I am shocked I say -- SHOCKED -- to hear this news.
And excited.
The geek in me is excited about 2005. Methane oceans, rovers on Mars and private spaceflight? There's a lot that's scary going on in the world today. But when it comes to SPACEFLIGHT -- 2005 is shaping up to be a banner year!
As for danger...you're right. Especially if there was heavy traffic above, you'd always have to worry about a car falling out of the sky even if you weren't in one yourself.
Someone I know quite well drives a 16 year old car with no speedometer, faulty brakes and a broken water pump. Peak oil (personal transport as we known it is rapidly coming to an end) aside, flying cars will never take off because a not insignificant number of people would continue to drive their cars into the ground...
I think I speak for most people who have taken the time to read this sub-thread when I respectly submit that the problem may be that you need to grow a pair.
If you "say some things in confidience" in a note you give to your girlfriend (or a co-worker, or the girl sitting behind you in study hall), it is almost inevitable that she will, in fact, share some of the juicy bits with her friends (or another co-worker or the girls at the lunch table). And here "note' would include a letter or email or conversation. Perhaps you should have exercised some discretion about who you shared these things with or what you chose to say? Talking behind peoples' backs can come back to bite you. You were forced to be a man and stand behind some uncomfortable things you said. Must have been awkward. Surely you didn't try to weasel out of it and pretend you didn't mean what you said when you said it. "Taken out of context"... right.
Regardless, others have already said better than I that it is not the government's role to step in and regulate the private speech of individuals. Period. I just wanted to say what a lot of us are already thinking. That you could stand to be more of a man about this and own up to the words you obviously said. The ex choose to be immature and vindictive about how she got back at you. Looks like she hit the target dead center. You aren't going to stop her. Let it go and move on.
I suppose my choice of words could have made it seem like I was saying that the only thing to do was to patent. Thank you for bringing up the issue of prior art. My point was simply that if you have the idea, you should not let it remain a "dream" but do something with it. You can find the idea of patenting "ideas" is abhorrent, anticompetitive, restricts free speech etc But that is the reality of how things are right now in 2005...
I was all cagey when I brought up Jonas Salk earlier. My apologies. Long story short: He was a man who develolped a vaccine to help wipe out polio and he refused to patent it because he wanted to make it freely available to everyone. You can live in the world you imagine but if you understand that there are others with ideals that are not alligned with yours, it can be to everyone's advantage to see that YOU are the one who is holding the patent/prior art/claim to the thing itself...
Not everyone plays nicely. You can. Getting in early just gives you leverage...
Anyway, nice exchange of ideas, Doc. And an impressive CV, too!
Wake me when we get the neural inputs, and I'll be happy to show you my dreams.
Now you're thinking like an open-sourcer. Which, frankly, is a shame. Or didn't you know that you were able to convert "dreams" like these into things called patents?
You, with all your ideas, thinking of your dreams as just dreams when you could be credited as the person responsible for the idea of _______. Those dreams, Doc Ruby, should be developed. By you. Even if the technology isn't there today. When you see where we are headed, when you have the vision to peer OVER the horizon we have only just approached, you can do something about it.
But, like I said: You are an Open Sourcer... you think ideas should be free. Fair enough. But you make the mistake of thinking it would somehow be DIRTY to be the person who owns that idea. I would just like to point you in the direction of Jonas Salk...
(glad to be posting buried deep in a comment thread because this is either brilliant or crazy...)
But "nothing" is inadequate.
You're thinking about this problem -- and "nothing" -- in a very 20th century way. I agree that, as things stand now -- with virtual keyboards working as one-way projection systems, splashing visible light on a surface, you're right, you will only get visible feedback and it won't really feel usable. But do you think your finger has to touch a rubber button to feel like it's touching something? It isn't really that far off to imagine a future where a tiny nerve in the brain itself could be stimulated by the projection program to feel like it was touching a little rubber button. Science fiction? When they are already developing cursors that can be moved by thought and attempting to do just this with artificial limbs? Cell phones with projection keypads that interface with the nerves in the brain to feel like they are pressing something. This is what the future will hold. barring any unforeseen surprises...
