You're right. But you forget the assumption you made - that the Russians also had nukes. They have nukes, you have nukes - instead, they don't, you don't. Which one would help you sleep better?
It started because they had nukes. If neither party did, this would not have arisen.
Or maybe you enjoyed all those drills of scurrying under the tables in the event of an attack? A nuke can only be used to attack or to threaten. It's explicit purpose is to destroy. Period.
By comparing the US and the Russia, you are making a moral judgement - but the fact remains that it the nukes were used, it does not matter who used on whom. They would destroy. In that sense, they are evil.
Yes, you and every other poster who replied to my post did not bother to read the thing, before replying away to glory:
Using a nuke is evil. Period. It does not matter what your justifications are, unless you're blowing an asteroid out of orbit or something equally improbable, the nuke has been built with the explicit goal of threatening people with destruction.
Yes, I'm sure we can all be proud of having found a way to killing millions with a single weapon. Hallmark of civilization, right there.
That becomes a moral judgement - you are still ending a life. Period. You are judging that the hunter's family is more valuable than the deer. Either way, you are causing destruction. That is my point.
We can sit all day and argue philosophies on what is more valuable, but the bottom line remains that you ended a life, and the gun facilitated that ending.
A nuke can be used for only one thing - cause destruction. The only positive use it might have is to threaten the other person with destruction. It has been created with the specific purpose and intent of causing mass destruction, and nothing else.
On the other hand, a tool like this is genuinely built with the idea of being useful. Can it be misused? Yes. Can it be used to cause harm? Yes. But can it also cause good when used right? Yes.
No matter which way you look at using a nuke, you end up killing people and destroying large areas. That is definitely not true for a tool like this. It is not built with the explicit purpose of destruction, rather, it is built with the explicit purpose of facilitating something.
That something is up to you.
Using a nuke is evil. Period. It does not matter what your justifications are, unless you're blowing an asteroid out of orbit or something equally improbable, the nuke has been built with the explicit goal of threatening people with destruction. Same goes for a gun - it does not matter that it can protect, it still is built with the purpose of ending life.
You cannot say that about, say, a pen. Can I kill someone using a pen? Sure. But can I also do good? Absolutely. It is not built with the intent of causing harm, rather, it is built as a tool to facilitate something.
That is the difference. And that is where your nuclear analogy fails.
Well, simian, I'd explained that quite nicely. With several links too, but then, clicking those would be beneath your exalted underdeveloped cerebrum, I suppose.
It helps in the process of constructionism, by giving kids a tool to play around with. What can they do with the tool? Well, what can they do with a pencil? It's left to your imagination and the educators.
It's a tool to facilitate a well established educational methodology, which says that when you play with things and build things, you learn. MIT has several things to this end (Flow Blocks, Crickets etc) and all these assume that a kid has a computer. So, they're giving the kids a computer. They already have tonnes of programs to help the learning process, if only you had a computer - which is what they're doing.
Now, combined with the computer, the programs and the tools, we'd have a better chance of teaching kids things.
Ergo, this project. But you would have known that if you had read the whole thread, rather than ranting away.
Umm, simply because you do not know or understand something does not mean it's worthless.
Of course, if I had not given links, you would have asked for corroboration. And now, rather than argue the point, you argue against the person who made the point.
Wow. Yes, barely simian quite nicely sums it up. Although I wonder at the prudence of insulting simians thus.
As an EE engineer with graduate degrees in Physics and CS, let me tell you this - you can apply science anywhere.
You can apply science and engineering principles in any domain. Just how hard is it to diversify into another related area? What's keeping people away is not the difficulty but the ineptitude to be creative and explore other domains.
Work for the humanities, write a graphics program for archaeologists (someone I know does this for a living after he lost a graphics programming job at a game company). Hell, go back to school and get yourself a graduate degree. Do research. Start your own company.
If all you want is to do your engineering job, then you deserve what you get. Sometimes, you need to be able to do things you weren't taught to do. Improvise and move ahead, or die out - I do not mean to sound callous, but it is the truth. It always has been, and just because folks here aren't ready to admit it does not make it not so.
What made this country great is the enterprising and innovative nature of folks. People went ahead and did things that no one else did, people took risks and came up with cool ideas. People started new enterprises and made an effort to go into areas that no one else had.
But these days, more people complain than do something about it. There are plenty of areas in technology that could use a lot of innovation. IT is used up? No problem, look at domains like bioinformatics that use technology.
If you are being replaced, then become irreplaceable.
Complaining about it isn't going to change anything. What will, however, change is if you got yourself a skill that is not easily replaceable.
But I never notice a Slashdotter saying that s/he will go out and do something new, that they would go out and learn something different. "I did IT, and I want to continue to do the exact same thing I did - and if I can't, I will complain about it."
That simply does not work in the real world. You will always be replaced. Either by machines, or by cheaper labor, or you will just become obselete. The way around it is not to complain but to do new things that no one has thought of before.
Innovate and you will come out on top. Be enterprising and start your own startup - there is no dearth of cool ideas and the market is doing peachy right now.
