So, the gist of your argument (and the argument of every person who thinks pot should be legal) is, if we don't ban everything, we shouldn't ban anything. Do I have that correct?
Not my argument. When I argue drug legalization with people, I fix on two key points.
1. Current drug laws are more harmful than the drugs they "protect" us from. I'm sure you've heard all the arguments for this one, though (mandatory minimums, overcrowding, etc.), so I won't go into them here in depth.
2. Any sort of ban should, in my opinion, must be exactly all of these things: reasonable, enforceable, and consistent. reasonable: A ban should have a good reason, other than moral repugnance. In particular, a drug ban should have reputable proof that the drug is too dangerous in society to be uncontrolled (I'm thinking along the lines of PCP here). enforceable: Any laws put on the books should be enforceable by the current executive powers of the government. It's silly to make laws that cannot be enforced consistently, which leads to the next item: consistent: Here's the big problem with both the reasoning behind and the enforcement of current drug laws. They do not specify, in a consistent fashion, why certain substances are controlled or not controlled, and under what circumstances for each. Also, as a consequence of the laws being unenforceable by the extant government, they are not consistent in that regard. Sentencing can vary widely, and is generally harsher to minorities than it is to whites.
Do I think everything should be legal? No. It's an untenable position; I don't think it should be legal for people to have dangerous, harmful substances without the assurance that they can handle them safely. Do I think our current drug laws are a shambles? Definitely. The laws we have are basically arbitrary as to both reasoning and enforcement. If there's a good reason for marijuana to be banned, state it, and let it stand on its merits. Otherwise, don't abrogate my rights in an arbitrary fashion.
It only requires 12V power from a power supply, so you can hack that, and you can wire the analog output of a CD-ROM drive to the NewQ's Line-In. Have fun.
I concur with your lamentation, but for a slightly different reason. I've read lots of books about vampires and werewolves, but scant few about necromancers. I was very interested in those parts of the story, from the first few books, and I'm sad to see that her innate talents seem to have been forgotten in the last few.
I'm not shilling here, just trying to make a point. There are artists who do just this, and sometimes it works quite well. It's rather common in some genres of techno, where a DJ will release an album that consists of an hour-long performance track.
If an artist wants their music to be heard in a certain way, arrange it in that way. If you want to write a song that lasts for 60 minutes, make it a single track. The random-access nature of modern digital music obliterates any guarantee that tracks will be heard in the order they were intended. Perhaps if more people gave it a shot, customers (I can't bring myself to say "consumers") would realize that it's pretty cool.
Any intelligent person who attends a university should have to defend why they made that choice given the extreme limitations it puts your intellectual development, not the other way 'round. You shouldn't need an excuse to not pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a year in order to get told what books to read.
A full scholarship, perhaps?
Desire to be competitive in one's career?
Or maybe just one wants to learn something new before heading off to the cubicle farm with the rest of "the herd."
I am an undergraduate at a public school in California, and I am pleased with the education I've received. Sure, there have been a few times when I've wished I had nothing but free time so that I could code code code, but some of the classes I've been required to take have enlightened me and taught me things I wouldn't have ever known I didn't know. I think that having gotten an education will serve me very well in the future, and I for one resent your implication that everybody who attends a university is unable to think for him- or herself.
Would you mind having your network administrator contact my network administrator? The gentleman who works here recently closed down a popular local-network DirectConnect hub, and was terribly surprised when outbound P2P traffic spiked like Mt. Everest after it died. I believe the network services office is currently escalating the problem to the Vice-Chancellor, and considering hiring a full-time copyright-compliance officer. =(
A carpenter can make houses with nails, but probably has no idea how to mine, refine, and forge the ore necessary to make the nails.
A (good) carpenter can also make things with wooden dowels, or make joists that fit cleanly enough to make secure fastenings. There are many different ways to solve a given problem, and a decent carpenter should know several of them for every situation.
The problem is not that this potential employee didn't know how to do her job, but that she knew only one way to do it. If she'd been placed in a different situation (such as the one she was interviewed under), she would not have been able to think creatively and find a workable solution.
You may be right that it's impossible to learn every single part of a field, through all of its breadth and depth, but I feel this gentleman is completely justified in requiring his employees to have enough low-level knowledge to "think outside the box," as it were, in case of problems. Otherwise, a global nail shortage (or a Win2K box crashing) renders this style of carpentry useless.