But you cannot actually infer that they enjoyed f-...uh...reproducing. Merely that they f--, ahem, were involved in the act of reproducing at least once. I have a married friend -- with kids -- and he can tell you for a fact that his wife most certainly does not enjoy even the occasional f--, uh, physical act that may or may not result in offspring...
Of course if you REALLY want a really easy to use, really light text entry tool with a great battery life, consider getting a handheld with an optional fold up keyboard (used to be Stowaway, then Targus, now, who knows?) -- fits in your pocket, the battery lasts all day and with a program like Wordsmith you can really do some great text entry. Perfect for taking notes in class or writing on the go...
I wish I could mod you to the moon but, having no points, I'll instead tell you that I've bookmarked your messageboard and stuck it near the top of my list in Firefox... Dogged persistence and the willingness to laugh about the ramen and know that you're going to make it no matter what; it seems like this is a key ingredient that's missing from a lot of the cynics on here.
You say you aren't jaded -- but in the entire 4.x billion year history of our planet -- quite possibly the only planet that sustains life anywhere, ever -- because, let's face it, we still don't know anything -- but we do know that in this many billions of years, no individual has EVER before done this. "It wasn't much of an accomplishment"!?!? I feel proud of myself when I walk around both lakes before noon -- all six miles. This guy stayed awake for nearly 70 hours straight and FLEW a plane AROUND THE ENTIRE PLANET, saw it all, saw mountains and deserts and ocean and ice -- he did this by himself. Sure he had a team supporting him. He had to. Even with this huge team, something this big had never been done successfully before 2005. He is the first. Sorry humanity couldn't do it sooner for you or come up with something that won't seem like hype. At least you're not jaded, right?
This is a damn big accomplishment and I, for one, salute the entire GlobalFlyer team!!!
First Titan, now this. 2005 is a big year in aviation. Big.
That exploit was discovered in october 2004, and XP SP2 users are still vulnerable with all updates (even on 12-1-2005, after microsoft had theoretically closed this hole, but only partially suceeded
John Titor... is that you? Where've you been? When've you been?
I'm not really sure why I'm chiming in here but I'll bite.
I live about 2 1/2 miles south of the IDS tower -- in Uptown. There's enough interference from all the buildings downtown that it isn't possible to get a decent signal here without cable. Which is fine with me because most TV is crap, right? Except that the ex-girlfriend liked watching TV and Time Warner was running a special so in November I got cable. Having not watched TV in a year or two, I was amazed by the commercials. Lots and lots of commercials. People trying to cram things down your throat. Constantly. Wow.
(this story doesn't have a point, by the way, so you can just skip ahead to the next message...)
Anyway, like I said, the exgirlfriend. Things didn't work out but I kept the cable for a few weeks. Then on New Year's Day, I'm sitting on my couch and I say to myself, "What am I doing?" So I call Time Warner and say to the customer service rep, "I'd like to cancel my cable."
She asks me why. "Well," I reply, "It's nice and everything but I'm watching too much TV and I'm not comfortable with so many commercials constantly telling me why I am missing something in my life. I like my life like it is..."
Silence. For about thirty seconds. Then: "Sir, could you please hold..."
...about four minutes later, she comes back on the line with a worried tone in her voice and says, "Sir, there isn't anyplace on this form for 'too many commercials'. Is there any other reason why you are canceling?"
I choke down a laugh. I was being a dick and didn't even realize it. She was getting paid $8/hour and I was making her talk time on a routine call go through the roof... "Is there any place to mark 'other'?" I ask helpfully. There was.
Now the TV is back on the floor of my messy bedroom, covered in clothes. And I am much happier.
Again, I didn't really have a point here. Just thought I'd share.
