Reading is one of the most important skills that is (or should be!) taught to our nation's children.
I couldn't agree more. I'd also argue that a close second to reading is reading comprehension, which enables such deft feats of intellect as responding to a passage with topically-relevant response.
I never thought I'd see a parallel-distributed computing, X11-hacking, web-developing sys admin that uses AOL. I suppose with all those complicated hobbies he just wants a nice, relaxing, online experience.
That makes perfect sense, except for the part about AOL being nice, relaxing, or online.
Secondly, if they somehow get the guy to stop allowing people to download from the website the guy can just go and stick it on Gnutella or another P2P service and magic - suddnely it's on 1000s of computers out there.
Is anyone else out there chuckling at the shear meta-hilarity of this whole thing? You're talking about using a peer-to-peer network used primarly for piracy to distribute an illegally modified binary used to connect to another peer-to-peer netowk which is also used primarily for piracy.
We're rapidly approaching the point where the effort it takes to pirate something is less than the effort of going to a store and actually buying the damn thing.
So what exactly am I paying $9.95 a month for? I could understand the charge before because they had to pay for their 800 number, but now why should I pay for service when the box can do everything itself?
Well, the issue primarily revolves around small green pieces of paper that most people use to gauge their relative happiness. TiVo, like most companies, is attempting to increase the number of small green pieces of paper that they own. Part of their plan for gathering the little green paper-bits is to convince people to give them said tiny green sheets in exchange for this service.
Of course, I'm simplifying things a little - there's quite a bit about the relationship between the green confetti and a yellow metal, and with the transmission of 'virtual' paper bits through thin metal wires based on symbols on a plastic chip, but that's an advanced lesson.
Typewriter: (N.) An analog word processor with limited editing and revision facilities and no Office Assistant.
-- Damn the Emperor!
Poorly written summary of a poorly titled article
on
No More Rebooting?
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· Score: 5, Informative
People: Read the frelling article. This isn't 'an end to rebooting', it's highspeed nonvolatile memory that could theoretically be used to replace mass storage and RAM simultaneously. Although this would speed up booting a bit, it would not obviate rebooting entirely.
In fact, on some OSen (cough, Windows, cough) it could be very dangerous - if there's only one copy of the OS code in this combination memory, you can't reboot and reload a fresh copy from disk - meaning bugs have a significantly greater probability of rendering your system unusable.
Exactly how much of a cocky bastard does it make me if I tell my boss we should get a copy of this book?
Seven. It makes you a cocky bastard to the amount of seven. (Note this is on the Williams-Kerner Normalized Cocky Bastard Scale (WKNCS) , not the Stanford Centered Cockiness Measure (SCCM))
Is there a chapter about how we still want beanbag chairs and free soda?
No, but there is a chapter about how we will want a chapter about still wanting beanbag chairs and free soda. And hammocks. I could really go for a hammock.
Resident Evil has you jumping up in your chair going "Holy shit!" (first time I've actualy been SCARED at a horror movie, LOL. VERY nice job Sony, w00t! Go see RE !NOW!)
Maybe RE had you jumping up in your chair, but those of us who have actually seen a movie before found it terribly, terribly predictable.
The 'shocks' in RE came from two primary sources: (a) The 'surprises' came five to ten seconds later than you expected them, and (b) the musical cues were very, very loud. Basically, the entire movie could be summarized by the standard "Scary Music, Scary Music, Scary Music, Fake-Out, Calm, Monster-And-Loud-Music " pattern that dominates the less-inspired films of this types.
Blade II, on the other hand, had no pretension of being a scary movie; it was content to be a violent movie, or sometimes a gory movie. I found most of the fight scenes quite enjoyable, which is good seeing as there wasn't much else. But the point is, Blade II knows what it wants to be, and that gives it a huge leg-up over movies that don't have the guts to pick a genre or the skill to straddle several.
But seriously if theories other than creationism aren't internally coherant then there is no strong case against spontaneous creation.
But, one of the defining attributes of a scientific theory is that it must be testable. Although creationism is internally consistent (because the answer to every question happens to be 'Because God said so') it fails this important test.
Of course you can't prove God exists! He doesn't want you to!
Of course you can't prove God doesn't exist! He does want you to!
Of course you found giant bones in the ground that look like extinct enormous reptiles! God's messing with your head!
It is apparently difficult to prove the formation of Black Holes through physics. Methinks either black holes don't exist OR this gives more weight to the creationist theories.
