The amusing thing is that the author should realize this. He answers his own whine in his first paragraph:
Printers are obviously the bane of IT. With all those drivers for every operating system version (usually about 150 times the size of the actual driver file itself), a predilection for jamming, and of course those ever-popular toner explosion scenarios, I'm still scarred by memories of printer disasters.
He doesn't seem to realize the irony of his complaint against drivers, however, because he's too busy moving on to the unsupported assumption that old things are necessarily bad. I look forward to his future articles on the evils of pencils, the alphabet, and whiskey.
I teach at a university. Students who pay user fees, called tuition, check me out for a whole semester. Not only can I share my "repositories of experience and knowledge" by teaching, but I also have additional features like writing letters of recommendation. As an added bonus, students who check me out the entire semester, rather than putting me in the "drop" box, and follow my directions carefully, can earn credit toward a degree.
The ancient Roman jurist Gaius made a few interesting legal distinctions that could prove helpful today. He divided all law into three categories: law pertaining to people, to things, and to legal actions. Everything, under the law of things, was further divided into things which can and things which cannot be owned. Those things which could not be owned were largely the products of nature in their natural state. So, for example, one cannot claim ownership of a deer as it crosses one's land or water as it bubbles up from a string. Another, therefore, who drinks from the spring cannot be accused of theft. If one were to shoot the deer and butcher it or collect the water and bottle it, thereupon he will have created something which can be owned because he has somehow modified the product of nature.
According to this way of thinking, the boy who built the solar array can own the solar array; anyone who takes it from him is a thief. But ideas inspired by looking at leaves on a tree, these, I would suggest by way of analogy, are not subject to ownership. Receiving inspiration from nature, another man can "drink from the spring", without touching the water the boy has already drawn out.
I would like some consideration to be given this question when it comes to so called intellectual property: can the thing for which one claims ownership actually be owned? To answer the question, I offer a simple test: if I am tempted to claim it is stolen, do I still possess it? Put another way, I do not think it is right or even necessary to claim the exclusive possession of ownership over something which cannot be dispossessed.
If you've any connection to a university, you might consider taking advantage to OED online. Most university libraries have access to it and I imagine a good many public library systems will as well. Especially since that is the only way the full OED is to be published henceforth.
One might wonder if one day they will say that the internet, "by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
Well that's not a terribly broad and liberal minded way to characterize people with whom you disagree but, I suppose, if it makes you happy then at least some good is done. Perhaps you just meant it as a light-hearted joke.
sometime companies do things because they feel it's right
Companies do not feel. Sometimes managers feel. Frequently employees feel. Occasionally shareholders scrutinize a company closely enough to feel. I will even assert with you that such is very possible in the case of those who run the LEGO Group which is privately traded. But even so, for any company to survive they must consider their bottom line. If a company like Lego chooses to promote science and education it is little surprise that they should do so in a way that promotes their brand as well. That is to be expected and that is why I also said with complete frankness, "Not that there is anything wrong with promoting Lego". I rather like Lego. I was merely amused by the limited and one sided portrayal of Lego's motives and I chose to share that amusement. Lego is a good company and I favor their self-promotion, but I also recognize its existence as a company. It would be small minded indeed to reckon only one motivation here. Real companies, run by real people, are motivated by many different factors. I attempted to recognize this in what I considered a harmless fashion by combining two tired old memes, one recognizing the other sort of motive and the other saying that such a motive isn't necessarily impure. I do not know how this has so offended you that you would start throwing about such labels as you have, but if inadvertently I have so offended, you have my apologies.
Does Lego really need more promotion? is there some American kid going "Lego? never heard of it. I'll go check them out."?
