And if he uses fake documents and changes his name...
I'm a bartender and bouncer. In our town we must go to classes offered by the police where they tell us how to check for fake IDs. (drivers licenses anyway). One of the interesting facts we learn there is that New Jersey is one of the easier licenses to fake, and to be suspect of all of them.
Good thing I never fell for that Free operating system scam. NO ONE would ever believe that you could get software thats commercial quality (or better in many cases) for free.
Cmon, if your Joe Sixpack, and looking to get fast internet access for p0rn, you've probably heard about all sorts of things on the internet that are free, or much much cheaper than the local store. Its not too much of a streach for him/her to think that this is legit.
Especially if they know nothing about other DSL options/costs.
Balls. The U.S. was more or less a third world country when it got started, and it succeeded.
Theres a couple of things that can be said about this. First of all, when the US got started, it was indeed a poor agricultural economy (third world). However, when the US got started there was no large country/corporations to sell trinkets and useless luxurys to the US. This may not seem important, but if you look at many situations in africa, or at Russia, the people there associate democracy with rich Americans. They spend money on the luxuries, not on building a stable infrastructure, and a working gov't.
I'm not saying that forming new democracies is impossible now, what I'm saying is that the situations are different now.
Another reason the US succeeded at the beginning, was that there was a small (as far as countries go) population. (warning slight sidtracking) I just skimmed a book the other day, (I wish I could remember the title/author, but I work at a bookstore so I had to only skim it because one of the policies ironically, is that even if the boss tells you there is no work to do other than stand at a register during the dead time, you still cant read), that argued that small governments are better than large governments because they are forced into more sane policies. The forcing is both economic and due to the fact that smaller populations are more likeminded.
Sorry about that little offtopic side rant, back to the US. After the arduous process of getting a government everyone could live with, that wouldnt collapse, the small population was fairly likeminded. The issues while important, were easier to mollify by comprimise.
Basically the point I'm trying to make (longwindedly) is that maybe at this point in history a country must be able to afford its freedoms before it can stop being totalitarian. The world China will become "free" in is much different than the one the US did, and therefore there are many new considerations.
If you don't know the history of the science, then how can you where the future is going? If you know about the "greats" within a field, the people who advanced the field the furthest, then you'll most likely know thier short comings, where their theorys need to be shored up a little bit. And more importantly, you'll know what they had failed at.
In fact one of my professors ranted yesterday that someone was trying to expand on a research track he had abandoned twenty years ago. He realized the ideas were flawed, but since the person didnt know the history (albeit recent)of science (geomorphology in this case) (s)he wasted alot of research time and money.
Actually.... that would be a neat idea, a scientific journal about scientific failures. That way people could know who has abandoned what conectps. It could provide an interesting history of science, and allow people to not have to keep making the same mistakes.
I did like the whole series. The 3rd and 4th books are a little long winded on some of the psuedo-philosophy stuff, but in all they are great. Id suggest re-reading the whole series, because there's alot going on, in terms of multiple plot lines and character interactions (not to mention it can get confusing if you lose track of which Duncan Idaho clone youre reading about).
I think you can compare what Robert Jordan is trying to do in The Wheel of Time books with some of the plot/character techniques in Dune. There are many characters and plotlines, and they aren't done in the simplistic fashion so common to much sci-fi/fantasy where everyone's "mistakes" help to achieve the same goal. People who are "on the same side" can and do actually hurt "the cause" by unknowingly interfering with others' plans. There is also not as much author bias towards teh characters, as you often see. Each is represented so that you can actually see each side's argument, and reasoning (yet you know who Herbert likes). IMHO its a very difficult way to write a story, and Frank Herbert does it very well (Rober Jordan on the other hand has fallen into the soap opera trap).
Well now that ive sufficiently gotten offtopic I'll stop now.
Contrast that with corporations, which are accountable only to their shareholders. If you're not one of them, you're shit out of luck.
So just go buy a share or two of stock for any company that affects your life. You at least have access to shareholder meetings to make your point heard. If you own shares you can bring up law suits against the company as a minority shareholder.
It is made pretty clear in context (and from later books) that this is the WRONG question.
There is also proof from the books that 42 stopped being the valid answer to The Question, the instant that it was presented as the answer.
The following is a logic exercize i did on the matter a few weeks ago (actually it was about some other stuff but contained this, so heres a modified version):
In Life, the Univers, and Everything the character Prak (who was given too much the truth drug) states this when Arthur Dent asks him about what the question is:
"... The Question and the Answer are mutually exclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the other. It is impossible that both can ever be known about the same Universe. Except, that if it happened, it seems that the Question and the Answer would jus cancel each other out, and take the Universe with them, wich woul then be replaced by something even mor bizarrely inexplicable. It is possible that this has already happended, but there is a certain amount of uncertainty about that."
