), display (css)) etc. by the number of implementation that may be used for each one, factoring in the rate of change these technologies go through, it become impossible to be ready for all possible limitations/ errors in implementation.
I find all the hype about linux/OSS being just as simple as closed source solutions irrelevent. Personally, I choice OSS because I understand my computer and its innerworkings, and I want to know exacly what my software is doing, and control it completly. Closed source software has a tendancies to hide what it is doing, it may do what _it_ assumes you want it to do very well and simply, but go beyond that and it becomes very awkward to work with.
While some OSS software venders may be looking to increase ditribution, it has to be remembered that that is not the point of it in general. Market share, ease of use, etc. should not be the yardstick used to measure its success.
If people are not willing to put in time to learn about there computer, they should get something that is straight forward and well supported. If someone wants to understand what is going on and have full control, go with OS. No software is perfect for any of these, and there are overlaps between them, but if asked I would continue to recommend Windows for the casual user. I don't see OS getting good enough (from that percepective) anytime soon, nor do I think that it should be the primary direction it should be heading in.
I don't see this as being a major issue for consumers - so long as you shop at places you trust. It is up-to the retailer to ensure they are buying the ligitimate goods, not for the buyer (how is run of the mill guy going to know how to tell the difference?).
You buy from a respectable outlet, and you use the product. If it fails, you bring it back to get it replaced. If they discover its a conterfeit, you get it replaced with the real thing (or sue if they are not forthcoming). Issue lies between outlet and supplier, not consummer and outlet.
There is the issue pointed out that things may go boom, but I think this is over hyped. Counterfeits arn't the only thing that go boom, and again, so long as it is a tracable outlet (i.e. not the back of a van) you get it replaced or sue for damages depending on how much of a boom.
As always - you want to buy cheap from the back of a van, you run the risk of getting malfunctioning crap and money down the drain. You buy from a reputable retailer, you still run the risk of getting malfunctioning crap, but you also you get the protection of the law if it goes pear shaped.
yeah, They should learn that they should only do bad things to people after flying them to a different country, or if they report things they don't like, or have oil or stuff.
I really don't think America can take the moral high ground on anything atm.
Why does having the two letters Dr in front of your name give make all these sycophantic reporters sit up and beg for scraps of wisdom from their over excercised jaw?
This is just so ludicrous - It basically boils down to someone who quite possibly is very knowledgable in their field has picked up a smattering of knowledge of computer science, decided their genious knows no bounds of disciplines, added 1 and 1 together and got 147.
It is quite possible that their are security vunrabilities in seti, but it is also certain they are hard to find (otherwise, we would have exploits going around)
It is possible that a certain data set could cause the program to overflow and allow arbitary excecution. The overflow could happen with a random set of data, but to do something useful (or damaging, depending on which point of view) you need to have a good knowledge of the program, the machine it running on etc etc.).
It is highly unlikely that alians would have that kind of knowledge of the machines. They may get a smattering from TV/radio broadcasts, but about the only place I can think that they could get the level of information required (without any physical access to earth resources) would be the internet. If they have net access, then they do not need to use seti as entry point, any vunrability would do. dito for if they have physical access.
Also, what is the worst their virus could do? Require a reinstall on a few home PCS. Bring the internet to its knees for a few days? You have to remember, the internet is under attack every second of everyday, and more or less copes ok. Our greatest evil geniuses who have intimate knowledge of the systems are not able to do more than cause slight annoyances (yes, I know companies and governements like to come out with losses of billions, but really!).
In conclusion, this dude is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Yet again, we have the RIAA showing their complete ignorance of technology, and applying bullish tactics that will only succeed in irritating.
10,000 words list? I can pretty much bet that most of these will be very general i.e. 'Kylie' instead of 'Kylie Minogue', so any artist named Kylie who want to bypass the grabing hands of the record industry and distribute themselves will now have a much harder time.
