Re:A measure of who reads /. might be better...
on
Top U.S. Tech Cities
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Assuming geek refers to users of the Internet.
There are other technologies and sciences out there with far geekier folks (e.g. biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, various kinds of engineering etc.)
What about places like Los Alamos (LANL), Albuquerque (SNL, LM etc.) or Batavia (FNAL).
If by tech they only mean CS related stuff, then sure, that list makes sense.
But Los Alamos has some of the smartest and best people and has a lot of "real" tech.
I mean, if particle accelerators, rocket science and weapons tech. don't constitute real technology while AJAX is counted as a technology, I must be missing something.
The only problem I have this system is that publishers usually act as a detriment to a lot of mediocre "talent" out there.
With this mechanism, you would also have a lot of noise:signal ratio, which would be kind of sucky.
And while free-market may determine who comes out on top, do remember that most people are not particularly bright and would much rather read brain dead stuff than something that makes them think, analyse and question.
That is what worries me. Finding the wheat from the chaff would be hard.
Great, one more country has one more way of killing several large number of people in one go.
One would think that sooner or later we'd stop this crap.
Sorry, just a little frustrated with the fact that every time I have looked at news the past week, there is killing and murder and unrest everywhere. Bah.
Re:Aliens, ghosts, and gods never leave evidence .
on
UFOs In the News
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· Score: 1
Actually, I was quoting Larry Niven's corollary of the law which states, "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
I guess my sense of humour didn't particularly shine through.:)
Anyway, I do agree with you - however, if a system produces "magic" (whatever that may be) that is just a characteristic of the environment, one to be studied and understood. So, at that point, magic is no longer really magic, merely science that we did not understand.
There aren't enough applications that work consistently (e.g. keyboard shortcuts). And secondly, a lot of Linux applications are out there today, but when I started out, they weren't. So it's a comfort factor with a lot of applications.
I got a new notebook the other day, and one of the first things I did was to install a Linux partition. I installed Ubuntu because I had heard of their out-of-the-box install was good, and because I am a big fan of Debian.
And of course, I could not get my soundcard to work. Nor my wireless. And my resolution in Linux was nowhere as high as the ones I could get in Windows. (I know they are all driver problems and not application related, but bear with me for a minute)
After spending several hours, I finally gave up, booted into Windows and started using Windows.
Anyway, the thing is that I can get Windows as well as several other Open Source applications to work on Windows, but I can only get Linux applications to work on Linux (let's forget Wine for a moment, shall we). So why should I use Linux, when I can use Windows and get my sound, my wireless and my graphics to work, as well as use the applications that I need?
Without having to spend an inordinately high number of hours to fix something. The day that a Linux install out of the box delivers as complete a system on a new box as a Windows box does, I will switch to Linux.
Certainly the LTTE are NOT on the same scale as Al-Queda, etc.
Yes, that is why they assasinate the premiers of other countries, such as the former Prime Minister of India.
I'm originally from Tamil Nadu, and trust you me, violence is not any way to garner support. LTTE is deemed a terrorist organization in India and around the world and rightfully so.
Re:Aliens, ghosts, and gods never leave evidence .
on
UFOs In the News
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· Score: 1
Yes, which is the reason I had made that statement.
It was implicit.
Re:Aliens, ghosts, and gods never leave evidence .
on
UFOs In the News
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· Score: 1
Not particularly.
It might be highly improbable, however it would be even more improbable to have an entity who can control just about every tiny event occuring in this Universe.
Of course, assuming that magic is merely level of technology that is far beyond our understanding, it would seem that while aliens visiting us might be improbable but yet fathomable science (e.g. the Universe is billions of years old, so why not a species or a civilization that evolved a million years before us - think of the technological progress they'd have made in that time).
However, the existence of God as most religions seem to perceive would truly be baffling (e.g. abruptly changing Universal constants (not in the gradual way that they do change), interaction of an independent outside observer with a closed system etc.)
I do not know what it is, but it would definitely be contrary to our understanding of the Universe. Magic, I suppose, is as good a word as any.
For instance, I'm originally from India, and coffee back there is almost always served with cream/milk and sugar.
This goes for a lot of countries, and compared to the number of people I know who like it with cream and sugar, the number of people who like it strong and without any additives is very small.
(not that I am saying one is better than the other or that one should be catered to at the expense of the other, merely that when it comes to numbers, Starbucks would prefer to cater to the larger populace)
And btw, most Starbucks I know will definitely give you plain black coffee. And as far as I know, when you order any of their regular coffee flavours, they give you coffee without any cream or sugar.
...the iPod generation seems indifferent to science and engineering in general, and seems more interested in applied technology.
I'm within the age-group that they specified, but I enjoyed building Tesla Coils, playing with all kinds of electrical and electronic equipment, pyrotechnics and the like.
These days, a lot of kids in my age group aren't particularly motivated towards building anything.
They'd much do things on the computer. Hell, most of them do not even consider Lego Mindstorms to be vaguely interesting.
Then again, I bet every generation feels this way about the newer generation. Who knows?