You want the answer? I'll give you the answer - as an engineer from one of this nation's better technology schools, let me tell you this: if you are good quality material, there is no dearth of opportunity. And if you are willing to work up ideas in an area which has hitherto been unexplored, you'd be making a whole lot more than you could ever imagine.
But hey. Most folks on Slashdot are no different than most folks elsewhere. They would rather whine than do something about it.
Or maybe something on situating constructionism or it's applications. It's cog-sci + AI, done by folks who're definitely way smarter than you ever will be.
I mean, all those folks from MIT and elsewhere with degrees in AI and Cog Sci who're recognized the world over, what do they know, right?
But don't worry, though - your ignorance is amusing.
How much more obvious do you want it to be? Oh wait, disclaimers on every page? You know, I've this book called Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where a really *really* smart guy talks about instructions and disclaimers on toothpicks.
Maybe you think we should have 50kb disclaimers on 2kb articles?
And let's go to any page - it starts out with the same old quote: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It even says quite clearly on the left, underneath the Wikipedia picture: Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
The guy thought that Wikipedia was a joke? I mean, give me a break - any page quite clearly and seriously talks about topics, and ONE click on what Wikipedia is tells you what it's all about. Oh wait, officer - I thought this whole don't say nasty things was a joke, it wasn't slander, I swear! I thought it was funny to say that you molest children for fun.
Lose his job?! It was libel, pure and simple, and it should be treated as such, rather than blame Wikipedia for the way it actually works. Give back his job, hell, he should be tried in court for libel.
Wikipedia is a wiki - quite obviously, the system is not perfect and it has its benefits and its downfalls. They are not claiming otherwise, either.
Now, what is the Register's alternative? Rather, what's Andy Orlowsku's alternative? That dude seems to rate a classic/. troll, or worse, a school kid who's picking on something he doesn't like and keeps whining.
Wikipedia isn't perfect, and there are always morons out there who'd do some nasty things. If you're using Wikipedia for your research, you must be nuts. However, it is a starting point.
In fact, in some domains (e.g. Physics), Wikipedia has oodles of good information that it becomes an excellent reference. Is it a 100% reliable reference? No. But it is a reference, and like anything else, it has its pros and cons.
These guys sound like little whiners - who just know a wee little and go on and on about something. Reminds me of the case with Al Fasoldt who kept doing the exact same thing.
Wikipedia is a dynamic, free, open encyclopedia that is more sophisticated and more comprehensive than a lot of encyclopedias out there. And this dynamicism brings with it a small price - brainless morons and vandals who, like in every other system, have no moral scruples or accountability.
That does not mean the system is flawed - that means some of the people are.
Am sure almost every article on Slashdot was "reported" elsewhere beforehand.
That is not the point. Some of us simply don't have the time to check a million other websites, instead we use Slashdot and a handful few others that can filter out stuff of interest.
Maybe if you subscribed to a couple of hundred tech-blogs, you might end up knowing half the headlines on Slashdot. But it's much easier to just read it on Slashdot, in one place, when I can be sure that it will eventually show up.
It was a couple of days late. So what? By the time the service would be available, it would be more than a few days later.
I do not understand this obsession with, "Oooh, I saw this on $foo 32 minutes and 23 seconds ago. Slashdot is SLOWWWWWWWWWWW."
Big deal. Some of us don't really care, as long as we hear about it somehow. Slashdot is primarily a forum, if you are a news junkie, look at other sources.
FWIW, I just can't imagine that people are SMS'ing proprietary information. If its private and confidential, keep it on paper (preferably typed with a typewriter). Digital information will always be too insecure.
Oh, no. You'd be surprised.
At a certain national lab I used to work at, people used to SMS system login information - of course, the presence of additional security (e.g. a Cryptocard which is basically like an RSA random number generator tag) minimized the risks of someone breaking into the system, but you'd be surprised.
I should have been clearer - I was referring to economic resources, skilled workforce and most importantly existing infrastructure.
Japan had little to no metal and yet, they overcame that. I'm fairly certain that Pakistan has/had a lot more metal than Japan did. The US had vast natural resources for its size, that is all.
But the US did not have much of an infrastructure or vast economic resources to start out with (the OP made a comparison to Japan vs. Pakistan) - yet, the reason it got better was because the people (and the leaders) made a conscious effort to better the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been a vegetarian all my life - 24 and counting. And I might add, I'm quite healthy.
OMG! The Replicators are here.
:-\
:-(
You bastards, you have no idea what you are letting loose on the world.
They'd make an artifical Sam Carter, and have her all for themselves.
The topic under discussion was a nuclear bomb - not a nuclear engine. There is a difference.
You're right. But you forget the assumption you made - that the Russians also had nukes. They have nukes, you have nukes - instead, they don't, you don't. Which one would help you sleep better?
It started because they had nukes. If neither party did, this would not have arisen.
Or maybe you enjoyed all those drills of scurrying under the tables in the event of an attack? A nuke can only be used to attack or to threaten. It's explicit purpose is to destroy. Period.
By comparing the US and the Russia, you are making a moral judgement - but the fact remains that it the nukes were used, it does not matter who used on whom. They would destroy. In that sense, they are evil.