I'll agree with your point -- your parent post wasn't a troll... merely unpopular. That seemed to earn it some -1 Troll moderation. That's a shame. But people who mod things down because they disagree with them aren't fascists... they are fundamentalists People who, I would argue, are far more prevelant in our society than is let on and who are far more insidious than the fascists you fear. Or maybe you simply blurred the two words... Whichever the case, the "true believers" who reject intellectual honesty -- they scare me the most.
I don't have a credit card but I'm sitting on a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate that someone gave me. I was hoping to be able to use THAT to make a $25 donation to the American Red Cross (Or, frankly, ANY organization providing relief!) through Amazon.com. After some searching I can't find any way to do it...
So I'm going to use Slashdot to see if I can do the next best thing: I'm willing to give my validation code for a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate to anyone who is willing to MAKE a $25 donation. Seriously. No stings attached here and I suppose, ultimately, that I'll never have any verification that it worked but cynicism is worse than inaction. I'm just a guy with bad credit who still wants to find a way to help.
If you are willing to make that donation, just send me an email (to my email address listed above) and I'll send you the code to the Amazon.com gift certificate -- it is good through 17-Nov-2005.
I don't know anything about APIs or brute force attacks or whatever. I was a technical MANAGER but never an actual geek. (grins) But I can tell you that if you install GDS and let it index that file, you will be able to click on the cached copy of it and see it just fine.
I emailed Google about this when I uninstalled GDS -- never heard back from them. Didn't expect to. Again, as other posters have pointed out -- this is a problem with MICROSOFT security, probably. I wasn't pointing fingers or laying blame -- I was just saying that the combination of the two is just a little too much for my laptop and my paranoia to handle. The fact is that there is now a tool out there that virus writers will be able to reverse engineer and do even more dangerous stuff. Get ready for a lot of late night phone calls!!!
Desktop search is only exposing a weakness that is already there as it can only index stuff it has permission to index.
I understand that this is technically true -- but did you know Google Desktop Search can do some pretty nasty things -- things like indexing all of the Word files on your computer? If one of them happens to be password protected, you click on the link and it asks for the password. But if you click on CACHED copy -- poof, there is the entire document, right there in your web browser. Whoops. Don't even get me started on cached copies of deleted files...
Google Desktop Search is powerful -- and is only indexing what is already there, true, true, all true...but still -- when it gets easy enough that someone like me can quickly and easily poke around and look at things I'm not supposed to... well, that's scary.
Glad we can find some common ground here. (What? Civility on Slashdot? Is this possible?)
Its usually one of the free alt-weeklies, rather than an LA times or something that would require me to find some quarters in my pocket
The problem with these, of course, is that they are weekly. If you find yourself killing time on a regular basis, you'll probably have the darn thing memorized the day after it comes out. Daily papers at least have new content each morning. Whether in a coffee shop or on the bus, I'm a big fan of reading the newspapers that others have left behind. This practice of mine, however, doesn't do much to bolster the argument that newspapers have a sustainable economic future... I am the ultimate free rider, relying on the propensity of others to discard something they no longer need, robbing publishers of potential revenue. Maybe, just maybe, online publishing -- coupled with DRM -- will allow those media giants to squeeze more revenue out of people like me in the future...? Maybe someday my actions will be seen as unpatriotic and/or criminal?
Until then, I'll happily rifle through the recycle bin or pick up the daily on the seat next to me. The alt-weeklies have their place -- but they don't change quite often enough... or perhaps I just have too much free time...?
Nah. I can even get the Fry's ads with the online version, and I don't have to sift through all the other ads that are stuffed into the paper version.
Newspapers are mostly ephemeral- you want the current information and as current as possible. It's easier to keep up to the minute online, and if you're interested in the archival value of newspapers, online is easier to search.
