Who cares? Aside from the fact that Turing's sexuality is not ignored, it would be a good thing if it was.
Y'know, the fact that he was gay wouldn't be an issue if it hadn't been the driving reason behind his public humiliation, state-ordered castration, and suicide.
Alan Turing's sexuality is important to demonstrate one very simple and essential point: One of the history's single greatest scientistific minds was destroyed by a petty, bigoted obsession with his sexual orientation.
Had society been able to cope with the fact that he loved men, he could have contributed to the advancement of computer science for decades to come. It's a challenge to even imagine what else he would have discovered in this time. Instead, we're left with a shameful record of how we sacrificed one man's brilliance to protect the moral delicaices of others.
Turing's sexual orientation is, unfortunately, an integral part of his life's story. It demands attention, if only to help society avoid repeating such disgusting persecution in the future.
If I had to go up against a grizzly bear, I'd rather have nothing but a thong and a Desert Eagle than one of these wacky contraptions.
Bears have no sense of decorum, and would not be adversely affected by the sight of a geek in a thong.
This leaves the desert eagle, which would probably just try to claw your eyes out. You'd be better off with a reliable, large-caliber pistol or something.
It seems that we've been living in the land of email worms for so long that most people don't know how to deal with a real virus. Yeah, that's what they do... they spread without your help. Geez!
No, that's inaccurate.
Worms can spread to other machines on their own. Viruses require some external intervention (such as file sharing or e-mail) to spread to other machines. See this entry in the Jargon File for a more verbose answer.
Now, many of the latest e-mail "worms" would be better classified as viruses or trojan horses, as they are incapable of infecting other hosts without direct user intervention (i.e., opening an attachment.) They've been (IMHO) mis-labeled as worms because they display worm-like behavior once they've infected a machine--that is, they mail copies of themselves as trojan-style attachments to other users.
So yes, the Sasser worm is a bona-fide worm. It transmits itself to other systems without any external help.
True, true. You see that everywhere, though, even in the Louvre...especially in antiquities--seems like just about anything dug out of the ground is worthy of display.
There are only so many 'great' works, and they're disproportionately held by a handful of museums worldwide. It's practically impossible to run a museum without padding of some sort, whether in the form of galleries filled with middling portraits of long-forgotten merchants or as row after row of ancient cutlery and clothing.
After all, what kind of museum would you have if you took out all the 'filler' and kept only the great stuff? You'd have one, two galleries tops, and a whole bunch of vacant space...I guess I'm happier with museums filled with art, even if most of it isn't of the highest caliber.
(on that note, I generally end up entranced by one or two pieces of 'nobody' art at any given museum. Sometimes, these things speak to you...)
Mind, I was being snide for the sake of argument--I happen to love the works of those artists (well, except Van Dyke. He can go piss up a rope.)
That said, it's pretty common to see at least one example from one of these artists in your typical 'classical' art museum, even if it isn't one of the big name museums. Even the Baltimore Museum of Art (it's good, but I don't consider it a heavy-hitter in the world of art museums) has permanent exhibits containing works by Rodin, Mattise, Picasso, Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, and Renoir...
Also, many ppl never make it to Washington (nor have a desire to go there), so they never get to see these treasures.
Getting to Washington, D.C., is not exactly challenging, and while it can be expensive, it's one of the few cities in America where you can see the sights for next to nothing, if you plan properly.
As for not having the desire to go there, well, we can't exactly bring the world to everyone's doorstep. Besides, it's easier to visit one place and see many great things than it is to visit many places to see one great thing in each of those places.
As for the "one clean hit" fear--good grief, man. Live life. Don't brood on the "But THEY could wipe it all out in a second!" scenarios. Our lives and achievements are ephemeral, and they'll all be destroyed eventually. Don't cower in the face of this--get out and enjoy the time you have!
As for art museums... STOP BUYING TRASH OF NO VALUE! Just cuz he has a goatee and a french cabaret doesn't mean he's an artist.
Hear, hear! If I see one more Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Van Dyke, Picasso, Degas, Botticelli, Rodin, Raphael, or Bosch--I swear, I'm gonna flip out. You pracically trip over these things at your typical so-called art museums, and they've been around for ages!
Note to curators: go visit the Centre Pompidou, MoMA and Tate to see what real art looks like. Quit wasting money and space on the same old tired trash.
It's very rare today to hear of a major company throwing money at a research project since the '80s.
It may be rare to hear about them, but long-term research certainly isn't dead. There are companies (3M, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, GlaxoSmithKline, and Lockheed Martin all spring immediately to mind) that have been conducting long-term research projects older than most of the Slashdot crowd.