Skirwan's First Law of Creationism: All new evidence of anything provides direct support for creationism, regardless of the subject or content of said evidence.
First Corollary to Skirwan's First Law of Creationism: Skirwan's First Law of Creationism provides direct support for creationism.
Second Corollary to Skirwan's First Law of Creationism: Evidence designed to contradict Skirwan's First Law of Creationism does not exist. The nonexistence of such evidence provides direct support for creationism.
In related news:
My computer crashed earlier. This gives more weight to the creationist theories.
I didn't do laundry and all my clothes are dirty. This gives more weight to the creationist theories.
I'm out of Cheerios and I'm hungry. This gives more weight to the creationist theories.
The glove didn't fit. This give more weight to the creationist theories.
Chewbacca is a wookie. See the silly monkey? This gives more weight to the creationist theories.
Sounds to me like they're just quabbling over the name of the "black hole". These are our best and brightest?
And I'm sure it sounds to them like everyone here is just squabbling over the name 'Windows'.
-- Wow, everything gets easy when you oversimplify it!
Re:Anyone up for Zork: The Movie?
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Resident Evil
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· Score: 2
You know, as many hours (days, weeks) as I spent working the games, it might be nice to watch the dynamics in a three-hour movie.
The problem with a three-hour movie about Zork is that two and a half hours of said movie would be spent in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Mac OS X is unix like right? Why doesn't perl run in a non-emulated mode?
MacPerl is only necessary for OS9 systems - Mac OS X has Perl included in the default install. (Or at least, my 10.1.3 system has Perl 5.6.0 installed, and I know I certainly didn't add it myself)
Wether it was right or not is beside the point, commiting an atrocity was the ONLY way that the world was going to care what was happening to them and might hopefully listen to some of their concerns.
I can only hope that your response was written in anger, and that you don't really mean this. Read that sentence I've quoted again; go ahead, I'll wait.
Now tell me, how insane do you have to be to think that you're going to get people to listen to your grievances by flying a plane into a building with the express purpose of killing as many people as possible? Have you been in a cave and missed the news coverage of the 9/11 attacks? They flew a plane into a building. Only a truly sick and deeply disturbed mind would think that this is an appropriate way to initiate constructive dialog.
At a time when the US should be questioning, even for just a second, what they could have done that have convinced who knows how many terrorists that it is worth commiting SUICIDE as long as you die taking a shot at the US.
I hate to be politically incorrect, but I'm frankly sick and tired of hearing this argument. If you have a complaint with the actions of a government, you take appropriate diplomatic measures or you declare war. You do not attack with the sole purpose of killing civilians.
This is pretty much rule one of society; you can intrigue between governments, you can war between armies, but you can never kill civilians. It's this simple rule that makes society possible, and any group or individual who won't play by this very basic rule shouldn't be allowed to play.
So, call me a war monger. Call me politically incorrect. Call me short-sighted, xenophobic, close-minded, whatever - but I for one applaud this report, not because I want a nuclear war, but because I'd much prefer we do everything possible to avert the destruction of human society.
-- Damn the Emperor!
Re:Interesting experiment
on
To The Pain
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· Score: 2
Obviously, Pavlov's experiments with dogs come to mind, but the question is whether this recognition would significantly translate to digital skills, or would increase in skill be matched by non-pained individuals? Would degree of pain matter?
Actually, Pavolov's dogs shouldn't come to mind. That was positive refinforcement (bell rings, get food), whereas this is negative reinforcement (miss the ball, get zapped).
I'll leave the detailed explanation of the differences between these two for someone less unqualified.
If Morpheus can use the Gnutella network together with all their aparatus of media file meta-information, and multiple segmented downloading, and if they use the hyper-cube network approach, rather than the tree one, it will simply rocks, and no one will be able to stop it when it begins.
And if pigs can fly, and I can ride one, and they fly me to hell, and it just froze over, and we all have ice cream...
This is just the beginning. We need to be able to, on a whim, terminate your access to a game you rightfully bought. We are testing this scheme under the guise of a "time limited beta test". If we let others run servers, they could play the game they paid for whenever they want!
Do you have any actual information to support this bit of deep and foreboding paranoia, or are you simply attributing the worst possible motives to someone you happen to disagree with? Be honest.
We don't understand why someone else would want to use an alternative to Battle.net. Our software is close to perfect, and who cares about those strange Linux-using customers?