Yeah, that's all true. Still, I think you're missing the grandparent poster's point all the same. There are times when I don't care about searching online or skipping ads. Times when you just want something to look at. A prop. Something to pass the time. This might come as a shock to you if you never leave your house/cube -- but there might just be times when the primary purpose of a newspaper is something other than "staying as current as possible." Times when you are sitting on the bus, in a coffee shop or (dare I mention it?) on the can. There are times when it might actually be pleasant to flip through the pages as you sip your latte or smoke your cigarette. And yes, I know, I know, it may be possible to someday get e-book readers that are light and portable and we'll all carry them -- I've read many books on my handheld and it really can be great in it's own way, it fills a niche -- but it is just a niche. I, for one, enjoy asking the person next to me if they are going to do the crossword, thank you very much, and I suspect that it will take longer than you think for a e-version of anything to replace that.
Just my humble opinion, of course. I'm sure I'll get modded down for my tone or something...
Man, I was all set to just BROWSE the thread and now you are compelling me to respond. OK...
Once we conquer the local planets and are able to successfully live outside of earth's atmosphere, we will quickly take over the solar system (as much of it as we can) and then probably the whole galaxy and so on. This is just how we work, its what we are designed to do.
You realize you aren't describing the behavior of a species that is in BALANCE. You are describing the behavior of a VIRUS.
...Not to mention the fact that EVEN IF (and it is a whopper of an "if") we manage to put some people on Mars... the distances between stars are so UNIMAGINABLY VAST that the idea that we could actually send people to other stars is nearly laughable. We are talking about trips that would last tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Do you realize that homo sapiens weren't just fighting amongst ourselves but with neanderthals as recently as 20,000 years ago. This notion of "our species as it has always existed" is as flawed as the idea that our species is the idea that "this is what we are designed to do".
Human beings have been around for roughly 2 million years.
The explosion in population took place about 10,000 years ago.
This "designed to do" thing you speak of is a very, very, VERY recent turn of events.
I have to agree -- this idea that blindly popping a "healthy" pill is automatically good for you can be quite flawed. Vitamins included...
A few years ago, a large scale study was done on smokers taking vitamin suppliments and, contrary to what the researchers expected to find, certain components in the multivitamin actually proved to be quite harmful.
A Finnish study of 29,000 male smokers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that participants were 18% more likely to develop lung cancer if they were given beta-carotene. (See linked article here)
Now, in case you want to post an insightful reply for a quick infusion of karma, you could start with the obvious fact that smoking isn't the smartest thing to do in the first place...
Well, for what it's worth, ethics WAS required for the business program at the university I went to. The larger question, of course, is what taking "a course" will do for you if you don't have an ethical foundation. My friend Cindy, for example, CHEATED on her final exam in that same ethics course...
Thanks for the tip on the infinitive. I hadn't had my morning coffee yet and it showed. You are correct. The "to" that went with "to do" was part of an infinitive. If I had been sharper, I would have included infinitives in my post to the AC. As for ending sentences with a preposition: there is nothing in English that prevents sentences from ending in a preposition. I would invite you to google at your leisure. You will discover that your high school english teacher was wrong and/or a snob. I am too lazy to do more than include these two links which I now point you to:
What I'd like to see are the blocking of ads depending on the URL the image links too.
Damn you, Anonymous Coward, why do I keep having to give you grammar lessons??? For the last time... too with an extra "o" means extra or also -- as in: TOO MANY NERDS DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WRITING CLEARLY. The word to with just one o is a preposition. What, pray tell, is a preposition? A preposition links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence. As in: IF YOU KEEP SHOWING YOUR IGNORANCE WITH YOUR SPELLING ERRORS, I AM GOING TO DO SOMETHING NASTY TO YOU. A preposition, of course, is not to be confused with a proposition, which is an offer or solicitation. I'll avoid mentioning the context in which it is often used because it is sexual in nature and I know that is a sore subject for most Slashdotters -- especially considering that it takes TWO (note the spelling, AC, note the spelling!) to tango.
Slashdot Mirror
I am shocked I say -- SHOCKED -- to hear this news.
And excited.
The geek in me is excited about 2005. Methane oceans, rovers on Mars and private spaceflight? There's a lot that's scary going on in the world today. But when it comes to SPACEFLIGHT -- 2005 is shaping up to be a banner year!