That we don't hear a lot about them has less to do with their scarcity than it has to do with the relative non-newsworthiness of the progress these projects make. People don't want to hear about the bricks being put in place; they want to hear about the store opening.
OK, all conspiracy theories off to the side. Forget the whole "Getting votes for the Republicn Party" bit. Ignore whatever political motivations may be surrounding Diebold at the moment. Assume that Diebold has no desire to commit or facilitate election fraud.
The simple fact is that, while Diebold does indeed care about producing accurate voting results, they are more concerned with making money. If Diebold is forced to choose between increasing their profit and making the system better, they'll choose profit.
If you put voting machines in the hands of the private sector, the private sector will try to maximize profit. Corners will be cut. There simply isn't any way to avoid this, so long as the people making the machines are doing so to make money off the venture.
So long as the design and development of voting systems is left to the private sector, voters will be disenfranchised for the sake of profit. That's all there is to it.
Oh, get yerself a Rio Karma and quitcher whinin'. I'm a video freak, and you don't see me bitching about how hardly any consumer TV sets support anything more exotic than RCA component in, do you?
The manufacturers have heard the Cry of the Hardcore Ogg Fan, and they've responded with a collective "meh." Most of them simply don't give a damn about your niche. Rio does. Support Rio and quit acting like you're all downtrodden.
If you were under the impression that/. was an actual news service, rather than an amalgamation of previously-published stories, then perhaps you should read the FAQ.
First off, how does this differ from your typical local newspaper? They pull stories from AP, Reuters, et cetera, conglomerate them, add a bit of editorial flair, and throw in the occasional in-house/local interest piece. Are they a news organization, or simply a portal publication?
Second, I don't care what rationale they've buried halfway through the FAQ. There's a big 'ol sign at the top of every page that says "Slashdot - News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." If I'm under the impression that Slashdot is a news service, it's because it's part of the freakin' tag line! You think it's somehow kosher to say "News for Nerds" on the masthead but bury "we're not actually a news service" on the proverbial page 19A between the obituaries and yesterday's jumble solution?
Both Slashdot and Wonkette fail the journalistic integrity test. They put "reporting what we feel like reporting" before fact-checking, corroboration of sources, and careful editing.
The difference between Slashdot and Wonkette is that Wonkette unabashedly embraces the fact that Wonkette.com is a rumor mill and kaffeeklatsch, whereas Slashdot tries to pass it's rumormongering and hearsay off as real reporting.
Why don't any of the MP3 devices/programs/whatever that I use allow a "random album shuffle", that plays albums completely through, then chooses another album?
The iPod has album shuffle, and it works just as you describe...
Slashdot Mirror
Y'know, the fact that he was gay wouldn't be an issue if it hadn't been the driving reason behind his public humiliation, state-ordered castration, and suicide.
Alan Turing's sexuality is important to demonstrate one very simple and essential point: One of the history's single greatest scientistific minds was destroyed by a petty, bigoted obsession with his sexual orientation.
Had society been able to cope with the fact that he loved men, he could have contributed to the advancement of computer science for decades to come. It's a challenge to even imagine what else he would have discovered in this time. Instead, we're left with a shameful record of how we sacrificed one man's brilliance to protect the moral delicaices of others.
Turing's sexual orientation is, unfortunately, an integral part of his life's story. It demands attention, if only to help society avoid repeating such disgusting persecution in the future.
Bears have no sense of decorum, and would not be adversely affected by the sight of a geek in a thong.
This leaves the desert eagle, which would probably just try to claw your eyes out. You'd be better off with a reliable, large-caliber pistol or something.
The Mark VII: just the thing for all those geeks who can't quite work up the nerve to ask Samus Aran out on a date.
Slashdot | Microsoft Assembles Patent Arse...
No, that's inaccurate.
Worms can spread to other machines on their own. Viruses require some external intervention (such as file sharing or e-mail) to spread to other machines. See this entry in the Jargon File for a more verbose answer.
Now, many of the latest e-mail "worms" would be better classified as viruses or trojan horses, as they are incapable of infecting other hosts without direct user intervention (i.e., opening an attachment.) They've been (IMHO) mis-labeled as worms because they display worm-like behavior once they've infected a machine--that is, they mail copies of themselves as trojan-style attachments to other users.
So yes, the Sasser worm is a bona-fide worm. It transmits itself to other systems without any external help.
One wonders exactly what Mitnick was asked to do in his, ahem, supporting role...
(No, wait--come back! I'll be good from now on!)