It is absolutely crazy how this can happen. RIAA get a levy on blank media because some might end up with their copyright material. They install software on you machines becuase you might try to copy one of their cds. They now block 10,000 search terms on Kazaa because they might be used to 'steal' their copyright material. And for the many people who wish to use those terms for ligitimate reasons? Tough luck.
Have a look at the riaa web site, and you will read much about how they see themselves as the protectors of culture and music. What a load of crap. They are just middle men, and middle men that have no purpose, now that technology can provide the functionailty that they have in the past.
" "widescale culling should take place without very careful consideration of the possible knock-on effects."
That's idotic. That process only invites ignorant criticism like yours, and allows people with a lot to say, but little of substance to roadblock the process.
No thanks, I'll let nature sort it out. What makes you think any kind of consideration will come to a correct conclusion anyway? It seems you think people can predict the effects of something like this. "
Your first sentance seems to suggest that you think 'widescale culling without due consideration' should take place (in giving negative connatations to the stopping, or 'road blocking' such a process). Yet your second sentence seems to suggest it shouldn't (let nature take its course).
For your first sentance, 'road blocking', and 'ignorant crticism' is simply a possible side affect of the process, not the process itself.
As for being able to predict it, yes people can predict it. Theres no garentee that it will be right, just as there are no garentees for any decision you make in life. You consider as much information as is available to you, try to consider how much information is missing, and take the best risk/reward action based on that. If we didn't do anything becuase we wern't 100% certain of the result, we would still be sitting in caves.
I find the arguement 'let nature take its course' very niave. Is it nature taken its course if I hunt a dear for food? Is it nature taken its course if I kill a lion to secure my dwelling? Is it nature taking its course if I kill thousands of cows to prevent a desiese from spreading further? We come from nature (unless you are one of these jolly ID ppl) and therefore everything we do is a product of nature. Sitting back and saying 'let nature take its course' is an easy escape route for the lazy, and if I may return a few phrases, ignorant and stupid.
"I think we should just all sit down with mosquitos and have a good long chat, I'm sure we could work out our differences and learn to live together in peace and harmony."
"Yeah... Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who die from malaria in the third world every year..."
Great. So the mosquito bites me, gives me malaria, and uses the blood to make MORE MOSQUITOS. Now, if you'd explain to me why this is a good thing?
Improvements in the gene pool? Seriously though, you don't need to jump of the agressive defence so much, I just mentioned as an interesting tit-bit, not as an arguement for or against any particular point.
That disease kills some 1.5 million people a year. One million, five hundred thousand people a year, every year. That's death on a Holocaust scale, and not just for a few years but year on year with no end in sight.
Yeah, thats right people die. People die for reasons. 1.2 million people die each year from car accidents (not including secondary pollution knock-ons). Perhaps a magnetic sheild for cities from cars is the answer to that?
Now, maybe there will be unpredictable ecological knock-on effects; food webs are like that. But I'll tell you what, to prevent one point five million deaths a year, if someone offered me the chance to press God's red button marked 'Instantly Exterminate All Mosquitos' I'd do it without the slightest hesitation.
Thankfully, your hand isn't on that (imaginary) button. No widescale culling should take place without very careful consideration of the possible knock-on effects.
I watched a program about mosqitos recently, and they are actually pretty cool creatures. As mentioned before, it is only the female that drinks blood, and it is used for making babies (mosquito babies I assume, not human), not for everyday sustanance. When they drink your blood, they actually distill it in real time, excreting out what they do not need as they drink.
But anyway, asides from the possible environmental impact it may or may not cause, does this not strick anyone as being highly unrealistic. How much would it cost to put up a city wide net of sensors and magnets, not to mention the power cost, replacing broken components etc. etc. Smells to me like a lot of vapourware.
I think we should just all sit down with mosquitos and have a good long chat, I'm sure we could work out our differences and learn to live together in peace and harmony.
I agree (I have 2 girls and a new baby, a boy I think, due in a few weeks). I find that pretty much everyone and their dog tries to tell you how to be a parent, and in my view this is a bad thing(tm).