On this point, I really must disagree with you. Lego, like any company which produces consumer goods, spends significant sums of money on marketing and concerns itself a great deal with brand strategy. It is not enough for them to say, "Well, there is no American kid who is going to be surprised that we exist, so our work here is done." Modern marketing is all about brand recognition, especially as competitive as the market for toys is, and brand recognition requires the company to constantly remind consumers it exists. So, yes, Lego really does need more promotion and it will always need more promotion. Good for them that they choose to it in a manner that might promote science and education. Nonetheless, to fail to recognize the need for promotion as part of the motivation is to fail to recognize that this is a company with a shareholders and employees to pay.
Sure, absolutely. New technologies come along and supersede old technologies. Someone above points out telephones and telegraphs, for example. I'm just wondering, particularly, whether anyone can think of an example where such journalistic predictions of the coming death of a popular item ever prove more than a self-defeating prophecy for the popular item's would be killer. FB did something differently and better than MySpace. Video adds something new and interesting to broadcast. Perhaps, I do not know because I have not had the opportunity to work with Arduino let alone this product, MS is offering something new and different. But whenever I see in print "Acme Corp. has developed a new iThing killer", I understand "iThing controls the market, Acme Corp. is producing a new product, the Me-Too, which will attempt to replicate the functionality of the iThing but always remain in its shadow, and this journalist needed something with name recognition to write about". So, I suppose my question is more relevant to how well such writers actually understand the markets on which they claim expertise and whether anyone can think of an example where writers have been correct.
Can anyone think of any example when a [fill-in-the-blank-popular-or-niche-object-of-consumption] killer has ever killed a [fill-in-the-blank]? Calling something a [fill-in-the-blank] killer seems to admit at the outset that the market belongs to [fill-in-the-blank].
Perhaps we shouldn't be so ready to demand that we get back to any given standard as we should be eager for more variety. After all, it really is a matter of what you're using your computer to do. When I was a student, the height on the little monitor I could afford was very helpful for just the reasons you mention. Now, I really appreciate the width. I spend most of my day teaching and translating ancient documents. Having the extra width allows me to dedicate a virtual desktop to translation, with my text or dictionary taking up one half of the screen and my translation on the other, while I dedicate the other virtual desktop to teaching, with the evil classroom management software my university uses defiling one half of the screen while my student's papers can be viewed on the other. I find this very convenient for what I do, but I would not be sad to see different ratios on the market for the sake of folks like yourself.
Or to try and stay true to form, just read Slashdot headlines. This way you'll not only be able to stay on top of the latest science news, but you'll also have the added advantage of being able to believe that by next year we'll have a solar/fusion/fuel cell/algae powered world, with flying cars, the cure to cancer, a massive hangover on champagne bottle bosons, and Linux on every desktop. Thus, you won't have to have your child-like optimism shattered every time you RTFA say lines like, "with more funding", and, "by our current projections, in as little as fifteen years."
I'm afraid my own fields of study do not extend so far back, so I cannot speak about pre-Ptolemaic Egypt with any expertise. I can say that a standard introductory work in English is Cyril Aldred's The Egyptians (1984) and it receives fairly high marks in the reviews. Even after you finish Grimal, Aldred may prove worth reading as well. The Francophone tradition of scholarship, as represented by Grimal (a work translated from the French), is different in nearly all fields than the Anglophone (which is not to say better or worse). The classic, out of date, but very readable and detailed work is by Maspero. I cannot help but think that Maspero represents the analogue of Gibbon in my own field.
As a late antique historian, I have to point out (to defend our territory, and, at the same time, avoid offending historians of an earlier period) that these are not "ancient Egyptian" in the sense most people mean. These are very late antique. I am glad to see a project like this, however. It's because of mundane papyrus stashes like these that we know more about daily life in Egypt, and Alexandria in particular, than any other area in late antiquity. For those who might be interested in the subject, I recommend R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (1997), and the recent Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, edited by Bagnall (2007), as some great places to start.
Slashdot Mirror
That must have come from an optimist. I think its at least one hundred years away and always will be.
Oblig: He's a slashdotter, so... no. Although these days the inexperienced could always pay a visit to Gropey Smurf.
