I use to get mental blocks all the time. I'd sit and think and try and remember something, or try to think about how to solve a problem. Then I'd finally get frustrated at spending too much time working it out, and go and talk to somebody about it. Most of time a few seconds after I'd started talking about it, a solution to the problem or the thing I'd forgotten about popped in to my head, with out much prompting from the person I was talking to. I think that the effort you spend trying to explain something to other people clears up the perception you have of the problem and pinpoints the areas that you don't understand or haven't thought about enough.
Perhaps criminals would benefit by describing their crimes in excruciating detail as soon as they're apprehended.
When Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read went to jail he started writing. He has written a number of books about his exploits. They have sold fairly well. William Gibson acknowledges Read (and his books) as the basis for "Blackwell" in Idoru.
Well, that's only if Australia (not me) actually has dibs on the real estate.
The new island is near the Solomon Islands.
The Solomon Islands is a group of islands to the east of Papua New Guinea. There was quite a bit of action around there in World War Two.
At the moment in the Solomon Islands there is a lot of tension between the ethnic groups particularly on Gaudalcanal. An ethnic group from another less fertile island were attracted to Gaudalcanal due to the easier lifestyle. The original inhabitants of the island are getting uneasy and have formed militias arming themselves with guns left over from World War 2. The militia members dress in traditional bark loincloths. Its a shock to see someone wearing tribal dress and caring guns.
If I remember right, Neil's "In The Beginning Was The Command Line" is available free download as well as for sale.
I bought a number of his books after reading that essay, as I enjoyed it. Giving readers a chance to sample an authors work is a probably a good tactic to get them to read more. I don't know whether people would buy a book if they could get it for free. At the moment reading a novel is much more enjoyable in book form rather than on a computer for the simple reason that a book is much easier to take with you wherever you go. Its much easier on your eyes too.
I also bought one of David Brins books after reading a number of the essays on his homepage. But I have to say that his essays are much better than his books. Maybe I just got one of his bad ones.
Hmmm... plain old text stripped out the all the '<' and '>' characters after the >>
What is the accepted way of indicating that a block of text has been quoted from the comment that I am responding to? The way it is done in email (ie with levels of '>' before each line) doesn't work in this context since the line can be resized.
>> Boys are wilder and more aggressive. So when there is computer time available, they will push the girls off. If teachers and parents don't do something about that, the girls won't fight back.
I don't know what to say....does this sound really ridiculous to anyone else?
The idea has some basis. I've played in a mixed touch football team. The boys are much more aggressive and actively seek to get the ball. The girls complain about not being passed the ball. They don't seem to have a problem in blasting you about not passing them the ball.
Well, this isn't extremely new. IIRC, there was a guy in like, the 80s who had a computer attached to his brain so he could see, and it worked.
Professor Graeme Clark developed the bionic ear, also called the Cochlear Implant, in the 1970s. This can give hearing to the deaf. Hopefully somebody will be able to do the same thing for the blind.
Eric E. Coe wrote: I once had a job where I worked alternately on a PC keyboard and the keyboard that came with a SparcStation 2 (whatever type that was). The re-arrangement of the shift and control keys when switching back and forth between machines drove me nuts! Even if it is not optimal, at least the PC keyboard is universal enough now that I don't need to deal with that horrid keyboard confusion any more.
I had the same problem at uni. We had dec, sun, and pc style keyboards. Each had a slight variation for the special keys. These slight variations meant that you had to be aware of which keyboard you were using and it slowed you down a bit. Even pc keyboards have slight variations about where some of the keys are.
I'm sorry, this just may be me, but this is downright Orwellian. It makes me very glad I do not live in Oz. After al, if anyone could just access any information they wanted about me off of a website, including consumer records, websites most visited, etc, what would be the point in maintaining any semblance of a private life.
Read the article. It mentions that this sort of database has already been created in the US.
Here's the relevant quote from the article:
In the US, Acxiom has established what it claims is the world's largest database, which holds personal details on 95 per cent of all US households, or some 330 million people.
Then again, I would like to find a woman who understood my work so I doubt have to dumb down my conversation. I really hate doing that.
I like the challenge of try to explain something to somebody who doesn't have any knowledge of the subject. It means you really have to think about what you're trying to say and explain it in terms they understand. It's not dumbing down the conversation. It's changing the jargon, the idioms.
You need to know what areas they have knowledge in and try to relate what they know about to what you are trying to tell them.
Architecture and programming appear to have nothing in common, yet a concept called Patterns which was invented by an architect called Christopher Alexander has proved useful for programmers.
I try not to talk about computers too much to most people. Although I could spend a long time talking about them I'm not sure that my audience would be appreciate it.
what if someone only posts one comment, and it gets a 5. Then they post at 5 automatically, without really earning it.