Would some moderator do me a big favor and mod this up? I would also like very much to see an answer to this question. Particularly, I'm curious as to what areas would be good to do research in. I'd like to try and help out in a part that doesn't already have a lot of support (like decoding FM radio). Any ideas?
I haven't seen a mention of Metapad, my personal favorite editor here, so I'll add it to the list. Very small, fast as hell, does everything Notepad does and better. I don't use it for the ultra-fancy things like spellchecking and syntax highlighting, so its speed and agility serve me well. There also exists a small plugin for it that will list all of the text files in a directory in an explorer-style, always-on-top window, and automatically open them in the current instance of the editor. Great for editing HTML files or search-and-replace operations.
And come on... its home page is at liquidninja.com, that name alone has to be worth some bonus points! =)
A lot of older games, such as those from 3+ years back, work rather well at LAN parties for a number of reasons.
Often, the game has to be chosen to run on the slowest computer in the bunch; running an older game ensures that everybody can play.
Older games tend to rely a little less on flashy 3D graphics and a little more on gameplay, especially team play.
Extremely old games (read: those that came on floppies) usually have a trivial form of copy protection which can usually be avoided. Not that I'd ever advocate such a thing.;) Even older CD-based games with first-generation Safelock and such are easy to copy. Just make sure that all copies are destroyed at the end of the night.
Finally, older games are less immersive. I don't mind forgetting myself when I'm playing Silent Hill 2 or something similiar, but I go to LAN parties to socialize. Games with MIDI soundtracks are just asking to be talked over.
All that said, some of my personal recommendations for fun games:
Total Annihilation (one of my favs)
Starcraft
Warcraft 2
Counterstrike
Quake 1 (yes, 1)
Descent
Diablo/Diablo II
Duke Nukem 3D
Worms 2/Armageddon
Grand Theft Auto 2
One final note: go download GLTron before the party starts. While it's only a 4-player game at max, I guarantee your guests will get a couple of hours out of it, more if you show it on a large TV so everybody can watch. =)
T2 is (apart from the special effects which were good at the time, but look not that exciting today) mediocre.
So how about that Metropolis, huh? Remember the Day the Earth Stood Still? Hell, even check out the original Night of the Living Dead. All of these films look incredibly, unbelievably dated now, but are still considered classics because of both what they were able to accomplish at the time and what significance they had on the motion picture industry as a whole. TDTESS sure looks cheesy now, but 50 years ago when it was made, it scared people with its realism.
T2 may be a mediocre movie compared to some of the all-time classics, but there's more to being a good movie than critical acclaim. Some of the CG techs developed specifically for the effects in T2 are still in use today, almost ten years after they were created. That's pretty impressive, considering how long computer-related technology usually lasts.
Also, I loved T2. "We've got company." "How many?" "Uh, all of them, I think." You don't get witty dialogue like that anymore;)
I will have to put in another vote for your position, good sir. I have read and well understand all of the responses to your post, lambasting you for wanting to censor the network based upon your own standards of morality, and I would like those people to consider this:
What does it gain us to have sex, violence, and profanity prevalent on network television? What positive impact on society does it create?
The US has a standard of legal obscenity which is defined thus:
(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (1)
All I'm saying is, regardless of whether it's within the network's collective right to have more swearing and sex on television, why do they want that? If the answer is just to make more money, then perhaps we need to think twice about where we draw the line.
(1) Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)
Slashdot Mirror
(I had to...)
Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you persist? Why?
Neo: Because I choose to.
So, the gist of your argument (and the argument of every person who thinks pot should be legal) is, if we don't ban everything, we shouldn't ban anything. Do I have that correct?
Not my argument. When I argue drug legalization with people, I fix on two key points.
1. Current drug laws are more harmful than the drugs they "protect" us from. I'm sure you've heard all the arguments for this one, though (mandatory minimums, overcrowding, etc.), so I won't go into them here in depth.
2. Any sort of ban should, in my opinion, must be exactly all of these things: reasonable, enforceable, and consistent.
reasonable: A ban should have a good reason, other than moral repugnance. In particular, a drug ban should have reputable proof that the drug is too dangerous in society to be uncontrolled (I'm thinking along the lines of PCP here).
enforceable: Any laws put on the books should be enforceable by the current executive powers of the government. It's silly to make laws that cannot be enforced consistently, which leads to the next item:
consistent: Here's the big problem with both the reasoning behind and the enforcement of current drug laws. They do not specify, in a consistent fashion, why certain substances are controlled or not controlled, and under what circumstances for each. Also, as a consequence of the laws being unenforceable by the extant government, they are not consistent in that regard. Sentencing can vary widely, and is generally harsher to minorities than it is to whites.
