Stop being an AC, get an account and filter the news you don't find interesting. It saves your time in more ways than one - you don't have to read it, and thus you save the time that you would have otherwise spent writing pointless flames in response to it.
Will the 68k, PPC and other ports be available to buy in shops, or is Debian going to be concentrating on the x86 version of the distribution? I could understand a decision to only produce an x86 version, as this will certainly be the most popular, but it would be good to see the 68k/PPC/other versions as well for those who favour non-x86 architectures.
If you noticed, though, the way that they achieved their "widescreenness" was to stretch out the width of the picture, distorting the image.
That was common when widescreen sets first hit the UK market. Fewer channels supported them then, so the demonstration models in shops were showing horse racing[1] stretched horizontally.
Nowadays, when watching a channel that's not broadcasting in 14:9 or 16:9 ratios, stretching the picture to fit is still an option for those who really dislike black bands to the left and right of their pictures.
-Stephen
[1]: I generally only go into town on Saturdays. In the UK, Channel 4 seems to show a lot of horse racing on Saturdays. I've probably seen more demo TVs showing horse racing than any other programme:-)
Unfortunately, much of the BBC's "widescreen" output is in the 14:9 format (ie, thin black bars), which pleases no-one. Owners of regular 4:3 sets don't like having black bars
I hadn't even noticed them. Now that you've pointed them out, I bet I'll be extremely conscious of them. You've ruined my viewing pleasure!:-)
Seems to me that it will be easier to write a translator from your native language to a very well defined and documented intermediate language than trying to understand the fine details of a non-native language.
Though I know nothing about natural language parsing and translation, it seems to me that, from a software engineering point of view, translating from a spoken language into the metalanguage will be the hardest part of the exercise. This will be especially true with languages such as English that have inconsistent grammar and more than one way to do everything (makes you wonder if English is the spoken equivalent of Perl:-)
Once you've got your text translated into the regular, simple metalanguage, it should be an easier task to convert it into a natural language than conversion to the metalanguage was.
(Incidentally, the parallel with Star Trek's universal translator was a good one. In Star Trek, outgoing communications from Starfleet vessels are translated into a metalanguage called Linguacode which is supposedly easier for the alien's translation computer to process.)
...what exactly is Gilligan? I see references to it in American TV shows everywhere, but I never understand them because I have no idea what the show in question is about.
I'm glad to see that, after a three-year break, the Jargon File has been updated over the past few months. Is version 5.0.0 in the works? Are there any plans to release an update to the print version, The New Hacker's Dictionary, any time soon?
I, for one, think that torturing cats and monkeys so that dorks can have lights turn on when they walk into the room is pretty repugnant.
I took Neural Computing in my final year at university. Like you, I was disgusted at the things that have been done in the name of science. In the exam, I drew an anti-vivisection cartoon on my exam paper. I don't know whether or not this contributed to the rather poor mark I got in that course:-)
Before a bunch of rabid ACs flame me for being anti-vivisection - let me state that I understand the necessity of animal testing for things like medicines, but I can't condone it for unnecessary research, or for testing cosmetics.
If the only way of discovering something which we do not need to know is to torture an animal, then I think we're better off not knowing. And yes, I do consider medical science to be something we need to advance.
Yes! Yes! My first computer was a Spectrum+. A few weeks ago, I was looking round a computer shop in London that specializes in retro hardware and software. They had a second-hand Spectrum+. I got a bit choked up just looking at the thing. If carrying it home hadn't been a problem, I'd have bought the thing on the spot.
I remember there was a group at the Cluj Computing Center in Romania, who had found something like 26 hidden, not documented but working instructions in the Z80.
Including the splittable index registers used in Spectrum protection systems like Speedlock?
What makes this worse is that if you look at the referenced patents at the bottom of the page, one patent is for identifying livestock carcasses! What's next?
I may be wrong about this, but I believe that microchip implantation of cows has been common practice in Ireland for a few years now. It enabled every cow to be tracked and was used to keep track of the ones with BSE so they could be removed from the herd and food chain. Ireland kept BSE well under control.
why not got for a sub-dermal microchip, or even an optional wearable one, like a ring or wristband? I know I would prefer it to a wallet + license +regisitration + insurance card + mac card + credit card
I'd happily wear an identity bracelet if it meant I could be rid of all those cards I keep having to shuffle every time I want to buy something. I'd not be at all happy about a barcode tattoo or sub-dermal implant though. Having to be physically altered, even in such a minor way, in order to go about my daily business really freaks me out.
Of course, voluntary physical alteration is fine by me. Where can I get Borg implants from?:-)
I truely pity the poor, pathetic specimens clinging to this anciant and archaic technology.
Not all of us rabidly spout Amiga advocacy to anyone unfortunate enough to be within shouting distance. Not all of us are kidding ourselves that the current Amiga technology is anything other than "archaic". Not all of us care that the Amiga Classic is, to all intents and purposes, "dead".
