Bible-thumpers shouldn't gibber so much. It attracts just the sort of attention they hate most. They'll never catch on, though. Heh-heh....
Re:Brunton Compass & GPS
on
Geocaching
·
· Score: 1
Or, if it's [a] somewhat controlled course, put the gps in the third or forth bucket, and require map/compass/altimeter to find it.
Hey, cool idea! I wish I'd thought of that. 8')
Another thought. It seems that orienteering would be a perfect activity to get computer nerds outside. Math and problem solving. Seems like the natural outdoor sport of geeks.
Does this mean massive international man-hunts for the infamous "Carlos the Hacker"?
Best encrypt with ScramDisk (Windows 95/98 version here) locally, and with GnuPG for transmission, all your CueCatcode and use anonymous remailers for version releases to
Freenet, or be prepared to live out your life in a shadowy realm of underground coders dwelling in the hidden spaces between the giants of the United Corporations of the World.
Once you start working 12-hour-plus days you get into negative productivity.
I've been there, and even worked 20-hour days for more than a solid month (never mind why:). Some truly desperate work got done, but I felt like the sterotypical "death warmed over" nearly the whole time, and have now a deep aversion to sleep deprivation that snuck up on and clobbered me pretty well. Also, all my creativity (I mean all) went AWOL, leaving behind a shambling "smart moron" with a hair-trigger temper.
It took a few weeks of enforced complete sleep to persuade the AWOL creativity to fully return. It was disturbing afterwards to realize how much previously easy thought had become so much harder during and after long-term sleep deprivation.
It was a hard lesson, but I guess some people need to learn it at least once. It's easy to think you're more physically tough than you are in reality, when the task is mental and there are few of the warning signs that with more physical tasks tell you that you need badly to stop and rest, preferably with a pillow mushed to the side of your face.
I don't regret having done it (the work needed
very badly to be done), but appreciate very much more now the state of being rested and creative, and try very hard to plan my time and priorities way in advance to prevent such necessities from ever again arising. It's just not worth it.
(Oh, brother. I've been up 19 hours now and need once again to forcibly make myself sleep).;^]
This used to be called orienteering. Give a person a map and compass, and let them loose. Ever hear of a Brunton compass?
I wonder if a hybrid sport might arise from this. Use a GPS unit to find one bucket, then use a compass and map to find another bucket that isn't so far that a newbie might get seriously lost, but far enough to require skill with the compass and map. (The instructions for the second bucket are inside the first).
This would have the advantage of luring some otherwise hestitant newbies into the more challenging sport of pure compass and map navigation, with the GPS unit handy to help out if they get lost and really need to find the car.:)
Oh hell, we should have mandatory IQ testing to remain alive.
I'll ignore the frightening message implied by your suggestion, and remark only that mandatory I.Q. tests already exist of the kind you describe. They're called "speeding Mack trucks", "matches & gasoline tanks" and "oversize, open windows on the 70th floor", plus ten thousand other names.
What I'd like to see most particularly from this long-awaited "mass-production" environment, is a drastic reduction of (headaches from) the notorious proliferation of grossly overlapping libraries for Linux. With many more people using what amounts to a "standard" environment, one can foresee the library scene cleaning up these gray, fuzzy borders into more sharply delineated borders in which one library much more clearly does this, and another much more clearly does that, with way less ridiculous overlap from almost identical functions (not even functionality, but functions!)
Many of the best Linux programmers, seeing an opportunity to actually make some money selling excellent special-purpose libraries (sorry, rabid "free-software" dudes, some people want to make a living at what they do just like everyone else and not live on cheap noodles and dumpster leavings just to appease the Angry Gods of Open Source), will stop re-inventing the damn wheel and start creating original, useful libraries to meet ever-more specialized demands.
This could be a "very good thing" indeed, if the shipping product is not grossly overpriced. Too many of the best Linux programmers are poor students or very much part-time volunteers working on pet projects, who won't be willing to pay through the nose when they can obtain so many other, totally free, development environments.
(This has been something of a rant, I guess. Wading through hundreds of, and carefully selecting, Debian packages one by one by one, over weeks on-line, and discovering how very much duplication there is in basic Linux libraries even at Debian, did something weird to my mind).
And personally, I'd rather have one law-abiding government serviceman peek upon my E-Mails than be let loose in an uncharted sea of dangerous collusion and corruption in order that a few devoted computer users may talk privately about their emotionally devoid lives.
Speaking of emotionally devoid lives, you sound almost anxious for someone, anyone, to read your "E-Mails". If they're anything like the disingenuous tripe you've been posting, then I can see these "government servicemen" laughing their asses off, and tricking newbies at the office into volunteering to "peek upon your E-Mails" before they realise they've been had.
