What if I don't give a rats ass about diving, track 'n' field, gymnastics, figure skating and weight lifting? In past years I've been pretty much out in the cold. If we had more than one delivery channel I could turn NBC off and turn the martial arts or fencing coverage on. Plus whatever else they do that I've never even heard of. --
When you think about carefully, the Spanish Empire rests upon a huge infrastructure, and this, unsuprisingly enough, costs a lot of money. How else are they going to obtain this money without sending mercenaries to rape and pillage in the New World
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Your wish to make money does not take precedence over my right to share information. --
1) Send an email to Tesco saying "I was unable to use your online shopping site, because it asked for XYZ. I will be going to a brick and mortar store.".
2) Go to a brick and mortar store.
Ta-da! You have cat food. Tesco has information on how to fix the problem. If they don't do it you are out of luck but there's nothing else you can do--they don't want you as a customer bad enough to fix their site. --
Of course MS is porting to Linux--they have all the manpower in the world and there is absolutely no argument against doing a port.
The question is: Are they going to release a port? And if so, under what terms (cost, license, etc) and via what channels (internet, store shelves, etc).
These are strategic questions. Imagine Joe Blow walks into Walmart and sees "MS Office for Linux" on the shelf. He thinks "Hey, my kid keeps talking about this Linux deal--and it looks like Microsoft supports it. I'll give it a whirl." Whoops! (for MS). That won't happen.
MS's only hope is to lure users back from Linux-land--but how? Office is becoming moot (I predict Office will run perfectly under Wine within 18 months). Games are becoming moot. UI is becoming moot (although only because GNOME/KDE seem to have a Microsoft fixation, not because their work is so great). Price/performance is already moot. Soon, all MS will have going for them is what Novell has: A large userbase. --
Family Guy is on Tuesday nights, apparently you already missed it.
"Haven't seen female/male ratio this low since the million man march."
Except you couldn't have missed Family Guy last night, this joke is practically right from the episode. Is there an extra episode on tonight? Why can't Fox pick a schedule and stick to it? --
I use Blender at home (because I only mess with this stuff for my own amusement). So as soon as I read this I thought "Can Blender and Inventor share tech, now that they are both open"? The only thing that would keep that from happening is license problems.
If something is "ultra" there is nothing better--by definition. What's next, the "WonderMungousTippyToppy StupendorMatic"? Video card marketers, telescope designers, astronomers and microchip makers must all be related.... --
The first half of you post is good, the second half is unproven at best.
For instance, "our trust in the finite rules we place on (seemingly?) infinite systems should be questioned". All formal systems to which Godel applies are "infinite systems", but not all "infinite systems" have Godel apply. This is because the issue that Godel raises is not related to infinity but to self-reference.
'Also, with the advancement of physics, we are now encountering things which are "unexplainable"...'
There are things that are unexplained. That doesn't make them unexplainable.
"...maybe we should start to think of metaphysical explanations, no matter how hokey that sounds (especially to you purebred empiricists out there)"
It's easy to think of metaphysical explanations ("The universe is a cheese sandwich" for example). But how to prove it? Also, who says that humans aren't formal systems? Maybe we can't find answers to some questions... --
"But it is clear evidence of Slashdot's decline, and I'm not trolling or flaming. In the past when questions like this came up, there were always linguists around who would have shot the original question full of holes within the first 50 posts."
I fully expected to see all kinds of linguists pop out the woodwork--I really meant my post to kick that off and get us past the "C uses the word 'if' therefore Americans are imperialist dogs" phase of the discussion.
"Now, thank God for him, we rely on an IANALinguist who has read Pinker's book at least."
Make that "Pinker's books". It sounds like you might be in the know--what other books are good? (I'm not up for full-frontal Chomsky yet...) --
"...but he hit the nail on the head when he said that you couldn't even begin to translate the real world into logical statements. His proof was both elegant and simple: "This statement is a lie". That phrase cannot be made to fit any standard logical expression set."
Godel didn't say anything even close to "you can't translate the real world into logical statements". Godel's proof applies to formal systems. Who says that Nature (or even Science) is a formal system?