I would rather them concentrate on fixing the memory leaks then who they should trust.
Yes, because we are all one dimensional people who should do just one thing and nothing else.
Such as, you know, have an opinion.
I think people should do what they are supposed to do and stop worrying about whom they should trust. Such as corporations, politicians, the government or the military.
There, I fixed it for you.
And oh, if you are interested, I have a book or two that you might find enlightening.
"Doing evil" as you put it isn't something that is going to magically happen one fine day.
It is something that creeps up, a little at a time.
Google had promised not to do evil, and it always starts small. Remember that there was a time when MS was the underdog. Google starts with corrupting ads and results now, and of course such things as revealing the search information of someone:
Google has confirmed that it can provide search terms if given an Internet address or Web cookie, but has steadfastly refused to say how often such requests arrive. (Microsoft, on the other hand, told us that it has never received such queries for MSN Search, and AOL says it could not provide the information if asked.)
Of course, I will not even mention what happened with Google China etc.
The thing is, most people will not notice if Google was turning evil because it's not like one fine day they decide to do evil things. Remember that they are a publicly traded company, and sooner or later the desire for profit will win out over everything else.
They have already decided not to provide search results in a nation where such things as massacres by the government occured, and they have provided data to government agencies and refused to disclose how often they do this.
The thing about "evil" is not that it happens, it's that you would not know if it did. Who knows what else Google does with all that information?
I could be wrong, but I do remember reading that Putin (with the support of some in the Russian populace) might try changing the law to run for a third term.
Also, have the older "rap is crap" crowd taken the day off because usually these stories have whole threads about how music died in the 60's?
No, no. We are all right here.
Rap isn't crap, please. Crap has some uses, it could be used as manure, to make biodiesel etc etc.
But rap? Bah.
Kids these days. Back in my day, we had to cut our trees, build our instruments and then play our instruments and sing along, if we wanted some music.
Oh wait, I said music. This is about rap. Never mind.
You were talking about that noise where stupid people insult everyone else and talk really fast in bastardized English? About treating women badly and killing everyone and doing drugs? Ah, that.
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming geek refers to users of the Internet.
There are other technologies and sciences out there with far geekier folks (e.g. biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, various kinds of engineering etc.)
What about places like Los Alamos (LANL), Albuquerque (SNL, LM etc.) or Batavia (FNAL).
If by tech they only mean CS related stuff, then sure, that list makes sense.
But Los Alamos has some of the smartest and best people and has a lot of "real" tech.
I mean, if particle accelerators, rocket science and weapons tech. don't constitute real technology while AJAX is counted as a technology, I must be missing something.
But not bio-weapons.
Those are truly scary. Can you imagine an outbreak of a strain of smallpox that cannot be controlled?
And chemical weapons combined with traditional weapons can wreak more havoc than, say, gunpowder alone.
I stand corrected.
The only problem I have this system is that publishers usually act as a detriment to a lot of mediocre "talent" out there.
With this mechanism, you would also have a lot of noise:signal ratio, which would be kind of sucky.
And while free-market may determine who comes out on top, do remember that most people are not particularly bright and would much rather read brain dead stuff than something that makes them think, analyse and question.
That is what worries me. Finding the wheat from the chaff would be hard.
"I suppose there'll be a war now, hm? All that running around and shooting one another. You'd think that sooner or later, it would go out of fashion."
- Londo Mollari
Great, one more country has one more way of killing several large number of people in one go.
One would think that sooner or later we'd stop this crap.
Sorry, just a little frustrated with the fact that every time I have looked at news the past week, there is killing and murder and unrest everywhere. Bah.
Actually, I was quoting Larry Niven's corollary of the law which states, "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
:)
I guess my sense of humour didn't particularly shine through.
Anyway, I do agree with you - however, if a system produces "magic" (whatever that may be) that is just a characteristic of the environment, one to be studied and understood. So, at that point, magic is no longer really magic, merely science that we did not understand.
Hence my statement.
This is Slashdot.
He's not supposed to have a brain, either. =)
Maybe you should hand her hard cash instead of a piece of plastic. ;)
There aren't enough applications that work consistently (e.g. keyboard shortcuts). And secondly, a lot of Linux applications are out there today, but when I started out, they weren't. So it's a comfort factor with a lot of applications.
I got a new notebook the other day, and one of the first things I did was to install a Linux partition. I installed Ubuntu because I had heard of their out-of-the-box install was good, and because I am a big fan of Debian.
And of course, I could not get my soundcard to work. Nor my wireless. And my resolution in Linux was nowhere as high as the ones I could get in Windows. (I know they are all driver problems and not application related, but bear with me for a minute)
After spending several hours, I finally gave up, booted into Windows and started using Windows.
Anyway, the thing is that I can get Windows as well as several other Open Source applications to work on Windows, but I can only get Linux applications to work on Linux (let's forget Wine for a moment, shall we). So why should I use Linux, when I can use Windows and get my sound, my wireless and my graphics to work, as well as use the applications that I need?