How much are you being paid for these ridiculous trolls? Does your old English teacher from the sixth grade know what you're doing with her beloved language? Have you even left the sixth grade?
Nuts, I think I'm picking on an otherwise bright sixth-grader. I'd feel like a mean-spirited bully, were it not for the bigoted content of this kid's other postings on Slashdot. I normally detest political correctness and anything closely associated with it, but this kid really is a prime candidate for remedial cross-cultural education.
I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform.
And in what way is this different from how most modern corporations now treat their employees?
Personally, I'd be glad to see myself replaced with a robotic drone that served no purpose other than to do all my work for me while I lounged in an easy chair watching the latest episode of "Battle Robots Meet Crazy Machines".
Does this mean the ability to alter
card markings undetectably? Or would these teeny
robots only work if water were "accidentally" spilled onto the cards? What about hard liquor?
The libertarian myth is that contracts are freely arrived at [in] deals between parties in equal bargaining positions. Anyone who thinks that they are [sic] in an equal bargaining position with Microsoft and their cadre[s] of Wolfram and Hart style lawyers has got serious delusions of grandeur. If you were in an equal bargaining position with companies - you would write half of all contracts with the companies; you don't, and you aren't.
The answer has been long obvious to me, to wit, a consumer's union (a non-profit organization) or even a commercial company, that writes contracts specifically meant to be fair and even-handed for a great variety of common contractual situations. You could then look askance at (say) a used car dealer who hates such contracts and will not accept them. This application would go well with distributed networks of automated responses to contract requests at point-of-sale terminals, moderated for more and more people by their (low-cost PDA) programs which negotiate invisibly with the vendor's own in-store contract programs.
The ideal installer would automatically brew extra-strong coffee at critical points, and come with a heavy-duty hanky for when your hard drive suddenly no longer boots.
Slashdot Mirror
It's almost as if the people at CAP are trying as hard as possible to cause a stampede to theatres to see that movie.
http://www.capalert.com/capreports/s out hpark.htm
Bible-thumpers shouldn't gibber so much. It attracts just the sort of attention they hate most. They'll never catch on, though. Heh-heh ....
Or, if it's [a] somewhat controlled course, put the gps in the third or forth bucket, and require map/compass/altimeter to find it.
Hey, cool idea! I wish I'd thought of that. 8')
Another thought. It seems that orienteering would be a perfect activity to get computer nerds outside. Math and problem solving. Seems like the natural outdoor sport of geeks.
Plus, cool electronic toys. ;}
I think you're on to something here. I wonder if User Friendly would sponsor such a geek orienteering contest. There was a series of strips there on the gang heading outdoors, but for the love of Dust Puppy, I can't find it again. Geez ....
Does this mean massive international man-hunts for the infamous "Carlos the Hacker"?
Best encrypt with ScramDisk (Windows 95/98 version here) locally, and with GnuPG for transmission, all your CueCat code and use anonymous remailers for version releases to Freenet, or be prepared to live out your life in a shadowy realm of underground coders dwelling in the hidden spaces between the giants of the United Corporations of the World.
Once you start working 12-hour-plus days you get into negative productivity.
I've been there, and even worked 20-hour days for more than a solid month (never mind why :). Some truly desperate work got done, but I felt like the sterotypical "death warmed over" nearly the whole time, and have now a deep aversion to sleep deprivation that snuck up on and clobbered me pretty well. Also, all my creativity (I mean all) went AWOL, leaving behind a shambling "smart moron" with a hair-trigger temper.
It took a few weeks of enforced complete sleep to persuade the AWOL creativity to fully return. It was disturbing afterwards to realize how much previously easy thought had become so much harder during and after long-term sleep deprivation.
It was a hard lesson, but I guess some people need to learn it at least once. It's easy to think you're more physically tough than you are in reality, when the task is mental and there are few of the warning signs that with more physical tasks tell you that you need badly to stop and rest, preferably with a pillow mushed to the side of your face.
I don't regret having done it (the work needed very badly to be done), but appreciate very much more now the state of being rested and creative, and try very hard to plan my time and priorities way in advance to prevent such necessities from ever again arising. It's just not worth it.
(Oh, brother. I've been up 19 hours now and need once again to forcibly make myself sleep). ;^]
This used to be called orienteering. Give a person a map and compass, and let them loose. Ever hear of a Brunton compass?
I wonder if a hybrid sport might arise from this. Use a GPS unit to find one bucket, then use a compass and map to find another bucket that isn't so far that a newbie might get seriously lost, but far enough to require skill with the compass and map. (The instructions for the second bucket are inside the first).