"That because of the act of observation that the observed changes? Again, a clear sign that something, somewhere is screwed up so completely, but nothing is ever done."
Here's the screwup: Your interpretation of quantum mechanics. It IS ridiculous that an "act of observation changes the observed"--that's why I subscribe to the many-worlds hypothesis. Every quantum event "creates universes". If they electron can go both left and right at time T, then at time T+1 there are two universes, one for each possibility.
How does this fix the screwup? When I "observe" an electron making the choice, my own atoms (in my brain, body, equipment, lab, etc) are unavoidably influenced (for instance, my box registers "left" or "right"). But that means that the box must be in only one of the universes--which makes detecting the other one impossible. Thus the illusion of destroying the "quantum weirdness". --
Pinker (presumably not alone, but I didn't read the bibliography) totally demolishes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language shapes/creates thought. So don't claim that VB creates bad programmers. (I'm not going to argue that they may be correlated, though...) --
I just finished (re-)reading Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" where he 1) explains Chomsky's theories and 2) expands on them with his own theories. (I'm no linguist, so expect this post to be followed by a lot of "you are an idiot", "do some research" or "that's not quite right" posts)
First, people don't think in the language they speak in. When you think about a dog eating ice cream you don't literally think the words "The dog is eating ice cream". There is some "mentalese" that you are actually using. When you decide to speak aloud, you translate this mentalese into your language of choice (English, for me). My understanding of Pinker's explanation of Chomsky is that everybody has the same mentalese.
That said, here is my addenda to Pinker's explanation of Chomsky's theory (with help from Church-Turing) would be: All programming languages are equally powerful and isomorphic. This indicates that there is some abstract "algorithmese" that all programmers (can) think in. Therefore, while it may be the case that C is especially close to English*, but if so it doesn't really matter.
*I doubt this is the case. C is very verb-oriented: printf(the_data). C++ is very noun-oriented: the_data.print. --
The parent post probably represents the first time in history where advocating that we pay *more* attention to "condensed matter physics" was referred to as "keeping things in perspective". --
How many units of psychic energy are stored in each electron level of a crystal?
If a person goes around the edge of the universe, can she "find herself"?
Are higher dimensions curled up inside of tiny structures called "quaaludes"?
What is the conversion formula for horsepower to flowerpower?
Given a universe where your girlfriend doesn't shave her armpits, can you prove there exists a universe where you don't take a shower?
Is paisley the fifth state of matter? Or is it flannel?
What clean and safe alternatives to nuclear power exist that are suitable for powering the sun?
If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it, does that mean that "society needs to wake up"?
Does a gas rise in temperature when placed under oppression by The Man?
Isn't it a paradox to declare that Moral Relativity is an absolute?
--
What the ding-dang are you talking about?
on
Lego + Linux HOWTO
·
· Score: 1
I'm using a window manager that works right now: FVWM2. --
Re:Has Anybody Used the Mindstorms Before?
on
Lego + Linux HOWTO
·
· Score: 4
"Has anybody actually purchased one of these Lego Mindstorm kits?"
Yes. Me.
"Was it easy to work with?"
Hardware: Just like regular (technic) legos.
Software: I use nqc--it's very very easy for a person who already knows C. Probably also quite easy for someone who knows programming. Probably a challenge for someone who doesn't know programming. OTOH, the nqc docs (and the book by Dave Baum) has A LOT of examples.
"For what age group would it make a good gift?"
Upper age limit: none. There is plenty here to keep anyone occupied--it's not a "toy" (it's like a Palm compared to a PC--it does less, but it is still a general computing device).
Lower age limit: Depends on the child. Probably an 8 year old could handle it with help from someone who knows how to program. A 10 year old certainly could (with less help). The real controlling factor is the software. From the screenshots, the Lego-provided IDE is very easy to use. --
I personally use NQC under Linux (and I haven't used anything else, including the Windows software). Works just great. The docs are easy to use (although I bought the Baum book). The hardware worked flawlessly the first time. No problems whatsoever. It wasn't even complicated (like building a cross-compiler or some damn thing). Just install and use. --
Jeff Goldblum: Basic chaos theory suggests that it is impossible to restrain nature. Put up fences, use sensors, it doesn't matter. Information will find a way.. It will be free. Steve Case: Nonsense. We have state-of-the-art NDAs and we have totally obscured our security procedures. No software could possibly escape. --
-j jobs
Specifies the number of jobs (commands) to run simultaneously.