We use Amigas because we like them. They're not the latest and greatest. They have clock speeds measured in tens of megahertz, not hundreds. Their OS is a little creaky and a little unstable. So what? They're fun, and charming, and friendly, and a little eccentric. Just like their users:-)
We're not doing you any harm. So why do you, and others like you, insist on calling us names?
In the case of "a nice birthday card," why not send the data portion electronically and use local physical printing and local delivery services?
If I were to send a card like that, it would certainly be a tangible object that the recipient could hold and put on his or her mantelpiece. There's still one problem though - I'd be unable to sign the card. The recipient would get a nice, freshly-printed card with my greeting on; but, without my illegibly-scrawled signature, it's missing the personal touch. Well, I think it is, anyway. Maybe I'm overly-sentimental about such things.
For me, email is a "standard" means of communication now. Letters are "special". If I get a letter from a friend who has access to email, it means that the friend took the time to write the letter and post it. I would say that handwritten letters are nicer than printed ones, but my handwriting could never be described as "nice":-)
Like I said in an article above, you can't send someone a birthday card using email. You can sent them a "greeting card" from some Web page. Your friend will get it in their email, and could print it out and put it on his or her mantelpiece. But it simply isn't the same. It's not a physical object that you took the trouble to buy, sign and post.
Email won't completely replace snailmail for one simple reason. Even after you've got email secure enough that even the most paranoid technophobe is happy to use it, you still can't use it to send someone a nice birthday card.
Slashdot Mirror
AC (because I don't need annoying flames!)
What, like the annoying flame you just posted?
Stop being an AC, get an account and filter the news you don't find interesting. It saves your time in more ways than one - you don't have to read it, and thus you save the time that you would have otherwise spent writing pointless flames in response to it.
-Stephen
Will the 68k, PPC and other ports be available to buy in shops, or is Debian going to be concentrating on the x86 version of the distribution? I could understand a decision to only produce an x86 version, as this will certainly be the most popular, but it would be good to see the 68k/PPC/other versions as well for those who favour non-x86 architectures.
-Stephen
What you want are WonkaScrollBars they go upways and downways and frontways and backways and sideways and slantways.
And if you click the widget labelled "up and out", they'll make the window contents burst through the top of your monitor :-)
-Stephen
If you noticed, though, the way that they achieved their "widescreenness" was to stretch out the width of the picture, distorting the image.
That was common when widescreen sets first hit the UK market. Fewer channels supported them then, so the demonstration models in shops were showing horse racing[1] stretched horizontally.
Nowadays, when watching a channel that's not broadcasting in 14:9 or 16:9 ratios, stretching the picture to fit is still an option for those who really dislike black bands to the left and right of their pictures.
-Stephen
[1]: I generally only go into town on Saturdays. In the UK, Channel 4 seems to show a lot of horse racing on Saturdays. I've probably seen more demo TVs showing horse racing than any other programme :-)
Unfortunately, much of the BBC's "widescreen" output is in the 14:9 format (ie, thin black bars), which pleases no-one. Owners of regular 4:3 sets don't like having black bars
I hadn't even noticed them. Now that you've pointed them out, I bet I'll be extremely conscious of them. You've ruined my viewing pleasure! :-)
-Stephen
Seems to me that it will be easier to write a translator from your native language to a very well defined and documented intermediate language than trying to understand the fine details of a non-native language.
Though I know nothing about natural language parsing and translation, it seems to me that, from a software engineering point of view, translating from a spoken language into the metalanguage will be the hardest part of the exercise. This will be especially true with languages such as English that have inconsistent grammar and more than one way to do everything (makes you wonder if English is the spoken equivalent of Perl :-)
Once you've got your text translated into the regular, simple metalanguage, it should be an easier task to convert it into a natural language than conversion to the metalanguage was.
(Incidentally, the parallel with Star Trek's universal translator was a good one. In Star Trek, outgoing communications from Starfleet vessels are translated into a metalanguage called Linguacode which is supposedly easier for the alien's translation computer to process.)
-Stephen
...what exactly is Gilligan? I see references to it in American TV shows everywhere, but I never understand them because I have no idea what the show in question is about.
Anyone care to enlighten me?
-Stephen
[I can't help but wonder] if this comes from someone who thinks that Perl stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language..
Nononono, everyone knows that it stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister :-)
I just have an affinity for things with nice names. I know that this is very un-geek-like of me, but I don't care.
-Stephen
I know that "Topaz" is just the project codename, but I think it's a nice name for a language in its own right. Nicer than "Perl", in my opinion.
#!/usr/local/bin/topaz, anyone?
-StephenI'm glad to see that, after a three-year break, the Jargon File has been updated over the past few months. Is version 5.0.0 in the works? Are there any plans to release an update to the print version, The New Hacker's Dictionary, any time soon?
-Stephen
I, for one, think that torturing cats and monkeys so that dorks can have lights turn on when they walk into the room is pretty repugnant.