Do I think everything should be legal? No. It's an untenable position; I don't think it should be legal for people to have dangerous, harmful substances without the assurance that they can handle them safely.
Do I think our current drug laws are a shambles? Definitely. The laws we have are basically arbitrary as to both reasoning and enforcement. If there's a good reason for marijuana to be banned, state it, and let it stand on its merits. Otherwise, don't abrogate my rights in an arbitrary fashion.
If God exists, then God is Truth by definition and therefore can't lie.
But... Isn't the Judeo-Christian God omnipotent? So that means he can do anything he wants to, right? Up to and including lie? Oops.
Don't you mean the candle-truck load? =)
I figure, since you were naming Slashdot cliches, you wouldn't want to forget that one.
NewQ 3379 Platinum 4 Channel Enhancer, Equalizer and FM Radio, with a Remote and Vacuum Fluorescent Display!
Fits in a 5 1/4" drive bay too.
It only requires 12V power from a power supply, so you can hack that, and you can wire the analog output of a CD-ROM drive to the NewQ's Line-In. Have fun.
Pointer? No.
Comic strip with a D'ni speaking character? Yes.
Disclaimer: I'm a recurring character in this strip
Various Twilight Zone Episode Guides
My favorite show. =)
But to get them to notice the file and assume it was theirs, you would have improperly name it.
RIAA Apologizes for Incorrect Infringement Notice
=P
I concur with your lamentation, but for a slightly different reason. I've read lots of books about vampires and werewolves, but scant few about necromancers. I was very interested in those parts of the story, from the first few books, and I'm sad to see that her innate talents seem to have been forgotten in the last few.
234,774 is low?
Course, that was why Zach quit the band. He wanted to expand their efforts to inspire thought among their fans, but Tom and the rest voted him down.
It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 72, actually.
;)
"How many frames does real life run at?"
Do you even _know_ what a "Pigeon Hole Principle" is? And your .sig is spelled wrong.
I'm in a grumpy mood today. =P
why don't they just make entire albums with one huge track on each album???
Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness
I'm not shilling here, just trying to make a point. There are artists who do just this, and sometimes it works quite well. It's rather common in some genres of techno, where a DJ will release an album that consists of an hour-long performance track.
If an artist wants their music to be heard in a certain way, arrange it in that way. If you want to write a song that lasts for 60 minutes, make it a single track. The random-access nature of modern digital music obliterates any guarantee that tracks will be heard in the order they were intended. Perhaps if more people gave it a shot, customers (I can't bring myself to say "consumers") would realize that it's pretty cool.
Any intelligent person who attends a university should have to defend why they made that choice given the extreme limitations it puts your intellectual development, not the other way 'round. You shouldn't need an excuse to not pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a year in order to get told what books to read.
A full scholarship, perhaps?
Desire to be competitive in one's career?
Or maybe just one wants to learn something new before heading off to the cubicle farm with the rest of "the herd."
I am an undergraduate at a public school in California, and I am pleased with the education I've received. Sure, there have been a few times when I've wished I had nothing but free time so that I could code code code, but some of the classes I've been required to take have enlightened me and taught me things I wouldn't have ever known I didn't know. I think that having gotten an education will serve me very well in the future, and I for one resent your implication that everybody who attends a university is unable to think for him- or herself.
Lemme guess... didn't get into Stanford?
Would you mind having your network administrator contact my network administrator? The gentleman who works here recently closed down a popular local-network DirectConnect hub, and was terribly surprised when outbound P2P traffic spiked like Mt. Everest after it died. I believe the network services office is currently escalating the problem to the Vice-Chancellor, and considering hiring a full-time copyright-compliance officer. =(
A carpenter can make houses with nails, but probably has no idea how to mine, refine, and forge the ore necessary to make the nails.
A (good) carpenter can also make things with wooden dowels, or make joists that fit cleanly enough to make secure fastenings. There are many different ways to solve a given problem, and a decent carpenter should know several of them for every situation.