We are biologically programmed to be parents, it is what we do. Certainly, some are better than others, and there are some that are just plain crap, but in my view the proclavity for telling parent what they should and shouldn't be doing (indeed, can and can't do) does more harm than good.
In my view, the most important thing to being a parent is being confident and relaxed. This is very hard if you are too wound up about making sure you are obeying all the rules in all the baby book, tv programs, news paper articles and government guidelines. This can make most people stressed, and stressed parents = bad parents.
Small kids don't understand the spoken word to well, but they are experts at empathy - if you are unsure they will know it, and they will take advantage of it. So long as you are confident in what you do, engage with them on their level, remain consitant (most of the time, we are not robots after all), and use some commen sence, everything else will fall into place. And yes, there are some ppl who just do not get parenting at all and do need some help, that is what families and socity are for, you cannot replace concerned human interaction with a CD-ROM or goverment issued pamphlet.
I must purge myself of this evil by adding to the multitute of wailing about duplicate postings, and add some extra comments about how much slashdot sucks, the only reason I come to it is to feel superior.
Not a clear cut dicision by any stretch. I think the main problem lies in the fact that as a species we have no clear cut goals - we basically try to make life better for ourselves in the short term, without any meaningful long term plan.
This is not neccassrily wrong, depends on where you personally think we should be heading as a species. It all boils down to 'good of the many v good of the individual', though I think the impact on the demographic makeup of the population is exgarated. For one, I doubt it will be cheap, which will be severly limiting (which raises other issues, such as should this be available on the national health or reserved only for the rich), also I think many people will be quite happy to continue to let nature decide. I know that while I would like my next child to be a boy, I'm not going to go out of my way to try to stack the odds, and will be quite happy with a third girl.
Personally, I think the government should stay out of this one, and let people decide themselves if they want to go for it or not. I believe the reason that so many people act without any responsibility is that they are not given any responsibily, all the important decisions are taken out of their hands by an over zealous government (yes, you can decide it by voting, but that would require lifting heads up from the daily celeb watching to pay attention).
If you want a consiencious population who will consider the consequences of their actions, you need to give them the ability to make those decisions.
Again with the fantasies, hey NFT? Well, if it helps bring a spark to your woefull existence, then why not, I suppose the idea of going out doors and making some real friends is a bit much for now, we don't want to be taking on to much too soon now. Perhaps you could try having practise conversations with your dollies for now, though you may find it to be a quite intellectually challanging at first.
Well, I'm glad to hear that you are moving on, but I'm not sure than delving into a fantasy life is the answer. Perhaps try to venture out past your front door, discover the beauty of the world around you, instead of filling your mind with imagery of people you are never likely to meet. Fantasies in themselves arn't harmful, NFT, but you seem to be blurring the line between reality and imagination. Try not to be so obsessed by your own deviant sexuality, and trying to persuade yourself that everyone else shares your afliction, pehaps a new hobby, such as cliff diving, or lion baiting, will help. As always, I wish you the best of luck.
But nothing, NFT. There comes a time when your advances become little more than begging, and I'm afraid it is demeaning to you. After conducting yourself with such good grace and intelligent repetoire, it is disheartening to hear such desparete pleading. Pehaps some colonic excerise will help your future relationships, flatulence is usually a turn off.
That certainly is a delighful picture, your obviously no stranger to auto-erotisicm, and that is good that you are so unabashed by it, but my advice to you if you wish to engage in a more meaninful relationship, try to be a little less forward. As for your repeated requests, I'm afriad I will have to turn you down again. It seems that you are getting a little obsessed by me. That is understandable, you wouldn't be the first, but your stringent efforts are, unfortunetly for you, futile. Perhaps you could put your 'unique skills' to a better use, such as displaying yourself in a 'freak show', or perhaps offering yourself to medical science. When you become a more useful member of society, I'm sure that your self-loathing will fade and you will find more fufilling avenues to expend your undoubtably expansive energy reserves.