This would have the advantage of luring some otherwise hestitant newbies into the more challenging sport of pure compass and map navigation, with the GPS unit handy to help out if they get lost and really need to find the car. :)
Oh hell, we should have mandatory IQ testing to remain alive.
I'll ignore the frightening message implied by your suggestion, and remark only that mandatory I.Q. tests already exist of the kind you describe. They're called "speeding Mack trucks", "matches & gasoline tanks" and "oversize, open windows on the 70th floor", plus ten thousand other names.
What I'd like to see most particularly from this long-awaited "mass-production" environment, is a drastic reduction of (headaches from) the notorious proliferation of grossly overlapping libraries for Linux. With many more people using what amounts to a "standard" environment, one can foresee the library scene cleaning up these gray, fuzzy borders into more sharply delineated borders in which one library much more clearly does this, and another much more clearly does that, with way less ridiculous overlap from almost identical functions (not even functionality, but functions!)
Many of the best Linux programmers, seeing an opportunity to actually make some money selling excellent special-purpose libraries (sorry, rabid "free-software" dudes, some people want to make a living at what they do just like everyone else and not live on cheap noodles and dumpster leavings just to appease the Angry Gods of Open Source), will stop re-inventing the damn wheel and start creating original, useful libraries to meet ever-more specialized demands.
This could be a "very good thing" indeed, if the shipping product is not grossly overpriced. Too many of the best Linux programmers are poor students or very much part-time volunteers working on pet projects, who won't be willing to pay through the nose when they can obtain so many other, totally free, development environments.
(This has been something of a rant, I guess. Wading through hundreds of, and carefully selecting, Debian packages one by one by one, over weeks on-line, and discovering how very much duplication there is in basic Linux libraries even at Debian, did something weird to my mind).
Man, I hate this stinking cruft so, so bad.
And personally, I'd rather have one law-abiding government serviceman peek upon my E-Mails than be let loose in an uncharted sea of dangerous collusion and corruption in order that a few devoted computer users may talk privately about their emotionally devoid lives.
Speaking of emotionally devoid lives, you sound almost anxious for someone, anyone, to read your "E-Mails". If they're anything like the disingenuous tripe you've been posting, then I can see these "government servicemen" laughing their asses off, and tricking newbies at the office into volunteering to "peek upon your E-Mails" before they realise they've been had.
How much are you being paid for these ridiculous trolls? Does your old English teacher from the sixth grade know what you're doing with her beloved language? Have you even left the sixth grade?
Nuts, I think I'm picking on an otherwise bright sixth-grader. I'd feel like a mean-spirited bully, were it not for the bigoted content of this kid's other postings on Slashdot. I normally detest political correctness and anything closely associated with it, but this kid really is a prime candidate for remedial cross-cultural education.
I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform.
And in what way is this different from how most modern corporations now treat their employees?
Personally, I'd be glad to see myself replaced with a robotic drone that served no purpose other than to do all my work for me while I lounged in an easy chair watching the latest episode of "Battle Robots Meet Crazy Machines".
Does this mean the ability to alter card markings undetectably? Or would these teeny robots only work if water were "accidentally" spilled onto the cards? What about hard liquor?
Hee, it's sure a hot operating system!
Oops, the great heat is already burning out my brain, and extremely bad puns are dribbling out of the charred remains.
The libertarian myth is that contracts are freely arrived at [in] deals between parties in equal bargaining positions. Anyone who thinks that they are [sic] in an equal bargaining position with Microsoft and their cadre[s] of Wolfram and Hart style lawyers has got serious delusions of grandeur. If you were in an equal bargaining position with companies - you would write half of all contracts with the companies; you don't, and you aren't.
The answer has been long obvious to me, to wit, a consumer's union (a non-profit organization) or even a commercial company, that writes contracts specifically meant to be fair and even-handed for a great variety of common contractual situations. You could then look askance at (say) a used car dealer who hates such contracts and will not accept them. This application would go well with distributed networks of automated responses to contract requests at point-of-sale terminals, moderated for more and more people by their (low-cost PDA) programs which negotiate invisibly with the vendor's own in-store contract programs.
It's only a matter of time, most probably.
The ideal installer would automatically brew extra-strong coffee at critical points, and come with a heavy-duty hanky for when your hard drive suddenly no longer boots.
The shit-brained, goose-stepping judge in this case appears to have ruled in essence that it's a crime merely to post this string:
a href = 'http://cryptome.org/dvd-hoy-reply.htm#Exhibit B'
Should I now flee the country? Go into hiding and join the First Amendment Underground?
See the earlier Slashdot article on this:
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/01/24 /118240.shtml