Kudos to the Voyager team!
As for danger...you're right. Especially if there was heavy traffic above, you'd always have to worry about a car falling out of the sky even if you weren't in one yourself.
Someone I know quite well drives a 16 year old car with no speedometer, faulty brakes and a broken water pump. Peak oil (personal transport as we known it is rapidly coming to an end) aside, flying cars will never take off because a not insignificant number of people would continue to drive their cars into the ground...
Aw crap. That was respectfully not respectly.
shakes head.
Need more coffee.
I think I speak for most people who have taken the time to read this sub-thread when I respectly submit that the problem may be that you need to grow a pair.
... right.
If you "say some things in confidience" in a note you give to your girlfriend (or a co-worker, or the girl sitting behind you in study hall), it is almost inevitable that she will, in fact, share some of the juicy bits with her friends (or another co-worker or the girls at the lunch table). And here "note' would include a letter or email or conversation. Perhaps you should have exercised some discretion about who you shared these things with or what you chose to say? Talking behind peoples' backs can come back to bite you. You were forced to be a man and stand behind some uncomfortable things you said. Must have been awkward. Surely you didn't try to weasel out of it and pretend you didn't mean what you said when you said it. "Taken out of context"
Regardless, others have already said better than I that it is not the government's role to step in and regulate the private speech of individuals. Period. I just wanted to say what a lot of us are already thinking. That you could stand to be more of a man about this and own up to the words you obviously said. The ex choose to be immature and vindictive about how she got back at you. Looks like she hit the target dead center. You aren't going to stop her. Let it go and move on.
I suppose my choice of words could have made it seem like I was saying that the only thing to do was to patent. Thank you for bringing up the issue of prior art. My point was simply that if you have the idea, you should not let it remain a "dream" but do something with it. You can find the idea of patenting "ideas" is abhorrent, anticompetitive, restricts free speech etc But that is the reality of how things are right now in 2005...
I was all cagey when I brought up Jonas Salk earlier. My apologies. Long story short: He was a man who develolped a vaccine to help wipe out polio and he refused to patent it because he wanted to make it freely available to everyone. You can live in the world you imagine but if you understand that there are others with ideals that are not alligned with yours, it can be to everyone's advantage to see that YOU are the one who is holding the patent/prior art/claim to the thing itself...
Not everyone plays nicely. You can. Getting in early just gives you leverage...
Anyway, nice exchange of ideas, Doc. And an impressive CV, too!
Wake me when we get the neural inputs, and I'll be happy to show you my dreams.
Now you're thinking like an open-sourcer. Which, frankly, is a shame. Or didn't you know that you were able to convert "dreams" like these into things called patents?
You, with all your ideas, thinking of your dreams as just dreams when you could be credited as the person responsible for the idea of _______. Those dreams, Doc Ruby, should be developed. By you. Even if the technology isn't there today. When you see where we are headed, when you have the vision to peer OVER the horizon we have only just approached, you can do something about it.
But, like I said: You are an Open Sourcer... you think ideas should be free. Fair enough. But you make the mistake of thinking it would somehow be DIRTY to be the person who owns that idea. I would just like to point you in the direction of Jonas Salk...
(glad to be posting buried deep in a comment thread because this is either brilliant or crazy...)
But "nothing" is inadequate.
You're thinking about this problem -- and "nothing" -- in a very 20th century way. I agree that, as things stand now -- with virtual keyboards working as one-way projection systems, splashing visible light on a surface, you're right, you will only get visible feedback and it won't really feel usable. But do you think your finger has to touch a rubber button to feel like it's touching something? It isn't really that far off to imagine a future where a tiny nerve in the brain itself could be stimulated by the projection program to feel like it was touching a little rubber button. Science fiction? When they are already developing cursors that can be moved by thought and attempting to do just this with artificial limbs? Cell phones with projection keypads that interface with the nerves in the brain to feel like they are pressing something. This is what the future will hold. barring any unforeseen surprises...