Perhaps I'm missing something, but how does a Linux implementation of the server magically create a Linux client? If there were a Linux client - and to my knowledge there are no Linux version of any Blizzard games - they would have no problem playing on Blizzard's main server, assuming they had a valid CD key.
What about getting laws that say that unsolicitated mail is illegal?
That's brilliant! Then, we can make a law that outlaws terrorism! And then fascism! And rudeness, and poor driving, and taking the last donut! Hell, we could just make a law that outlaws 'being mean' in general!
And while we're at it, we should make it illegal to respond sarcastically to extremely simplistic solutions to complex problems! Yeah!
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway... who wants to talk about socks?
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Damn the Emperor!
(Insert Rimshot Here)
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Damn the Emperor!
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I've got to assume most of the seventeen people who got that reference were amused by it...
We're rapidly approaching the point where the effort it takes to pirate something is less than the effort of going to a store and actually buying the damn thing.
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Damn the Emperor!
If you want to see a really distinctive case, try here.
You can't buy one yet, but they seem to be coming.
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If you read regularly, this is redundant. Mod me down.
Of course, I'm simplifying things a little - there's quite a bit about the relationship between the green confetti and a yellow metal, and with the transmission of 'virtual' paper bits through thin metal wires based on symbols on a plastic chip, but that's an advanced lesson.
I hope this helps.
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Damn the Emperor!
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Damn the Emperor!
People: Read the frelling article. This isn't 'an end to rebooting', it's highspeed nonvolatile memory that could theoretically be used to replace mass storage and RAM simultaneously. Although this would speed up booting a bit, it would not obviate rebooting entirely.
In fact, on some OSen (cough, Windows, cough) it could be very dangerous - if there's only one copy of the OS code in this combination memory, you can't reboot and reload a fresh copy from disk - meaning bugs have a significantly greater probability of rendering your system unusable.
Sounds like fun, right?
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Damn the Emperor!
Go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!
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Damn the Emperor!
Damn the Emperor!
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Damn the Emperor!
The 'shocks' in RE came from two primary sources: (a) The 'surprises' came five to ten seconds later than you expected them, and (b) the musical cues were very, very loud. Basically, the entire movie could be summarized by the standard "Scary Music, Scary Music, Scary Music, Fake-Out, Calm, Monster-And-Loud-Music " pattern that dominates the less-inspired films of this types.
Blade II, on the other hand, had no pretension of being a scary movie; it was content to be a violent movie, or sometimes a gory movie. I found most of the fight scenes quite enjoyable, which is good seeing as there wasn't much else. But the point is, Blade II knows what it wants to be, and that gives it a huge leg-up over movies that don't have the guts to pick a genre or the skill to straddle several.
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Damn the Emperor!
Damn the Emperor!
First Corollary to Skirwan's First Law of Creationism: Skirwan's First Law of Creationism provides direct support for creationism.
Second Corollary to Skirwan's First Law of Creationism: Evidence designed to contradict Skirwan's First Law of Creationism does not exist. The nonexistence of such evidence provides direct support for creationism.
In related news:
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Damn the Emperor!
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Wow, everything gets easy when you oversimplify it!
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Damn the Emperor!
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Damn the Emperor!
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Damn the Emperor!
Now tell me, how insane do you have to be to think that you're going to get people to listen to your grievances by flying a plane into a building with the express purpose of killing as many people as possible? Have you been in a cave and missed the news coverage of the 9/11 attacks? They flew a plane into a building. Only a truly sick and deeply disturbed mind would think that this is an appropriate way to initiate constructive dialog.
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Damn the Emperor!
This is pretty much rule one of society; you can intrigue between governments, you can war between armies, but you can never kill civilians. It's this simple rule that makes society possible, and any group or individual who won't play by this very basic rule shouldn't be allowed to play.
So, call me a war monger. Call me politically incorrect. Call me short-sighted, xenophobic, close-minded, whatever - but I for one applaud this report, not because I want a nuclear war, but because I'd much prefer we do everything possible to avert the destruction of human society.
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Damn the Emperor!
I'll leave the detailed explanation of the differences between these two for someone less unqualified.
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Damn the Emperor!
Erm... Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't Pong already painful enough?
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Damn the Emperor!
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Damn the Emperor!
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Blah, blah, Linux, blah, my rights, blah, blah
And while we're at it, we should make it illegal to respond sarcastically to extremely simplistic solutions to complex problems! Yeah!
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Damn the Emperor!