So if two dependencies are missing, say, no water available and not enough grounds, make will spawn a job to go to the well while another job is grinding the beans.
--
At first I had no idea what you were talking about "more than one computer". Then I realized, you have a computer in the living room and one in the bedroom and you are networking them together, over the Internet, by hooking them both to the cable. Dumb dumb dumb. Inefficient, insecure, a maintainence nightmare...
Why not setup a server for the LAN which hooks to @Home and shares the connection to your clients? Undetectable at the ISP level, easier to maintain, far more secure and not hard to setup. The only disadvantage is having to lay some cabling in your house--but that's simple if the computers are anywhere near each other or you can cut holes in drywall. This is what I've done (although I only have modem access right now).
Here's the real question: What are businesses going to say if their @Home-connected employees can't VPN to work anymore? --
Q: Why are these companies focusing on Linux as a "Windows killer"? A: Because it is already a Windows killer. They want to ride the wave.
Q: And, up to this point, have any of the "Windows killer" features been GUI related? A: No.
Q: What have they been related to? A: Stability, performance, reliability, flexibility, scalability, cost and of course freedom.
Q: What are these same companies contributing to these "core values" of Linux? A: With the partial exception of IBM, nothing.
Blah. I've seen a lot of "consortiums" and "joint ventures"--few (if any) of them produce anything of real value. Instead of hyping up how much "contributing to the community" they are going to do (jam tomorrow) why not just produce some code and release it (jam today)? --
If I went to DoubleClick and said "your webbugs are interfering with my privacy" and they said "so shut your computer off", I would not be satisfied.
To generalize: The privacy policy of any product or service cannot be "don't use the product/service"--because what happens when the product/service becomes ubiquitous?
10 years ago it might have been feasible to say "don't get on the Internet if you want to be private". Today that answer is becoming hard to defend. In another 10 years, it will be totally unacceptable. In 10 years, not being on the Internet will be like not having a phone (or a local library, or a television, or a radio). --
Slashdot Mirror
What if I don't give a rats ass about diving, track 'n' field, gymnastics, figure skating and weight lifting? In past years I've been pretty much out in the cold. If we had more than one delivery channel I could turn NBC off and turn the martial arts or fencing coverage on. Plus whatever else they do that I've never even heard of.
--
When you think about carefully, the Spanish Empire rests upon a huge infrastructure, and this, unsuprisingly enough, costs a lot of money. How else are they going to obtain this money without sending mercenaries to rape and pillage in the New World
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Your wish to make money does not take precedence over my right to share information.
--
Here is what you do:
1) Send an email to Tesco saying "I was unable to use your online shopping site, because it asked for XYZ. I will be going to a brick and mortar store.".
2) Go to a brick and mortar store.
Ta-da! You have cat food. Tesco has information on how to fix the problem. If they don't do it you are out of luck but there's nothing else you can do--they don't want you as a customer bad enough to fix their site.
--
It's doubly awesome: Lame show disappears, rockin' show takes its place!
--
Of course MS is porting to Linux--they have all the manpower in the world and there is absolutely no argument against doing a port.
The question is: Are they going to release a port? And if so, under what terms (cost, license, etc) and via what channels (internet, store shelves, etc).
These are strategic questions. Imagine Joe Blow walks into Walmart and sees "MS Office for Linux" on the shelf. He thinks "Hey, my kid keeps talking about this Linux deal--and it looks like Microsoft supports it. I'll give it a whirl." Whoops! (for MS). That won't happen.
MS's only hope is to lure users back from Linux-land--but how? Office is becoming moot (I predict Office will run perfectly under Wine within 18 months). Games are becoming moot. UI is becoming moot (although only because GNOME/KDE seem to have a Microsoft fixation, not because their work is so great). Price/performance is already moot. Soon, all MS will have going for them is what Novell has: A large userbase.
--
Family Guy is on Tuesday nights, apparently you already missed it.