It's just a matter of time...
and enjoyed f-, ahem, reproduction
...Not to get all pedantic on you...
...uh...reproducing. Merely that they f--, ahem, were involved in the act of reproducing at least once. I have a married friend -- with kids -- and he can tell you for a fact that his wife most certainly does not enjoy even the occasional f--, uh, physical act that may or may not result in offspring...
But you cannot actually infer that they enjoyed f-
Of course if you REALLY want a really easy to use, really light text entry tool with a great battery life, consider getting a handheld with an optional fold up keyboard (used to be Stowaway, then Targus, now, who knows?) -- fits in your pocket, the battery lasts all day and with a program like Wordsmith you can really do some great text entry. Perfect for taking notes in class or writing on the go...
I wish I could mod you to the moon but, having no points, I'll instead tell you that I've bookmarked your messageboard and stuck it near the top of my list in Firefox... Dogged persistence and the willingness to laugh about the ramen and know that you're going to make it no matter what; it seems like this is a key ingredient that's missing from a lot of the cynics on here.
Your message was inspiring. Thanks!
You say you aren't jaded -- but in the entire 4.x billion year history of our planet -- quite possibly the only planet that sustains life anywhere, ever -- because, let's face it, we still don't know anything -- but we do know that in this many billions of years, no individual has EVER before done this. "It wasn't much of an accomplishment"!?!? I feel proud of myself when I walk around both lakes before noon -- all six miles. This guy stayed awake for nearly 70 hours straight and FLEW a plane AROUND THE ENTIRE PLANET, saw it all, saw mountains and deserts and ocean and ice -- he did this by himself. Sure he had a team supporting him. He had to. Even with this huge team, something this big had never been done successfully before 2005. He is the first. Sorry humanity couldn't do it sooner for you or come up with something that won't seem like hype. At least you're not jaded, right?
This is a damn big accomplishment and I, for one, salute the entire GlobalFlyer team!!!
First Titan, now this. 2005 is a big year in aviation. Big.
That exploit was discovered in october 2004, and XP SP2 users are still vulnerable with all updates (even on 12-1-2005, after microsoft had theoretically closed this hole, but only partially suceeded
John Titor... is that you? Where've you been? When've you been?
I'm not really sure why I'm chiming in here but I'll bite.
...about four minutes later, she comes back on the line with a worried tone in her voice and says, "Sir, there isn't anyplace on this form for 'too many commercials'. Is there any other reason why you are canceling?"
I live about 2 1/2 miles south of the IDS tower -- in Uptown. There's enough interference from all the buildings downtown that it isn't possible to get a decent signal here without cable. Which is fine with me because most TV is crap, right? Except that the ex-girlfriend liked watching TV and Time Warner was running a special so in November I got cable. Having not watched TV in a year or two, I was amazed by the commercials. Lots and lots of commercials. People trying to cram things down your throat. Constantly. Wow.
(this story doesn't have a point, by the way, so you can just skip ahead to the next message...)
Anyway, like I said, the exgirlfriend. Things didn't work out but I kept the cable for a few weeks. Then on New Year's Day, I'm sitting on my couch and I say to myself, "What am I doing?" So I call Time Warner and say to the customer service rep, "I'd like to cancel my cable."
She asks me why. "Well," I reply, "It's nice and everything but I'm watching too much TV and I'm not comfortable with so many commercials constantly telling me why I am missing something in my life. I like my life like it is..."
Silence. For about thirty seconds. Then: "Sir, could you please hold..."
I choke down a laugh. I was being a dick and didn't even realize it. She was getting paid $8/hour and I was making her talk time on a routine call go through the roof... "Is there any place to mark 'other'?" I ask helpfully. There was.
Now the TV is back on the floor of my messy bedroom, covered in clothes. And I am much happier.
Again, I didn't really have a point here. Just thought I'd share.