I hope I don't offend you after your undoubtably difficult 'coming out', but I'm afraid it just isn't what I'm into. Do not dispair though, I am sure there are plenty of attractive men out there who would appreciate your forward attitute and imaginative sexually inclinations. Above all, don't loss hope! You have made your first important step into the wider world (in more ways than one!) you where always destined for. Good luck!
News for turds, you lovable rogue, you do love your homo-erotic fantasices, don't you? We all do, don't we? Well no, not really really. Most people don't think 'I disagree with you, I must imagine you in a homo-sexual situation'. But that is part of your individual beauty. Yes, News for turds, you are beautiful. Don't listen to your self-loathing, don't indulge in that self pity that covers you like the blanket you where so fond of when you where a minor. Face your feelings, realise your unorthadox but yet still valid sexuality. You sir, are a fighter. You, disguised as it may be, are always willing to bring to the attention of the uninitiated the fundamental yernings of the gay community, of which you are skirting the fringes. Good show. I, of the hetrosexual community, find your insights and awareness a constant and neccessary education to understanding you and yoiur brethren. Be proad, news for turds, and next time you bum your boyfriend, remember, you are not a bad person, you are merly followong the person you are.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree - I had Vista on my Laptop for a while (modern spec, came with Vista pre installed)- I could have been waiting over 10 minutes for it to kick back up after going to sleep. It was well over a minute just to boot. Plenty of times it would spend time 'thinking' and ignoring me. YMMV, but I think the fact that a modern system & OS _CAN_ be slower than one 20 years ago (a long time in IT land) is a sad indication of how badly OS development can go.
With the 8086, I was booting in maybe 15 seconds (time has hazed my memory), loading turbo pascal, and programming away with only some minor waiting times. Sure there was a noticible delay when compiling, but even then it would be less than a program of comparible usefulness on visual studio.
As an aside, I think my most productive system (both in terms of how responsive it was, and how much I got done) was a 40Mhz 386 with, if memory serves, 2MB of RAM. I played with Linux, accelerrated my programming abilities with learning C, Assembly, the intricsies of gcc, gas, ld, make, awk etc. etc. I build my own OS on that system (sure it didn't do anything useful, but it had all the framework (multitasking, mem manger etc.) in place).
Indeed, that is a ridiculous number to boast about. That is not much under 512 MB, which many machines out there are still using. If you have 2 Gigs, which should be more than plenty for an average desktop system, then 1/4 of the memory is used before you even do anything. It just emphasises that there is no such thing as a windows upgrade, it just expands to fill the resources available (much like a fart in a room). Personally, when I have a 2Ghz Dual core 64Bit system with 4GB of RAM on my desktop, I want it to be _slightly_ more responsive than the 8Mhz 8086 system with 640 KB I started my PC experience on.
Particular if you consider how easy it could be to do (you copy the template from some previous site for another site and forget to update the meta tags).
"If it was done unintentionally then you would lack the requisite intent and not be guilty."
Indeed, but its hardly something that is clear cut, it is down to someone to decide if they believe you or not.
And who judges whether a tag is valid or not?
"The same people who usually make determinations of fact in a criminal trial, the jury."
No, since someone will need to make that decision before you ever get to a jury.
The only, and obvious, solution to the minor problem of children accessing inappropriate content is for parents to be responsible in how their children can access the net.
"Unfortunately, many children are not fortunate enough to have parents who are responsible adults. A civilized society doesn't look at these children and simply say "sucks to be you." Instead we develop laws and policies that strike an appropriate balance between our freedoms and the responsibility we have to help such kids. As such, this seems to be a perfectly reasonable response to the efforts of those who seek to exploit children."
This is a trickier one. Certainly, there are black and white cases where children need supported beyond their parents, but there is plenty of grey areas in between. People in general are lazy, and the more control that is excerised over a persons responsibility, the more responsibility they will relinquish. Unfortuently, the no government has the resource to properly raise children, therefore a large void appears between what is needed and what is available for children.