"Haven't seen female/male ratio this low since the million man march."
Except you couldn't have missed Family Guy last night, this joke is practically right from the episode. Is there an extra episode on tonight? Why can't Fox pick a schedule and stick to it?
--
I use Blender at home (because I only mess with this stuff for my own amusement). So as soon as I read this I thought "Can Blender and Inventor share tech, now that they are both open"? The only thing that would keep that from happening is license problems.
But Inventor is LGPL! Woohoo! http://oss.sgi.com/projects/inven tor/license.html
--
If something is "ultra" there is nothing better--by definition. What's next, the "WonderMungousTippyToppy StupendorMatic"? Video card marketers, telescope designers, astronomers and microchip makers must all be related....
--
The first half of you post is good, the second half is unproven at best.
For instance, "our trust in the finite rules we place on (seemingly?) infinite systems should be questioned". All formal systems to which Godel applies are "infinite systems", but not all "infinite systems" have Godel apply. This is because the issue that Godel raises is not related to infinity but to self-reference.
'Also, with the advancement of physics, we are now encountering things which are "unexplainable"...'
There are things that are unexplained. That doesn't make them unexplainable.
"...maybe we should start to think of metaphysical explanations, no matter how hokey that sounds (especially to you purebred empiricists out there)"
It's easy to think of metaphysical explanations ("The universe is a cheese sandwich" for example). But how to prove it? Also, who says that humans aren't formal systems? Maybe we can't find answers to some questions...
--
"But it is clear evidence of Slashdot's decline, and I'm not trolling or flaming. In the past when questions like this came up, there were always linguists around who would have shot the original question full of holes within the first 50 posts."
I fully expected to see all kinds of linguists pop out the woodwork--I really meant my post to kick that off and get us past the "C uses the word 'if' therefore Americans are imperialist dogs" phase of the discussion.
"Now, thank God for him, we rely on an IANALinguist who has read Pinker's book at least."
Make that "Pinker's books". It sounds like you might be in the know--what other books are good? (I'm not up for full-frontal Chomsky yet...)
--
"...but he hit the nail on the head when he said that you couldn't even begin to translate the real world into logical statements. His proof was both elegant and simple: "This statement is a lie". That phrase cannot be made to fit any standard logical expression set."
Godel didn't say anything even close to "you can't translate the real world into logical statements". Godel's proof applies to formal systems. Who says that Nature (or even Science) is a formal system?
"That because of the act of observation that the observed changes? Again, a clear sign that something, somewhere is screwed up so completely, but nothing is ever done."
Here's the screwup: Your interpretation of quantum mechanics. It IS ridiculous that an "act of observation changes the observed"--that's why I subscribe to the many-worlds hypothesis. Every quantum event "creates universes". If they electron can go both left and right at time T, then at time T+1 there are two universes, one for each possibility.
How does this fix the screwup? When I "observe" an electron making the choice, my own atoms (in my brain, body, equipment, lab, etc) are unavoidably influenced (for instance, my box registers "left" or "right"). But that means that the box must be in only one of the universes--which makes detecting the other one impossible. Thus the illusion of destroying the "quantum weirdness".
--
Pinker (presumably not alone, but I didn't read the bibliography) totally demolishes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language shapes/creates thought. So don't claim that VB creates bad programmers. (I'm not going to argue that they may be correlated, though...)
--
I just finished (re-)reading Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" where he 1) explains Chomsky's theories and 2) expands on them with his own theories. (I'm no linguist, so expect this post to be followed by a lot of "you are an idiot", "do some research" or "that's not quite right" posts)
First, people don't think in the language they speak in. When you think about a dog eating ice cream you don't literally think the words "The dog is eating ice cream". There is some "mentalese" that you are actually using. When you decide to speak aloud, you translate this mentalese into your language of choice (English, for me). My understanding of Pinker's explanation of Chomsky is that everybody has the same mentalese.
That said, here is my addenda to Pinker's explanation of Chomsky's theory (with help from Church-Turing) would be: All programming languages are equally powerful and isomorphic. This indicates that there is some abstract "algorithmese" that all programmers (can) think in. Therefore, while it may be the case that C is especially close to English*, but if so it doesn't really matter.