I'll agree with your point -- your parent post wasn't a troll... merely unpopular. That seemed to earn it some -1 Troll moderation. That's a shame. But people who mod things down because they disagree with them aren't fascists... they are fundamentalists People who, I would argue, are far more prevelant in our society than is let on and who are far more insidious than the fascists you fear. Or maybe you simply blurred the two words... Whichever the case, the "true believers" who reject intellectual honesty -- they scare me the most.
Done.
I've emailed you the Amazon.com claim code. Thanks again for making the $25 donation!
I don't have a credit card but I'm sitting on a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate that someone gave me. I was hoping to be able to use THAT to make a $25 donation to the American Red Cross (Or, frankly, ANY organization providing relief!) through Amazon.com. After some searching I can't find any way to do it...
So I'm going to use Slashdot to see if I can do the next best thing: I'm willing to give my validation code for a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate to anyone who is willing to MAKE a $25 donation. Seriously. No stings attached here and I suppose, ultimately, that I'll never have any verification that it worked but cynicism is worse than inaction. I'm just a guy with bad credit who still wants to find a way to help.
If you are willing to make that donation, just send me an email (to my email address listed above) and I'll send you the code to the Amazon.com gift certificate -- it is good through 17-Nov-2005.
I don't know anything about APIs or brute force attacks or whatever. I was a technical MANAGER but never an actual geek. (grins) But I can tell you that if you install GDS and let it index that file, you will be able to click on the cached copy of it and see it just fine.
I emailed Google about this when I uninstalled GDS -- never heard back from them. Didn't expect to. Again, as other posters have pointed out -- this is a problem with MICROSOFT security, probably. I wasn't pointing fingers or laying blame -- I was just saying that the combination of the two is just a little too much for my laptop and my paranoia to handle. The fact is that there is now a tool out there that virus writers will be able to reverse engineer and do even more dangerous stuff. Get ready for a lot of late night phone calls!!!
Desktop search is only exposing a weakness that is already there as it can only index stuff it has permission to index.
I understand that this is technically true -- but did you know Google Desktop Search can do some pretty nasty things -- things like indexing all of the Word files on your computer? If one of them happens to be password protected, you click on the link and it asks for the password. But if you click on CACHED copy -- poof, there is the entire document, right there in your web browser. Whoops. Don't even get me started on cached copies of deleted files...
Google Desktop Search is powerful -- and is only indexing what is already there, true, true, all true...but still -- when it gets easy enough that someone like me can quickly and easily poke around and look at things I'm not supposed to... well, that's scary.
Glad we can find some common ground here. (What? Civility on Slashdot? Is this possible?)
Its usually one of the free alt-weeklies, rather than an LA times or something that would require me to find some quarters in my pocket
The problem with these, of course, is that they are weekly. If you find yourself killing time on a regular basis, you'll probably have the darn thing memorized the day after it comes out. Daily papers at least have new content each morning. Whether in a coffee shop or on the bus, I'm a big fan of reading the newspapers that others have left behind. This practice of mine, however, doesn't do much to bolster the argument that newspapers have a sustainable economic future... I am the ultimate free rider, relying on the propensity of others to discard something they no longer need, robbing publishers of potential revenue. Maybe, just maybe, online publishing -- coupled with DRM -- will allow those media giants to squeeze more revenue out of people like me in the future...? Maybe someday my actions will be seen as unpatriotic and/or criminal?
Until then, I'll happily rifle through the recycle bin or pick up the daily on the seat next to me. The alt-weeklies have their place -- but they don't change quite often enough... or perhaps I just have too much free time...?
Nah. I can even get the Fry's ads with the online version, and I don't have to sift through all the other ads that are stuffed into the paper version.
Newspapers are mostly ephemeral- you want the current information and as current as possible. It's easier to keep up to the minute online, and if you're interested in the archival value of newspapers, online is easier to search.