Hmm... That could be done too. Just set up two accounts. Use one to post insightful interesting comments and then when you get enough karma to moderate post a comment from the other, as yet unused account, and moderate it to 5 with the other account. That is unless there is some sort of limit to the number of moderation points you can spend on each post.
But i do feel that the look and feel of X is far behind.
I keep missing some of the things that enlightenment has when I use windows. I miss the hard edges. I'm not sure what its called but the edges of the windows have resistance. I miss the virtual desktops. NT has virtual desktops too, I found a little pager in the sdk but it wasn't very good. I hate having my windows all in the one screen.
I don't like the task bar in windows. The "start" button was a really bad idea. Why didn't they set it up like a menu. Then it would be nice and consistant and you wouldn't have to go through some maze of menus to start some program.
I had good and bad experiences with job agencies when looking for my last job. I found it convenient to search for jobs on the net. Its much easier than searching a paper. I only met one I would consider bad. She asked me to bring in a hard copy of my resume since she couldn't get her computer going and she seemed to be really unorganised. I managed to get an interveiw with a company that was hiring without going through job agencies. It wasn't a good experience. They asked me a couple of questions over the phone to see if I knew my stuff. Then they brought me in for an interview. I wore a suit and was interview by four programmers who basically tested my knowledge. After answering all their questions they seemed impressed, and started showing me around the office. Then they suddenly realised they'd have to wait for their boss to come back from holiday since only he had the power to make the decision. They rang me up when I got home and told me I'd have to have to meet the boss for a final interview but told me I'd basically gotten the job. However when the boss met me he didn't like me and I didn't get the job. Some of the job agencies are really good. The best one I encountered helped me by running me through a practice interview before the real one. They ran me through questions I would probably be asked and gave me a lot of confidence.
[Imagine a GPL on speech. Anytime I refer to a statistic I have created a derivative work which I cannot sell. So long non-fiction. Anytime I quote someone I have a work I can't sell. So long anthologies of quotes. Shakespeare wouldn't have been able to write a single thing. I think a GPL on speech would pretty much mean the end of human civilization.] I do not understand how you came to this conclusion. The analogy does not fit. It is simply FUD. It is wrong on so many levels, I feel compelled to reply. Software can be provided in a form in which you can't modify it ie in binary. To modify it you need the source code that was used to create the binary. The gpl does not prohibit you from selling anything that has been gpled. You can modify something that has been gpled and then sell it as long as you give the people you sell it to the right to do the same. Speech on the other hand doesn't suffer from this problem. If some one says something, you can say it too. It doesn't fit written works either. Written works already come under copyright, which is much more restrictive than the gpl. If someone writes a book, you cannot take that book, add a few words and then sell it. If a book was not copyrighted but instead gpled, then that would allow somebody to take the book change it in anyway they see fit and then sell it as long as they give the people they sell it to the same rights.
Slashdot Mirror
I use to get mental blocks all the time. I'd sit and think and try and remember something, or try to think about how to solve a problem. Then I'd finally get frustrated at spending too much time working it out, and go and talk to somebody about it. Most of time a few seconds after I'd started talking about it, a solution to the problem or the thing I'd forgotten about popped in to my head, with out much prompting from the person I was talking to. I think that the effort you spend trying to explain something to other people clears up the perception you have of the problem and pinpoints the areas that you don't understand or haven't thought about enough.
When Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read went to jail he started writing. He has written a number of books about his exploits. They have sold fairly well. William Gibson acknowledges Read (and his books) as the basis for "Blackwell" in Idoru.
The new island is near the Solomon Islands.
The Solomon Islands is a group of islands to the east of Papua New Guinea. There was quite a bit of action around there in World War Two.
At the moment in the Solomon Islands there is a lot of tension between the ethnic groups particularly on Gaudalcanal. An ethnic group from another less fertile island were attracted to Gaudalcanal due to the easier lifestyle. The original inhabitants of the island are getting uneasy and have formed militias arming themselves with guns left over from World War 2. The militia members dress in traditional bark loincloths. Its a shock to see someone wearing tribal dress and caring guns.
I bought a number of his books after reading that essay, as I enjoyed it. Giving readers a chance to sample an authors work is a probably a good tactic to get them to read more. I don't know whether people would buy a book if they could get it for free. At the moment reading a novel is much more enjoyable in book form rather than on a computer for the simple reason that a book is much easier to take with you wherever you go. Its much easier on your eyes too.
I also bought one of David Brins books after reading a number of the essays on his homepage. But I have to say that his essays are much better than his books. Maybe I just got one of his bad ones.
Hmmm... plain old text stripped out the all the '<' and '>' characters after the >>
What is the accepted way of indicating that a block of text has been quoted from the comment that I am responding to? The way it is done in email (ie with levels of '>' before each line) doesn't work in this context since the line can be resized.
>>
Boys are wilder and more aggressive. So when there is computer time available, they will push the girls off. If teachers and parents don't do something about that, the girls won't fight back.