This idea is far from resonable. Giving a jail sentence to a person for 20 years for causing little jimmy to accidently see a picture or their arse because they used a few ill advised keywords is not reasonable.
As mentioned in my previous post, I have never come across such a site from innocent keywords. It is creating a whole lot of work to accomplish nothing, while allowing parents think 'oh, the government is making the internet safe, I can let little jimmy sit in his room chatting to his 'friends' safe in the knowledge the good old u s of a will keep him safe'.
Consider this - rather than teaching children to be wary of strangers, should we make giving sweets to children illegal? The former, while I do have some problems with breeding suspicion into minors, is a sensible way of education children to the ways of the world. The latter would have zero impact of child abuse, take finite resources away from other endeavers, and create a false sence of 'things are being done'.
The idea is completely ridiculous. First off, 20 years for using a misleading meta tag? Does that sound appropriate? Particular if you consider how easy it could be to do (you copy the template from some previous site for another site and forget to update the meta tags).
And who judges whether a tag is valid or not? While there may be a few that are clear cut, most will be highly ambiguous and down to some arbitrary decision process, and likely used backwards (i.e. find a site you do not like, then see if you can find some law it breaks, such as this one).
Again, it used 'think of the children' to role in crappy, unenforceable laws which steal away people freedom, and solve a non-existent problem. I have two daughters, and frequently searched various keywords such as Barbie, and never encountered any pron sites. The only, and obvious, solution to the minor problem of children accessing inappropriate content is for parents to be responsible in how their children can access the net.
Unsurprisingly there are a lot of 'omfg css is so easy, you are just doing it wrong' and 'its the implementers problem' type replies. While both these statements are true, they are missing the point.
CSS in principle is a good idea, and in practice, even in its current state, is a great improvement on the alternative, but the fact remains that in order to do a non trivial design that works across all in-use browsers it is going to take a lot of work. To do this in a standard way (without relying on browser quirks) takes more work still. Not particularly hard work, but can be very time consuming. Granted, this is the fault of the implementations, but that is a bit of a moot point to the person who has to spend the hours trying to remove a 1 pixel gap from the side on image in ie, without breaking the appearance in firefox.
As a professional web developer, I rarely am meet with issues that I have any difficultly understanding, the problems come when you design an elegant solution for a problem, implement 99% of it, then find some bug in one of the technologies used requires you to throw it all out and start again, rushing a ugly and hard to maintain solution in order to meet deadlines and avoid the broken bits. Experience help to avoid this, but when you multiply the amount of technologies typical in a web project (server, db, client side scripting, server side scripting, content (html), display (css)) etc. by the number of implementation that may be used for each one, factoring in the rate of change these technologies go through, it become impossible to be ready for all possible limitations/ errors in implementation.
I find all the hype about linux/OSS being just as simple as closed source solutions irrelevent. Personally, I choice OSS because I understand my computer and its innerworkings, and I want to know exacly what my software is doing, and control it completly. Closed source software has a tendancies to hide what it is doing, it may do what _it_ assumes you want it to do very well and simply, but go beyond that and it becomes very awkward to work with.
While some OSS software venders may be looking to increase ditribution, it has to be remembered that that is not the point of it in general. Market share, ease of use, etc. should not be the yardstick used to measure its success.
If people are not willing to put in time to learn about there computer, they should get something that is straight forward and well supported. If someone wants to understand what is going on and have full control, go with OS. No software is perfect for any of these, and there are overlaps between them, but if asked I would continue to recommend Windows for the casual user. I don't see OS getting good enough (from that percepective) anytime soon, nor do I think that it should be the primary direction it should be heading in.
I don't see this as being a major issue for consumers - so long as you shop at places you trust. It is up-to the retailer to ensure they are buying the ligitimate goods, not for the buyer (how is run of the mill guy going to know how to tell the difference?).
You buy from a respectable outlet, and you use the product. If it fails, you bring it back to get it replaced. If they discover its a conterfeit, you get it replaced with the real thing (or sue if they are not forthcoming). Issue lies between outlet and supplier, not consummer and outlet.