He doesn't seem to realize the irony of his complaint against drivers, however, because he's too busy moving on to the unsupported assumption that old things are necessarily bad. I look forward to his future articles on the evils of pencils, the alphabet, and whiskey.
No. Expect to see Cook in a mock turtleneck.
to create a record of my idle surfing, so that I have evidence of my productivity increase.
I teach at a university. Students who pay user fees, called tuition, check me out for a whole semester. Not only can I share my "repositories of experience and knowledge" by teaching, but I also have additional features like writing letters of recommendation. As an added bonus, students who check me out the entire semester, rather than putting me in the "drop" box, and follow my directions carefully, can earn credit toward a degree.
The ancient Roman jurist Gaius made a few interesting legal distinctions that could prove helpful today. He divided all law into three categories: law pertaining to people, to things, and to legal actions. Everything, under the law of things, was further divided into things which can and things which cannot be owned. Those things which could not be owned were largely the products of nature in their natural state. So, for example, one cannot claim ownership of a deer as it crosses one's land or water as it bubbles up from a string. Another, therefore, who drinks from the spring cannot be accused of theft. If one were to shoot the deer and butcher it or collect the water and bottle it, thereupon he will have created something which can be owned because he has somehow modified the product of nature.
According to this way of thinking, the boy who built the solar array can own the solar array; anyone who takes it from him is a thief. But ideas inspired by looking at leaves on a tree, these, I would suggest by way of analogy, are not subject to ownership. Receiving inspiration from nature, another man can "drink from the spring", without touching the water the boy has already drawn out.
I would like some consideration to be given this question when it comes to so called intellectual property: can the thing for which one claims ownership actually be owned? To answer the question, I offer a simple test: if I am tempted to claim it is stolen, do I still possess it? Put another way, I do not think it is right or even necessary to claim the exclusive possession of ownership over something which cannot be dispossessed.
If you've any connection to a university, you might consider taking advantage to OED online. Most university libraries have access to it and I imagine a good many public library systems will as well. Especially since that is the only way the full OED is to be published henceforth.
From the perspective of those who are likely to sell you the connector, that's a feature.
... and is then promptly restored so the perpetrator can get points for taking it down.
TFA mentions nothing about cloning. Do we lack a growth medium that works for this bacteria or is that just a throw away line in the summary?
You forgot one social media site that's been bashed on Slashdot today: Slashdot.
One might wonder if one day they will say that the internet, "by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
Well that's not a terribly broad and liberal minded way to characterize people with whom you disagree but, I suppose, if it makes you happy then at least some good is done. Perhaps you just meant it as a light-hearted joke.
Companies do not feel. Sometimes managers feel. Frequently employees feel. Occasionally shareholders scrutinize a company closely enough to feel. I will even assert with you that such is very possible in the case of those who run the LEGO Group which is privately traded. But even so, for any company to survive they must consider their bottom line. If a company like Lego chooses to promote science and education it is little surprise that they should do so in a way that promotes their brand as well. That is to be expected and that is why I also said with complete frankness, "Not that there is anything wrong with promoting Lego". I rather like Lego. I was merely amused by the limited and one sided portrayal of Lego's motives and I chose to share that amusement. Lego is a good company and I favor their self-promotion, but I also recognize its existence as a company. It would be small minded indeed to reckon only one motivation here. Real companies, run by real people, are motivated by many different factors. I attempted to recognize this in what I considered a harmless fashion by combining two tired old memes, one recognizing the other sort of motive and the other saying that such a motive isn't necessarily impure. I do not know how this has so offended you that you would start throwing about such labels as you have, but if inadvertently I have so offended, you have my apologies.
On this point, I really must disagree with you. Lego, like any company which produces consumer goods, spends significant sums of money on marketing and concerns itself a great deal with brand strategy. It is not enough for them to say, "Well, there is no American kid who is going to be surprised that we exist, so our work here is done." Modern marketing is all about brand recognition, especially as competitive as the market for toys is, and brand recognition requires the company to constantly remind consumers it exists. So, yes, Lego really does need more promotion and it will always need more promotion. Good for them that they choose to it in a manner that might promote science and education. Nonetheless, to fail to recognize the need for promotion as part of the motivation is to fail to recognize that this is a company with a shareholders and employees to pay.