I don't know what to say....does this sound really ridiculous to anyone else?
The idea has some basis. I've played in a mixed touch football team. The boys are much more aggressive and actively seek to get the ball. The girls complain about not being passed the ball. They don't seem to have a problem in blasting you about not passing them the ball.
Professor Graeme Clark developed the bionic ear, also called the Cochlear Implant, in the 1970s. This can give hearing to the deaf. Hopefully somebody will be able to do the same thing for the blind.
I had the same problem at uni. We had dec, sun, and pc style keyboards. Each had a slight variation for the special keys. These slight variations meant that you had to be aware of which keyboard you were using and it slowed you down a bit. Even pc keyboards have slight variations about where some of the keys are.
Read the article. It mentions that this sort of database has already been created in the US.
Here's the relevant quote from the article:
In the US, Acxiom has established what it claims is the world's largest database, which holds personal details on 95 per cent of all US households, or some 330 million people.
There are penguins in Sydney Harbour, Australia.
Here is a link to a news story about them.
I like the challenge of try to explain something to somebody who doesn't have any knowledge of the subject. It means you really have to think about what you're trying to say and explain it in terms they understand. It's not dumbing down the conversation. It's changing the jargon, the idioms.
You need to know what areas they have knowledge in and try to relate what they know about to what you are trying to tell them.
Architecture and programming appear to have nothing in common, yet a concept called Patterns which was invented by an architect called Christopher Alexander has proved useful for programmers.
I try not to talk about computers too much to most people. Although I could spend a long time talking about them I'm not sure that my audience would be appreciate it.
Hmm ... That could be done too. Just set up two accounts. Use one to post insightful interesting comments and then when you get enough karma to moderate post a comment from the other, as yet unused account, and moderate it to 5 with the other account. That is unless there is some sort of limit to the number of moderation points you can spend on each post.
I keep missing some of the things that enlightenment has when I use windows. I miss the hard edges. I'm not sure what its called but the edges of the windows have resistance. I miss the virtual desktops. NT has virtual desktops too, I found a little pager in the sdk but it wasn't very good. I hate having my windows all in the one screen.
I don't like the task bar in windows. The "start" button was a really bad idea. Why didn't they set it up like a menu. Then it would be nice and consistant and you wouldn't have to go through some maze of menus to start some program.
I thought the use of links was, well...ART! I thought it was some wierd kind of prose in the "Related Links" box.
I heard that c++ doesn't have a standard for name mangling. Does bcc use the same name mangling as gcc?
If I have, for instance, a qt shared library compiled with gcc can I use it with a program compiled with bcc?
I just realised how much ESRs business models are like Patterns
All he has to do is change the format a bit and they'll fit right in at WikiWikiWeb
I had good and bad experiences with job agencies when looking for my last job. I found it convenient to search for jobs on the net. Its much easier than searching a paper. I only met one I would consider bad. She asked me to bring in a hard copy of my resume since she couldn't get her computer going and she seemed to be really unorganised. I managed to get an interveiw with a company that was hiring without going through job agencies. It wasn't a good experience. They asked me a couple of questions over the phone to see if I knew my stuff. Then they brought me in for an interview. I wore a suit and was interview by four programmers who basically tested my knowledge. After answering all their questions they seemed impressed, and started showing me around the office. Then they suddenly realised they'd have to wait for their boss to come back from holiday since only he had the power to make the decision. They rang me up when I got home and told me I'd have to have to meet the boss for a final interview but told me I'd basically gotten the job. However when the boss met me he didn't like me and I didn't get the job. Some of the job agencies are really good. The best one I encountered helped me by running me through a practice interview before the real one. They ran me through questions I would probably be asked and gave me a lot of confidence.
[Imagine a GPL on speech. Anytime I refer to a statistic I have created a derivative work which I cannot sell. So long non-fiction. Anytime I quote someone I have a work I can't sell. So long anthologies of quotes. Shakespeare wouldn't have been able to write a single thing. I think a GPL on speech would pretty much mean the end of human civilization.] I do not understand how you came to this conclusion. The analogy does not fit. It is simply FUD. It is wrong on so many levels, I feel compelled to reply. Software can be provided in a form in which you can't modify it ie in binary. To modify it you need the source code that was used to create the binary. The gpl does not prohibit you from selling anything that has been gpled. You can modify something that has been gpled and then sell it as long as you give the people you sell it to the right to do the same. Speech on the other hand doesn't suffer from this problem. If some one says something, you can say it too. It doesn't fit written works either. Written works already come under copyright, which is much more restrictive than the gpl. If someone writes a book, you cannot take that book, add a few words and then sell it. If a book was not copyrighted but instead gpled, then that would allow somebody to take the book change it in anyway they see fit and then sell it as long as they give the people they sell it to the same rights.