There is the issue pointed out that things may go boom, but I think this is over hyped. Counterfeits arn't the only thing that go boom, and again, so long as it is a tracable outlet (i.e. not the back of a van) you get it replaced or sue for damages depending on how much of a boom.
As always - you want to buy cheap from the back of a van, you run the risk of getting malfunctioning crap and money down the drain. You buy from a reputable retailer, you still run the risk of getting malfunctioning crap, but you also you get the protection of the law if it goes pear shaped.
yeah, They should learn that they should only do bad things to people after flying them to a different country, or if they report things they don't like, or have oil or stuff.
I really don't think America can take the moral high ground on anything atm.
Why does having the two letters Dr in front of your name give make all these sycophantic reporters sit up and beg for scraps of wisdom from their over excercised jaw?
This is just so ludicrous - It basically boils down to someone who quite possibly is very knowledgable in their field has picked up a smattering of knowledge of computer science, decided their genious knows no bounds of disciplines, added 1 and 1 together and got 147.
It is quite possible that their are security vunrabilities in seti, but it is also certain they are hard to find (otherwise, we would have exploits going around)
It is possible that a certain data set could cause the program to overflow and allow arbitary excecution. The overflow could happen with a random set of data, but to do something useful (or damaging, depending on which point of view) you need to have a good knowledge of the program, the machine it running on etc etc.).
It is highly unlikely that alians would have that kind of knowledge of the machines. They may get a smattering from TV/radio broadcasts, but about the only place I can think that they could get the level of information required (without any physical access to earth resources) would be the internet. If they have net access, then they do not need to use seti as entry point, any vunrability would do. dito for if they have physical access.
Also, what is the worst their virus could do? Require a reinstall on a few home PCS. Bring the internet to its knees for a few days? You have to remember, the internet is under attack every second of everyday, and more or less copes ok. Our greatest evil geniuses who have intimate knowledge of the systems are not able to do more than cause slight annoyances (yes, I know companies and governements like to come out with losses of billions, but really!).
In conclusion, this dude is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Yet again, we have the RIAA showing their complete ignorance of technology, and applying bullish tactics that will only succeed in irritating.
10,000 words list? I can pretty much bet that most of these will be very general i.e. 'Kylie' instead of 'Kylie Minogue', so any artist named Kylie who want to bypass the grabing hands of the record industry and distribute themselves will now have a much harder time.
It is absolutely crazy how this can happen. RIAA get a levy on blank media because some might end up with their copyright material. They install software on you machines becuase you might try to copy one of their cds. They now block 10,000 search terms on Kazaa because they might be used to 'steal' their copyright material. And for the many people who wish to use those terms for ligitimate reasons? Tough luck.
Have a look at the riaa web site, and you will read much about how they see themselves as the protectors of culture and music. What a load of crap. They are just middle men, and middle men that have no purpose, now that technology can provide the functionailty that they have in the past.
"
"widescale culling should take place without very careful consideration of the possible knock-on effects."
That's idotic. That process only invites ignorant criticism like yours, and allows people with a lot to say, but little of substance to roadblock the process.
No thanks, I'll let nature sort it out. What makes you think any kind of consideration will come to a correct conclusion anyway? It seems you think people can predict the effects of something like this.
"
Your first sentance seems to suggest that you think 'widescale culling without due consideration' should take place (in giving negative connatations to the stopping, or 'road blocking' such a process). Yet your second sentence seems to suggest it shouldn't (let nature take its course).
For your first sentance, 'road blocking', and 'ignorant crticism' is simply a possible side affect of the process, not the process itself.
As for being able to predict it, yes people can predict it. Theres no garentee that it will be right, just as there are no garentees for any decision you make in life. You consider as much information as is available to you, try to consider how much information is missing, and take the best risk/reward action based on that. If we didn't do anything becuase we wern't 100% certain of the result, we would still be sitting in caves.