*I doubt this is the case. C is very verb-oriented: printf(the_data). C++ is very noun-oriented: the_data.print.
--
The parent post probably represents the first time in history where advocating that we pay *more* attention to "condensed matter physics" was referred to as "keeping things in perspective".
--
--
I'm using a window manager that works right now: FVWM2.
--
"Has anybody actually purchased one of these Lego Mindstorm kits?"
Yes. Me.
"Was it easy to work with?"
Hardware: Just like regular (technic) legos.
Software: I use nqc--it's very very easy for a person who already knows C. Probably also quite easy for someone who knows programming. Probably a challenge for someone who doesn't know programming. OTOH, the nqc docs (and the book by Dave Baum) has A LOT of examples.
"For what age group would it make a good gift?" Upper age limit: none. There is plenty here to keep anyone occupied--it's not a "toy" (it's like a Palm compared to a PC--it does less, but it is still a general computing device).
Lower age limit: Depends on the child. Probably an 8 year old could handle it with help from someone who knows how to program. A 10 year old certainly could (with less help). The real controlling factor is the software. From the screenshots, the Lego-provided IDE is very easy to use.
--
I personally use NQC under Linux (and I haven't used anything else, including the Windows software). Works just great. The docs are easy to use (although I bought the Baum book). The hardware worked flawlessly the first time. No problems whatsoever. It wasn't even complicated (like building a cross-compiler or some damn thing). Just install and use.
--
"AOL for Linux Leaks Out"
Jeff Goldblum: Basic chaos theory suggests that it is impossible to restrain nature. Put up fences, use sensors, it doesn't matter. Information will find a way.. It will be free.
Steve Case: Nonsense. We have state-of-the-art NDAs and we have totally obscured our security procedures. No software could possibly escape.
--
"Debian and Linux, two great pieces of software that go great together?"
I know *I* never use Debian without using Linux.
--
From man make:
-j jobs Specifies the number of jobs (commands) to run simultaneously.
So if two dependencies are missing, say, no water available and not enough grounds, make will spawn a job to go to the well while another job is grinding the beans.
--
"The whole thing took 30 minutes from initial power-up to first boot."
To what does "the whole thing" refer? The port?
Oh and "woohoo! uClinux is back! now maybe I can run something besides lissajous on my Linux xcopilot!"
--
At first I had no idea what you were talking about "more than one computer". Then I realized, you have a computer in the living room and one in the bedroom and you are networking them together, over the Internet, by hooking them both to the cable. Dumb dumb dumb. Inefficient, insecure, a maintainence nightmare...
Why not setup a server for the LAN which hooks to @Home and shares the connection to your clients? Undetectable at the ISP level, easier to maintain, far more secure and not hard to setup. The only disadvantage is having to lay some cabling in your house--but that's simple if the computers are anywhere near each other or you can cut holes in drywall. This is what I've done (although I only have modem access right now).
Here's the real question: What are businesses going to say if their @Home-connected employees can't VPN to work anymore?
--
Q: Why are these companies focusing on Linux as a "Windows killer"?
A: Because it is already a Windows killer. They want to ride the wave.
Q: And, up to this point, have any of the "Windows killer" features been GUI related?
A: No.
Q: What have they been related to?
A: Stability, performance, reliability, flexibility, scalability, cost and of course freedom.
Q: What are these same companies contributing to these "core values" of Linux?
A: With the partial exception of IBM, nothing.
Blah. I've seen a lot of "consortiums" and "joint ventures"--few (if any) of them produce anything of real value. Instead of hyping up how much "contributing to the community" they are going to do (jam tomorrow) why not just produce some code and release it (jam today)?
--
If I went to DoubleClick and said "your webbugs are interfering with my privacy" and they said "so shut your computer off", I would not be satisfied.
To generalize: The privacy policy of any product or service cannot be "don't use the product/service"--because what happens when the product/service becomes ubiquitous?
10 years ago it might have been feasible to say "don't get on the Internet if you want to be private". Today that answer is becoming hard to defend. In another 10 years, it will be totally unacceptable. In 10 years, not being on the Internet will be like not having a phone (or a local library, or a television, or a radio).
--