The problem is not that this potential employee didn't know how to do her job, but that she knew only one way to do it. If she'd been placed in a different situation (such as the one she was interviewed under), she would not have been able to think creatively and find a workable solution.
You may be right that it's impossible to learn every single part of a field, through all of its breadth and depth, but I feel this gentleman is completely justified in requiring his employees to have enough low-level knowledge to "think outside the box," as it were, in case of problems. Otherwise, a global nail shortage (or a Win2K box crashing) renders this style of carpentry useless.
Would some moderator do me a big favor and mod this up? I would also like very much to see an answer to this question.
Particularly, I'm curious as to what areas would be good to do research in. I'd like to try and help out in a part that doesn't already have a lot of support (like decoding FM radio). Any ideas?
I haven't seen a mention of Metapad, my personal favorite editor here, so I'll add it to the list.
Very small, fast as hell, does everything Notepad does and better. I don't use it for the ultra-fancy things like spellchecking and syntax highlighting, so its speed and agility serve me well.
There also exists a small plugin for it that will list all of the text files in a directory in an explorer-style, always-on-top window, and automatically open them in the current instance of the editor. Great for editing HTML files or search-and-replace operations.
And come on... its home page is at liquidninja.com, that name alone has to be worth some bonus points! =)
I must admit I prayed to the dice gods more than once, making sacrificies, promising never to give up my sacred virginity, stuff like that...
;)
If you were praying to the dice gods, I doubt they needed your pledge to ensure you stayed a virgin
tar xpvzf foo.tar.bz2
:)
This will fail. Use j instead of z to handle instead to handle bz2 files.
Why is it j? Who knows?
- Often, the game has to be chosen to run on the slowest computer in the bunch; running an older game ensures that everybody can play.
- Older games tend to rely a little less on flashy 3D graphics and a little more on gameplay, especially team play.
- Extremely old games (read: those that came on floppies) usually have a trivial form of copy protection which can usually be avoided. Not that I'd ever advocate such a thing.
;) Even older CD-based games with first-generation Safelock and such are easy to copy. Just make sure that all copies are destroyed at the end of the night.
- Finally, older games are less immersive. I don't mind forgetting myself when I'm playing Silent Hill 2 or something similiar, but I go to LAN parties to socialize. Games with MIDI soundtracks are just asking to be talked over.
All that said, some of my personal recommendations for fun games:Total Annihilation (one of my favs)
Starcraft
Warcraft 2
Counterstrike
Quake 1 (yes, 1)
Descent
Diablo/Diablo II
Duke Nukem 3D
Worms 2/Armageddon
Grand Theft Auto 2
One final note: go download GLTron before the party starts. While it's only a 4-player game at max, I guarantee your guests will get a couple of hours out of it, more if you show it on a large TV so everybody can watch. =)
Winamp3 does not have this functionality.
:)
I have about 6500 songs, and Winamp3 chokes and dies miserably when attempting to deal with them, while good old Winamp 2.x handles them just fine.
Blasted beta software.
T2 is (apart from the special effects which were good at the time, but look not that exciting today) mediocre.
;)
So how about that Metropolis, huh? Remember the Day the Earth Stood Still? Hell, even check out the original Night of the Living Dead. All of these films look incredibly, unbelievably dated now, but are still considered classics because of both what they were able to accomplish at the time and what significance they had on the motion picture industry as a whole. TDTESS sure looks cheesy now, but 50 years ago when it was made, it scared people with its realism.
T2 may be a mediocre movie compared to some of the all-time classics, but there's more to being a good movie than critical acclaim. Some of the CG techs developed specifically for the effects in T2 are still in use today, almost ten years after they were created. That's pretty impressive, considering how long computer-related technology usually lasts.
Also, I loved T2. "We've got company." "How many?" "Uh, all of them, I think." You don't get witty dialogue like that anymore
I will have to put in another vote for your position, good sir. I have read and well understand all of the responses to your post, lambasting you for wanting to censor the network based upon your own standards of morality, and I would like those people to consider this: What does it gain us to have sex, violence, and profanity prevalent on network television? What positive impact on society does it create? The US has a standard of legal obscenity which is defined thus:
(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (1) All I'm saying is, regardless of whether it's within the network's collective right to have more swearing and sex on television, why do they want that? If the answer is just to make more money, then perhaps we need to think twice about where we draw the line. (1) Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)