I find the arguement 'let nature take its course' very niave. Is it nature taken its course if I hunt a dear for food? Is it nature taken its course if I kill a lion to secure my dwelling? Is it nature taking its course if I kill thousands of cows to prevent a desiese from spreading further? We come from nature (unless you are one of these jolly ID ppl) and therefore everything we do is a product of nature. Sitting back and saying 'let nature take its course' is an easy escape route for the lazy, and if I may return a few phrases, ignorant and stupid.
"I think we should just all sit down with mosquitos and have a good long chat, I'm sure we could work out our differences and learn to live together in peace and harmony."
"Yeah... Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who die from malaria in the third world every year..."
Indeed. Get sarcasm much?
Great. So the mosquito bites me, gives me malaria, and uses the blood to make MORE MOSQUITOS. Now, if you'd explain to me why this is a good thing? Improvements in the gene pool? Seriously though, you don't need to jump of the agressive defence so much, I just mentioned as an interesting tit-bit, not as an arguement for or against any particular point. That disease kills some 1.5 million people a year. One million, five hundred thousand people a year, every year. That's death on a Holocaust scale, and not just for a few years but year on year with no end in sight. Yeah, thats right people die. People die for reasons. 1.2 million people die each year from car accidents (not including secondary pollution knock-ons). Perhaps a magnetic sheild for cities from cars is the answer to that? Now, maybe there will be unpredictable ecological knock-on effects; food webs are like that. But I'll tell you what, to prevent one point five million deaths a year, if someone offered me the chance to press God's red button marked 'Instantly Exterminate All Mosquitos' I'd do it without the slightest hesitation. Thankfully, your hand isn't on that (imaginary) button. No widescale culling should take place without very careful consideration of the possible knock-on effects.
I watched a program about mosqitos recently, and they are actually pretty cool creatures. As mentioned before, it is only the female that drinks blood, and it is used for making babies (mosquito babies I assume, not human), not for everyday sustanance. When they drink your blood, they actually distill it in real time, excreting out what they do not need as they drink.
But anyway, asides from the possible environmental impact it may or may not cause, does this not strick anyone as being highly unrealistic. How much would it cost to put up a city wide net of sensors and magnets, not to mention the power cost, replacing broken components etc. etc. Smells to me like a lot of vapourware.
I think we should just all sit down with mosquitos and have a good long chat, I'm sure we could work out our differences and learn to live together in peace and harmony.
I agree (I have 2 girls and a new baby, a boy I think, due in a few weeks). I find that pretty much everyone and their dog tries to tell you how to be a parent, and in my view this is a bad thing(tm).
We are biologically programmed to be parents, it is what we do. Certainly, some are better than others, and there are some that are just plain crap, but in my view the proclavity for telling parent what they should and shouldn't be doing (indeed, can and can't do) does more harm than good.
In my view, the most important thing to being a parent is being confident and relaxed. This is very hard if you are too wound up about making sure you are obeying all the rules in all the baby book, tv programs, news paper articles and government guidelines. This can make most people stressed, and stressed parents = bad parents.
Small kids don't understand the spoken word to well, but they are experts at empathy - if you are unsure they will know it, and they will take advantage of it. So long as you are confident in what you do, engage with them on their level, remain consitant (most of the time, we are not robots after all), and use some commen sence, everything else will fall into place. And yes, there are some ppl who just do not get parenting at all and do need some help, that is what families and socity are for, you cannot replace concerned human interaction with a CD-ROM or goverment issued pamphlet.
Oh woe is me! A dupe. my eyes, my eyes!
I must purge myself of this evil by adding to the multitute of wailing about duplicate postings, and add some extra comments about how much slashdot sucks, the only reason I come to it is to feel superior.
It burn, oh how it burns!
Not a clear cut dicision by any stretch. I think the main problem lies in the fact that as a species we have no clear cut goals - we basically try to make life better for ourselves in the short term, without any meaningful long term plan.