Yeah, that's all true. Still, I think you're missing the grandparent poster's point all the same. There are times when I don't care about searching online or skipping ads. Times when you just want something to look at. A prop. Something to pass the time. This might come as a shock to you if you never leave your house/cube -- but there might just be times when the primary purpose of a newspaper is something other than "staying as current as possible." Times when you are sitting on the bus, in a coffee shop or (dare I mention it?) on the can. There are times when it might actually be pleasant to flip through the pages as you sip your latte or smoke your cigarette. And yes, I know, I know, it may be possible to someday get e-book readers that are light and portable and we'll all carry them -- I've read many books on my handheld and it really can be great in it's own way, it fills a niche -- but it is just a niche. I, for one, enjoy asking the person next to me if they are going to do the crossword, thank you very much, and I suspect that it will take longer than you think for a e-version of anything to replace that.
Just my humble opinion, of course. I'm sure I'll get modded down for my tone or something...
Man, I was all set to just BROWSE the thread and now you are compelling me to respond. OK...
...Not to mention the fact that EVEN IF (and it is a whopper of an "if") we manage to put some people on Mars ... the distances between stars are so UNIMAGINABLY VAST that the idea that we could actually send people to other stars is nearly laughable. We are talking about trips that would last tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Do you realize that homo sapiens weren't just fighting amongst ourselves but with neanderthals as recently as 20,000 years ago. This notion of "our species as it has always existed" is as flawed as the idea that our species is the idea that "this is what we are designed to do".
Once we conquer the local planets and are able to successfully live outside of earth's atmosphere, we will quickly take over the solar system (as much of it as we can) and then probably the whole galaxy and so on. This is just how we work, its what we are designed to do.
You realize you aren't describing the behavior of a species that is in BALANCE. You are describing the behavior of a VIRUS.
Human beings have been around for roughly 2 million years.
The explosion in population took place about 10,000 years ago.
This "designed to do" thing you speak of is a very, very, VERY recent turn of events.
I have to agree -- this idea that blindly popping a "healthy" pill is automatically good for you can be quite flawed. Vitamins included...
A few years ago, a large scale study was done on smokers taking vitamin suppliments and, contrary to what the researchers expected to find, certain components in the multivitamin actually proved to be quite harmful.
A Finnish study of 29,000 male smokers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that participants were 18% more likely to develop lung cancer if they were given beta-carotene.
(See linked article here)
Now, in case you want to post an insightful reply for a quick infusion of karma, you could start with the obvious fact that smoking isn't the smartest thing to do in the first place...
Well, for what it's worth, ethics WAS required for the business program at the university I went to. The larger question, of course, is what taking "a course" will do for you if you don't have an ethical foundation. My friend Cindy, for example, CHEATED on her final exam in that same ethics course...
Thanks for the tip on the infinitive. I hadn't had my morning coffee yet and it showed. You are correct. The "to" that went with "to do" was part of an infinitive. If I had been sharper, I would have included infinitives in my post to the AC. As for ending sentences with a preposition: there is nothing in English that prevents sentences from ending in a preposition. I would invite you to google at your leisure. You will discover that your high school english teacher was wrong and/or a snob. I am too lazy to do more than include these two links which I now point you to:
. html
2 .html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/prepositions
http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/prepositions
What I'd like to see are the blocking of ads depending on the URL the image links too.
... too with an extra "o" means extra or also -- as in: TOO MANY NERDS DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WRITING CLEARLY. The word to with just one o is a preposition. What, pray tell, is a preposition? A preposition links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence. As in: IF YOU KEEP SHOWING YOUR IGNORANCE WITH YOUR SPELLING ERRORS, I AM GOING TO DO SOMETHING NASTY TO YOU. A preposition, of course, is not to be confused with a proposition, which is an offer or solicitation. I'll avoid mentioning the context in which it is often used because it is sexual in nature and I know that is a sore subject for most Slashdotters -- especially considering that it takes TWO (note the spelling, AC, note the spelling!) to tango.
Damn you, Anonymous Coward, why do I keep having to give you grammar lessons??? For the last time
Ahem.