There are only so many 'great' works, and they're disproportionately held by a handful of museums worldwide. It's practically impossible to run a museum without padding of some sort, whether in the form of galleries filled with middling portraits of long-forgotten merchants or as row after row of ancient cutlery and clothing.
After all, what kind of museum would you have if you took out all the 'filler' and kept only the great stuff? You'd have one, two galleries tops, and a whole bunch of vacant space...I guess I'm happier with museums filled with art, even if most of it isn't of the highest caliber.
(on that note, I generally end up entranced by one or two pieces of 'nobody' art at any given museum. Sometimes, these things speak to you...)
That said, it's pretty common to see at least one example from one of these artists in your typical 'classical' art museum, even if it isn't one of the big name museums. Even the Baltimore Museum of Art (it's good, but I don't consider it a heavy-hitter in the world of art museums) has permanent exhibits containing works by Rodin, Mattise, Picasso, Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, and Renoir...
Getting to Washington, D.C., is not exactly challenging, and while it can be expensive, it's one of the few cities in America where you can see the sights for next to nothing, if you plan properly.
As for not having the desire to go there, well, we can't exactly bring the world to everyone's doorstep. Besides, it's easier to visit one place and see many great things than it is to visit many places to see one great thing in each of those places.
As for the "one clean hit" fear--good grief, man. Live life. Don't brood on the "But THEY could wipe it all out in a second!" scenarios. Our lives and achievements are ephemeral, and they'll all be destroyed eventually. Don't cower in the face of this--get out and enjoy the time you have!
Hear, hear! If I see one more Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Van Dyke, Picasso, Degas, Botticelli, Rodin, Raphael, or Bosch--I swear, I'm gonna flip out. You pracically trip over these things at your typical so-called art museums, and they've been around for ages!
Note to curators: go visit the Centre Pompidou, MoMA and Tate to see what real art looks like. Quit wasting money and space on the same old tired trash.
</mock>
"Oy, you call this a body? I've seen better bodies crafted out of day-old bagels!"
But yeah, it's hard to think of anything else...
Might I suggest adding a calculator to round out that list?
Ever heard the song "Blue Suede Shoes" by American AC in Paris?
It may be rare to hear about them, but long-term research certainly isn't dead. There are companies (3M, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, GlaxoSmithKline, and Lockheed Martin all spring immediately to mind) that have been conducting long-term research projects older than most of the Slashdot crowd.
That we don't hear a lot about them has less to do with their scarcity than it has to do with the relative non-newsworthiness of the progress these projects make. People don't want to hear about the bricks being put in place; they want to hear about the store opening.
Wait...
Of course e-voting is hard to accomplish. That's not the issue.
What is the issue is that Diebold is doing everything they can to ramrod an unfinished system into place for the November elections.
Would you run beta software on your company's production billing server? Because that is what's gonna happen this November.
Well, hell. Here I was hoping that my opinion would have at least cleaned the kitchen while I was gone.
Lazy, good-for-nothing words...
The simple fact is that, while Diebold does indeed care about producing accurate voting results, they are more concerned with making money. If Diebold is forced to choose between increasing their profit and making the system better, they'll choose profit.
If you put voting machines in the hands of the private sector, the private sector will try to maximize profit. Corners will be cut. There simply isn't any way to avoid this, so long as the people making the machines are doing so to make money off the venture.
So long as the design and development of voting systems is left to the private sector, voters will be disenfranchised for the sake of profit. That's all there is to it.
The manufacturers have heard the Cry of the Hardcore Ogg Fan, and they've responded with a collective "meh." Most of them simply don't give a damn about your niche. Rio does. Support Rio and quit acting like you're all downtrodden.
First off, how does this differ from your typical local newspaper? They pull stories from AP, Reuters, et cetera, conglomerate them, add a bit of editorial flair, and throw in the occasional in-house/local interest piece. Are they a news organization, or simply a portal publication?
Second, I don't care what rationale they've buried halfway through the FAQ. There's a big 'ol sign at the top of every page that says "Slashdot - News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." If I'm under the impression that Slashdot is a news service, it's because it's part of the freakin' tag line! You think it's somehow kosher to say "News for Nerds" on the masthead but bury "we're not actually a news service" on the proverbial page 19A between the obituaries and yesterday's jumble solution?
The difference between Slashdot and Wonkette is that Wonkette unabashedly embraces the fact that Wonkette.com is a rumor mill and kaffeeklatsch, whereas Slashdot tries to pass it's rumormongering and hearsay off as real reporting.
The iPod has album shuffle, and it works just as you describe...
Started I random it like time, all shuffle much the I've so the using.