This is not neccassrily wrong, depends on where you personally think we should be heading as a species. It all boils down to 'good of the many v good of the individual', though I think the impact on the demographic makeup of the population is exgarated. For one, I doubt it will be cheap, which will be severly limiting (which raises other issues, such as should this be available on the national health or reserved only for the rich), also I think many people will be quite happy to continue to let nature decide. I know that while I would like my next child to be a boy, I'm not going to go out of my way to try to stack the odds, and will be quite happy with a third girl.
Personally, I think the government should stay out of this one, and let people decide themselves if they want to go for it or not. I believe the reason that so many people act without any responsibility is that they are not given any responsibily, all the important decisions are taken out of their hands by an over zealous government (yes, you can decide it by voting, but that would require lifting heads up from the daily celeb watching to pay attention).
If you want a consiencious population who will consider the consequences of their actions, you need to give them the ability to make those decisions.
hmmm, quite alarming in a way really. Perhaps it is professional help that you need.
Again with the fantasies, hey NFT? Well, if it helps bring a spark to your woefull existence, then why not, I suppose the idea of going out doors and making some real friends is a bit much for now, we don't want to be taking on to much too soon now. Perhaps you could try having practise conversations with your dollies for now, though you may find it to be a quite intellectually challanging at first.
Don't worry about it, you'll be out of nappies once the flatulence stops.
Well, I'm glad to hear that you are moving on, but I'm not sure than delving into a fantasy life is the answer. Perhaps try to venture out past your front door, discover the beauty of the world around you, instead of filling your mind with imagery of people you are never likely to meet. Fantasies in themselves arn't harmful, NFT, but you seem to be blurring the line between reality and imagination. Try not to be so obsessed by your own deviant sexuality, and trying to persuade yourself that everyone else shares your afliction, pehaps a new hobby, such as cliff diving, or lion baiting, will help. As always, I wish you the best of luck.
But nothing, NFT. There comes a time when your advances become little more than begging, and I'm afraid it is demeaning to you. After conducting yourself with such good grace and intelligent repetoire, it is disheartening to hear such desparete pleading. Pehaps some colonic excerise will help your future relationships, flatulence is usually a turn off.
That certainly is a delighful picture, your obviously no stranger to auto-erotisicm, and that is good that you are so unabashed by it, but my advice to you if you wish to engage in a more meaninful relationship, try to be a little less forward. As for your repeated requests, I'm afriad I will have to turn you down again. It seems that you are getting a little obsessed by me. That is understandable, you wouldn't be the first, but your stringent efforts are, unfortunetly for you, futile. Perhaps you could put your 'unique skills' to a better use, such as displaying yourself in a 'freak show', or perhaps offering yourself to medical science. When you become a more useful member of society, I'm sure that your self-loathing will fade and you will find more fufilling avenues to expend your undoubtably expansive energy reserves.
I hope I don't offend you after your undoubtably difficult 'coming out', but I'm afraid it just isn't what I'm into. Do not dispair though, I am sure there are plenty of attractive men out there who would appreciate your forward attitute and imaginative sexually inclinations. Above all, don't loss hope! You have made your first important step into the wider world (in more ways than one!) you where always destined for. Good luck!
News for turds, you lovable rogue, you do love your homo-erotic fantasices, don't you? We all do, don't we? Well no, not really really. Most people don't think 'I disagree with you, I must imagine you in a homo-sexual situation'. But that is part of your individual beauty. Yes, News for turds, you are beautiful. Don't listen to your self-loathing, don't indulge in that self pity that covers you like the blanket you where so fond of when you where a minor. Face your feelings, realise your unorthadox but yet still valid sexuality. You sir, are a fighter. You, disguised as it may be, are always willing to bring to the attention of the uninitiated the fundamental yernings of the gay community, of which you are skirting the fringes. Good show. I, of the hetrosexual community, find your insights and awareness a constant and neccessary education to understanding you and yoiur brethren. Be proad, news for turds, and next time you bum your boyfriend, remember, you are not a bad person, you are merly followong the person you are.