I took Neural Computing in my final year at university. Like you, I was disgusted at the things that have been done in the name of science. In the exam, I drew an anti-vivisection cartoon on my exam paper. I don't know whether or not this contributed to the rather poor mark I got in that course :-)
Before a bunch of rabid ACs flame me for being anti-vivisection - let me state that I understand the necessity of animal testing for things like medicines, but I can't condone it for unnecessary research, or for testing cosmetics.
If the only way of discovering something which we do not need to know is to torture an animal, then I think we're better off not knowing. And yes, I do consider medical science to be something we need to advance.
The only thing Warwick's department has is a talent for self-advertisement.
Not to be confused with the University of Warwick's computer science department, of course :-)
I graduated from Warwick Uni last year. I did a double-take whenever I read Prof. Warwick's name in the article and in Slashdot's discussion :-)
-Stephen
I want nanoprobes in my bloodstream, augmented vision, tubes sticking out of the back of my head and a massive great gun for a right arm.
-Stephen of Borg
NASA's news feed reports that they have regained contact with the probe.
We've got no proof of that. It's blatantly a coverup. The aliens have captured the probe, and NASA is putting out "everything is okay" misinformation.
Guess the aliens got bored with it :-)
No! They're experimenting with it and plotting our destruction right now! The world will end on December 31, 1999!
...that "Slashdot" isn't an offensive word to anyone, or we might lose our favourite site :-)
Anyone used Sinclair Spectrum around here?
Yes! Yes! My first computer was a Spectrum+. A few weeks ago, I was looking round a computer shop in London that specializes in retro hardware and software. They had a second-hand Spectrum+. I got a bit choked up just looking at the thing. If carrying it home hadn't been a problem, I'd have bought the thing on the spot.
I remember there was a group at the Cluj Computing Center in Romania, who had found something like 26 hidden, not documented but working instructions in the Z80.
Including the splittable index registers used in Spectrum protection systems like Speedlock?
...until she starts wearing a red hat instead of a crown.
N/T
How can a ".org" do an IPO?
No .org is doing an IPO. Andover.net are the guys who are wanting to float. The fact that they own a .org doesn't figure in it.
ISTR that there was a debate on Slashdot's .org status when it was first sold to Andover.
What makes this worse is that if you look at the referenced patents at the bottom of the page, one patent is for identifying livestock carcasses! What's next?
I may be wrong about this, but I believe that microchip implantation of cows has been common practice in Ireland for a few years now. It enabled every cow to be tracked and was used to keep track of the ones with BSE so they could be removed from the herd and food chain. Ireland kept BSE well under control.
why not got for a sub-dermal microchip, or even an optional wearable one, like a ring or wristband? I know I would prefer it to a wallet + license +regisitration + insurance card + mac card + credit card
I'd happily wear an identity bracelet if it meant I could be rid of all those cards I keep having to shuffle every time I want to buy something. I'd not be at all happy about a barcode tattoo or sub-dermal implant though. Having to be physically altered, even in such a minor way, in order to go about my daily business really freaks me out.
Of course, voluntary physical alteration is fine by me. Where can I get Borg implants from? :-)
I truely pity the poor, pathetic specimens clinging to this anciant and archaic technology.
Not all of us rabidly spout Amiga advocacy to anyone unfortunate enough to be within shouting distance. Not all of us are kidding ourselves that the current Amiga technology is anything other than "archaic". Not all of us care that the Amiga Classic is, to all intents and purposes, "dead".
We use Amigas because we like them. They're not the latest and greatest. They have clock speeds measured in tens of megahertz, not hundreds. Their OS is a little creaky and a little unstable. So what? They're fun, and charming, and friendly, and a little eccentric. Just like their users :-)
We're not doing you any harm. So why do you, and others like you, insist on calling us names?
In the case of "a nice birthday card," why not send the data portion electronically and use local physical printing and local delivery services?
If I were to send a card like that, it would certainly be a tangible object that the recipient could hold and put on his or her mantelpiece. There's still one problem though - I'd be unable to sign the card. The recipient would get a nice, freshly-printed card with my greeting on; but, without my illegibly-scrawled signature, it's missing the personal touch. Well, I think it is, anyway. Maybe I'm overly-sentimental about such things.
...I agree completely.
For me, email is a "standard" means of communication now. Letters are "special". If I get a letter from a friend who has access to email, it means that the friend took the time to write the letter and post it. I would say that handwritten letters are nicer than printed ones, but my handwriting could never be described as "nice" :-)
Like I said in an article above, you can't send someone a birthday card using email. You can sent them a "greeting card" from some Web page. Your friend will get it in their email, and could print it out and put it on his or her mantelpiece. But it simply isn't the same. It's not a physical object that you took the trouble to buy, sign and post.
Email won't completely replace snailmail for one simple reason. Even after you've got email secure enough that even the most paranoid technophobe is happy to use it, you still can't use it to send someone a nice birthday card.