Fixed that for you.
(Not that there is anything wrong with promoting Lego)
But, I thought I was anonymous... er... wait a minute.....
Sure, absolutely. New technologies come along and supersede old technologies. Someone above points out telephones and telegraphs, for example. I'm just wondering, particularly, whether anyone can think of an example where such journalistic predictions of the coming death of a popular item ever prove more than a self-defeating prophecy for the popular item's would be killer. FB did something differently and better than MySpace. Video adds something new and interesting to broadcast. Perhaps, I do not know because I have not had the opportunity to work with Arduino let alone this product, MS is offering something new and different. But whenever I see in print "Acme Corp. has developed a new iThing killer", I understand "iThing controls the market, Acme Corp. is producing a new product, the Me-Too, which will attempt to replicate the functionality of the iThing but always remain in its shadow, and this journalist needed something with name recognition to write about". So, I suppose my question is more relevant to how well such writers actually understand the markets on which they claim expertise and whether anyone can think of an example where writers have been correct.
Can anyone think of any example when a [fill-in-the-blank-popular-or-niche-object-of-consumption] killer has ever killed a [fill-in-the-blank]? Calling something a [fill-in-the-blank] killer seems to admit at the outset that the market belongs to [fill-in-the-blank].
Why would he consider installing Windows ME?
Perhaps we shouldn't be so ready to demand that we get back to any given standard as we should be eager for more variety. After all, it really is a matter of what you're using your computer to do. When I was a student, the height on the little monitor I could afford was very helpful for just the reasons you mention. Now, I really appreciate the width. I spend most of my day teaching and translating ancient documents. Having the extra width allows me to dedicate a virtual desktop to translation, with my text or dictionary taking up one half of the screen and my translation on the other, while I dedicate the other virtual desktop to teaching, with the evil classroom management software my university uses defiling one half of the screen while my student's papers can be viewed on the other. I find this very convenient for what I do, but I would not be sad to see different ratios on the market for the sake of folks like yourself.
Or to try and stay true to form, just read Slashdot headlines. This way you'll not only be able to stay on top of the latest science news, but you'll also have the added advantage of being able to believe that by next year we'll have a solar/fusion/fuel cell/algae powered world, with flying cars, the cure to cancer, a massive hangover on champagne bottle bosons, and Linux on every desktop. Thus, you won't have to have your child-like optimism shattered every time you RTFA say lines like, "with more funding", and, "by our current projections, in as little as fifteen years."
I'm afraid my own fields of study do not extend so far back, so I cannot speak about pre-Ptolemaic Egypt with any expertise. I can say that a standard introductory work in English is Cyril Aldred's The Egyptians (1984) and it receives fairly high marks in the reviews. Even after you finish Grimal, Aldred may prove worth reading as well. The Francophone tradition of scholarship, as represented by Grimal (a work translated from the French), is different in nearly all fields than the Anglophone (which is not to say better or worse). The classic, out of date, but very readable and detailed work is by Maspero. I cannot help but think that Maspero represents the analogue of Gibbon in my own field.
As a late antique historian, I have to point out (to defend our territory, and, at the same time, avoid offending historians of an earlier period) that these are not "ancient Egyptian" in the sense most people mean. These are very late antique. I am glad to see a project like this, however. It's because of mundane papyrus stashes like these that we know more about daily life in Egypt, and Alexandria in particular, than any other area in late antiquity. For those who might be interested in the subject, I recommend R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (1997), and the recent Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700, edited by Bagnall (2007), as some great places to start.
For my part, I don’t see the problem with Twitter. I mean, 140 characters is more than enough to develop a fully formed and well articulated
the definition for the word "fratricide", but someone might already have done so in this column and I wouldn't want to get sued.