From this we get:
1. there is a question and an answer
2. Knowledge of both is impossible without forever altering everything.
3. This may already have happened.
So:
First, the people who knew the question were long passed when the answer came out. So no person knew both the question and the answer. However, in the computer that calculated the answer, the question and the answer had to exist simultaniously for an instant.
Now, the Earth as it turns out, is a giant computer designed to accertain(sp?) the question. When Arthur and Ford land with the Golgofrincams, they play scrabble fairly early, before the computer is completely fsked. So the primitive cave men may actually be trying a brute force attack, and happen to be trying out "what is six by nine". Eventually they would try 6x7, or already had, and were just comparing other questions for proof.
Either way, it is entirely possible that 6x7 is in fact the real question, however when there was finally an answer to it (42) the result was that, both cancelled each other out and the universe shifted inexorably to the complicated.
In this case one of the new inexplicable facts is that:
42 is the new answer, to which there is no question (according the above rules, or you could just say the new question is 42, and the answer is in the form of a question, the "Jeopardy Universe theory").
Another of the new complications is the religious fervor about the answer to the old question, making it an integral part of the new question-answer pair.
But it also could be that one of the complications (bizarre) is that 42 is just a false trail to keep people away from the latest universe's question-answer pair, and therefore 42 is actually quite irrelevant.
Of course this is all based on evidence that it may have happened, which must be seen with a certain amout of uncertainty.
ANYWAY, any author that could cause my brain to do that much thought and analasys over a couple of jokes will be greatly missed. HHGG has been a major part of my life and sense of humor since i was a freshman in highschool.
Take care Douglas Adams, and best of luck in the great unknown, ill look you up when i get there.
I guess no i cant count on being able to avoid gaming on my own box under the excuse "Linux has no games" because now even tho it never was technically accurate... now theres a shrink wrapped one.....
oh well who reall NEEDS to pass all of thier courses this semester...
Slashdot Mirror
And if he uses fake documents and changes his name...
I'm a bartender and bouncer. In our town we must go to classes offered by the police where they tell us how to check for fake IDs. (drivers licenses anyway). One of the interesting facts we learn there is that New Jersey is one of the easier licenses to fake, and to be suspect of all of them.
Good thing I never fell for that Free operating system scam. NO ONE would ever believe that you could get software thats commercial quality (or better in many cases) for free.
Cmon, if your Joe Sixpack, and looking to get fast internet access for p0rn, you've probably heard about all sorts of things on the internet that are free, or much much cheaper than the local store. Its not too much of a streach for him/her to think that this is legit.
Especially if they know nothing about other DSL options/costs.
Balls. The U.S. was more or less a third world country when it got started, and it succeeded.
Theres a couple of things that can be said about this. First of all, when the US got started, it was indeed a poor agricultural economy (third world). However, when the US got started there was no large country/corporations to sell trinkets and useless luxurys to the US. This may not seem important, but if you look at many situations in africa, or at Russia, the people there associate democracy with rich Americans. They spend money on the luxuries, not on building a stable infrastructure, and a working gov't.
I'm not saying that forming new democracies is impossible now, what I'm saying is that the situations are different now.
Another reason the US succeeded at the beginning, was that there was a small (as far as countries go) population. (warning slight sidtracking) I just skimmed a book the other day, (I wish I could remember the title/author, but I work at a bookstore so I had to only skim it because one of the policies ironically, is that even if the boss tells you there is no work to do other than stand at a register during the dead time, you still cant read), that argued that small governments are better than large governments because they are forced into more sane policies. The forcing is both economic and due to the fact that smaller populations are more likeminded.
Sorry about that little offtopic side rant, back to the US. After the arduous process of getting a government everyone could live with, that wouldnt collapse, the small population was fairly likeminded. The issues while important, were easier to mollify by comprimise.
Basically the point I'm trying to make (longwindedly) is that maybe at this point in history a country must be able to afford its freedoms before it can stop being totalitarian. The world China will become "free" in is much different than the one the US did, and therefore there are many new considerations.
If you don't know the history of the science, then how can you where the future is going? If you know about the "greats" within a field, the people who advanced the field the furthest, then you'll most likely know thier short comings, where their theorys need to be shored up a little bit. And more importantly, you'll know what they had failed at.