Without having to spend an inordinately high number of hours to fix something. The day that a Linux install out of the box delivers as complete a system on a new box as a Windows box does, I will switch to Linux.
Not a day before that.
Certainly the LTTE are NOT on the same scale as Al-Queda, etc.
Yes, that is why they assasinate the premiers of other countries, such as the former Prime Minister of India.
I'm originally from Tamil Nadu, and trust you me, violence is not any way to garner support. LTTE is deemed a terrorist organization in India and around the world and rightfully so.
Yes, which is the reason I had made that statement.
It was implicit.
Not particularly.
It might be highly improbable, however it would be even more improbable to have an entity who can control just about every tiny event occuring in this Universe.
Of course, assuming that magic is merely level of technology that is far beyond our understanding, it would seem that while aliens visiting us might be improbable but yet fathomable science (e.g. the Universe is billions of years old, so why not a species or a civilization that evolved a million years before us - think of the technological progress they'd have made in that time).
However, the existence of God as most religions seem to perceive would truly be baffling (e.g. abruptly changing Universal constants (not in the gradual way that they do change), interaction of an independent outside observer with a closed system etc.)
I do not know what it is, but it would definitely be contrary to our understanding of the Universe. Magic, I suppose, is as good a word as any.
Now that was truly worth reading.
Thanks for digging all that up, was extremely useful.
That's the thing though.
For instance, I'm originally from India, and coffee back there is almost always served with cream/milk and sugar.
This goes for a lot of countries, and compared to the number of people I know who like it with cream and sugar, the number of people who like it strong and without any additives is very small.
(not that I am saying one is better than the other or that one should be catered to at the expense of the other, merely that when it comes to numbers, Starbucks would prefer to cater to the larger populace)
And btw, most Starbucks I know will definitely give you plain black coffee. And as far as I know, when you order any of their regular coffee flavours, they give you coffee without any cream or sugar.
...the iPod generation seems indifferent to science and engineering in general, and seems more interested in applied technology.
I'm within the age-group that they specified, but I enjoyed building Tesla Coils, playing with all kinds of electrical and electronic equipment, pyrotechnics and the like.
These days, a lot of kids in my age group aren't particularly motivated towards building anything.
They'd much do things on the computer. Hell, most of them do not even consider Lego Mindstorms to be vaguely interesting.
Then again, I bet every generation feels this way about the newer generation. Who knows?
I would rather them concentrate on fixing the memory leaks then who they should trust.
Yes, because we are all one dimensional people who should do just one thing and nothing else.
Such as, you know, have an opinion.
I think people should do what they are supposed to do and stop worrying about whom they should trust. Such as corporations, politicians, the government or the military.
There, I fixed it for you.
And oh, if you are interested, I have a book or two that you might find enlightening.
It wouldn't be such a big deal if they weren't making a big deal about being "fair" and "doing no evil" etc.
"Doing evil" as you put it isn't something that is going to magically happen one fine day.
/tinfoil hat
:)
It is something that creeps up, a little at a time.
Google had promised not to do evil, and it always starts small. Remember that there was a time when MS was the underdog. Google starts with corrupting ads and results now, and of course such things as revealing the search information of someone:
Google has confirmed that it can provide search terms if given an Internet address or Web cookie, but has steadfastly refused to say how often such requests arrive. (Microsoft, on the other hand, told us that it has never received such queries for MSN Search, and AOL says it could not provide the information if asked.)
Of course, I will not even mention what happened with Google China etc.
The thing is, most people will not notice if Google was turning evil because it's not like one fine day they decide to do evil things. Remember that they are a publicly traded company, and sooner or later the desire for profit will win out over everything else.
They have already decided not to provide search results in a nation where such things as massacres by the government occured, and they have provided data to government agencies and refused to disclose how often they do this.
The thing about "evil" is not that it happens, it's that you would not know if it did. Who knows what else Google does with all that information?
That is the scary part.
Just my two cents and all that!
Sounds way too evil to me.
Which is why, to quote a very smart man, "Two chicks same time!"
A colony implies people living there for longer than 10 years. Zero gravity is a bitch at 10+ years.
Yes, but think of the sex positions that would be possible!
*gulp*
I could be wrong, but I do remember reading that Putin (with the support of some in the Russian populace) might try changing the law to run for a third term.
Any ideas/thoughts from within?
...so did Yahoo!, but that never gets mentioned on Slashdot.
And of course, the fact that Google's IE download page was a direct ripoff of Yahoo! also somehow doesn't seem be mentioned anywhere.
Can you say plagiarism?
Also, have the older "rap is crap" crowd taken the day off because usually these stories have whole threads about how music died in the 60's?
No, no. We are all right here.
Rap isn't crap, please. Crap has some uses, it could be used as manure, to make biodiesel etc etc.
But rap? Bah.
Kids these days. Back in my day, we had to cut our trees, build our instruments and then play our instruments and sing along, if we wanted some music.
Oh wait, I said music. This is about rap. Never mind.
You were talking about that noise where stupid people insult everyone else and talk really fast in bastardized English? About treating women badly and killing everyone and doing drugs? Ah, that.
Not a clue.