In fact one of my professors ranted yesterday that someone was trying to expand on a research track he had abandoned twenty years ago. He realized the ideas were flawed, but since the person didnt know the history (albeit recent)of science (geomorphology in this case) (s)he wasted alot of research time and money.
Actually.... that would be a neat idea, a scientific journal about scientific failures. That way people could know who has abandoned what conectps. It could provide an interesting history of science, and allow people to not have to keep making the same mistakes.
I did like the whole series. The 3rd and 4th books are a little long winded on some of the psuedo-philosophy stuff, but in all they are great. Id suggest re-reading the whole series, because there's alot going on, in terms of multiple plot lines and character interactions (not to mention it can get confusing if you lose track of which Duncan Idaho clone youre reading about).
I think you can compare what Robert Jordan is trying to do in The Wheel of Time books with some of the plot/character techniques in Dune. There are many characters and plotlines, and they aren't done in the simplistic fashion so common to much sci-fi/fantasy where everyone's "mistakes" help to achieve the same goal. People who are "on the same side" can and do actually hurt "the cause" by unknowingly interfering with others' plans. There is also not as much author bias towards teh characters, as you often see. Each is represented so that you can actually see each side's argument, and reasoning (yet you know who Herbert likes). IMHO its a very difficult way to write a story, and Frank Herbert does it very well (Rober Jordan on the other hand has fallen into the soap opera trap).
Well now that ive sufficiently gotten offtopic I'll stop now.
Contrast that with corporations, which are accountable only to their shareholders. If you're not one of them, you're shit out of luck.
So just go buy a share or two of stock for any company that affects your life. You at least have access to shareholder meetings to make your point heard. If you own shares you can bring up law suits against the company as a minority shareholder.
Um, actually, the ancient Egyptians had beer.
It is made pretty clear in context (and from later books) that this is the WRONG question.
There is also proof from the books that 42 stopped being the valid answer to The Question, the instant that it was presented as the answer.
The following is a logic exercize i did on the matter a few weeks ago (actually it was about some other stuff but contained this, so heres a modified version):
In Life, the Univers, and Everything the character Prak (who was given too much the truth drug) states this when Arthur Dent asks him about what the question is:
"... The Question and the Answer are mutually exclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the other. It is impossible that both can ever be known about the same Universe. Except, that if it happened, it seems that the Question and the Answer would jus cancel each other out, and take the Universe with them, wich woul then be replaced by something even mor bizarrely inexplicable. It is possible that this has already happended, but there is a certain amount of uncertainty about that."
From this we get:
1. there is a question and an answer
2. Knowledge of both is impossible without forever altering everything.
3. This may already have happened.
So:
First, the people who knew the question were long passed when the answer came out. So no person knew both the question and the answer. However, in the computer that calculated the answer, the question and the answer had to exist simultaniously for an instant.
Now, the Earth as it turns out, is a giant computer designed to accertain(sp?) the question. When Arthur and Ford land with the Golgofrincams, they play scrabble fairly early, before the computer is completely fsked. So the primitive cave men may actually be trying a brute force attack, and happen to be trying out "what is six by nine". Eventually they would try 6x7, or already had, and were just comparing other questions for proof.
Either way, it is entirely possible that 6x7 is in fact the real question, however when there was finally an answer to it (42) the result was that, both cancelled each other out and the universe shifted inexorably to the complicated.
In this case one of the new inexplicable facts is that:
42 is the new answer, to which there is no question (according the above rules, or you could just say the new question is 42, and the answer is in the form of a question, the "Jeopardy Universe theory").
Another of the new complications is the religious fervor about the answer to the old question, making it an integral part of the new question-answer pair.
But it also could be that one of the complications (bizarre) is that 42 is just a false trail to keep people away from the latest universe's question-answer pair, and therefore 42 is actually quite irrelevant.
Of course this is all based on evidence that it may have happened, which must be seen with a certain amout of uncertainty.
ANYWAY, any author that could cause my brain to do that much thought and analasys over a couple of jokes will be greatly missed. HHGG has been a major part of my life and sense of humor since i was a freshman in highschool.
Take care Douglas Adams, and best of luck in the great unknown, ill look you up when i get there.
Uh oh, Kurt is Norwegian, and Linus is Finnish, what happens when AtheOS gets advocates? Will the flame wars turn Scandinavia into the next Balkans?
I guess no i cant count on being able to avoid gaming on my own box under the excuse "Linux has no games" because now even tho it never was technically accurate... now theres a shrink wrapped one.....
oh well who reall NEEDS to pass all of thier courses this semester...