Yes, you and every other poster who replied to my post did not bother to read the thing, before replying away to glory:
Using a nuke is evil. Period. It does not matter what your justifications are, unless you're blowing an asteroid out of orbit or something equally improbable, the nuke has been built with the explicit goal of threatening people with destruction.
Yes, I'm sure we can all be proud of having found a way to killing millions with a single weapon. Hallmark of civilization, right there.
That becomes a moral judgement - you are still ending a life. Period. You are judging that the hunter's family is more valuable than the deer. Either way, you are causing destruction. That is my point.
We can sit all day and argue philosophies on what is more valuable, but the bottom line remains that you ended a life, and the gun facilitated that ending.
But see, there is a difference.
A nuke can be used for only one thing - cause destruction. The only positive use it might have is to threaten the other person with destruction. It has been created with the specific purpose and intent of causing mass destruction, and nothing else.
On the other hand, a tool like this is genuinely built with the idea of being useful. Can it be misused? Yes. Can it be used to cause harm? Yes. But can it also cause good when used right? Yes.
No matter which way you look at using a nuke, you end up killing people and destroying large areas. That is definitely not true for a tool like this. It is not built with the explicit purpose of destruction, rather, it is built with the explicit purpose of facilitating something.
That something is up to you.
Using a nuke is evil. Period. It does not matter what your justifications are, unless you're blowing an asteroid out of orbit or something equally improbable, the nuke has been built with the explicit goal of threatening people with destruction. Same goes for a gun - it does not matter that it can protect, it still is built with the purpose of ending life.
You cannot say that about, say, a pen. Can I kill someone using a pen? Sure. But can I also do good? Absolutely. It is not built with the intent of causing harm, rather, it is built as a tool to facilitate something.
That is the difference. And that is where your nuclear analogy fails.
Cheers.
Well, simian, I'd explained that quite nicely. With several links too, but then, clicking those would be beneath your exalted underdeveloped cerebrum, I suppose.
It helps in the process of constructionism, by giving kids a tool to play around with. What can they do with the tool? Well, what can they do with a pencil? It's left to your imagination and the educators.
It's a tool to facilitate a well established educational methodology, which says that when you play with things and build things, you learn. MIT has several things to this end (Flow Blocks, Crickets etc) and all these assume that a kid has a computer. So, they're giving the kids a computer. They already have tonnes of programs to help the learning process, if only you had a computer - which is what they're doing.
Now, combined with the computer, the programs and the tools, we'd have a better chance of teaching kids things.
Ergo, this project. But you would have known that if you had read the whole thread, rather than ranting away.
There are a lot of other things that would be hot in SMG's hands.
*sigh*
I'm sure it's Apophis' fault.
Somebody's gotta teach that dude how to die.
Umm, simply because you do not know or understand something does not mean it's worthless.
Of course, if I had not given links, you would have asked for corroboration. And now, rather than argue the point, you argue against the person who made the point.
Wow. Yes, barely simian quite nicely sums it up. Although I wonder at the prudence of insulting simians thus.
Howdy!
:-p
;)
Well, so this is what I missed while I was away.
Lots of funnies, eh?
As an EE engineer with graduate degrees in Physics and CS, let me tell you this - you can apply science anywhere.
You can apply science and engineering principles in any domain. Just how hard is it to diversify into another related area? What's keeping people away is not the difficulty but the ineptitude to be creative and explore other domains.
Work for the humanities, write a graphics program for archaeologists (someone I know does this for a living after he lost a graphics programming job at a game company). Hell, go back to school and get yourself a graduate degree. Do research. Start your own company.
If all you want is to do your engineering job, then you deserve what you get. Sometimes, you need to be able to do things you weren't taught to do. Improvise and move ahead, or die out - I do not mean to sound callous, but it is the truth. It always has been, and just because folks here aren't ready to admit it does not make it not so.
I would say innovation, for one.
What made this country great is the enterprising and innovative nature of folks. People went ahead and did things that no one else did, people took risks and came up with cool ideas. People started new enterprises and made an effort to go into areas that no one else had.
But these days, more people complain than do something about it. There are plenty of areas in technology that could use a lot of innovation. IT is used up? No problem, look at domains like bioinformatics that use technology.
If you are being replaced, then become irreplaceable.
Complaining about it isn't going to change anything. What will, however, change is if you got yourself a skill that is not easily replaceable.
But I never notice a Slashdotter saying that s/he will go out and do something new, that they would go out and learn something different. "I did IT, and I want to continue to do the exact same thing I did - and if I can't, I will complain about it."
That simply does not work in the real world. You will always be replaced. Either by machines, or by cheaper labor, or you will just become obselete. The way around it is not to complain but to do new things that no one has thought of before.
Innovate and you will come out on top. Be enterprising and start your own startup - there is no dearth of cool ideas and the market is doing peachy right now.
You want the answer? I'll give you the answer - as an engineer from one of this nation's better technology schools, let me tell you this: if you are good quality material, there is no dearth of opportunity. And if you are willing to work up ideas in an area which has hitherto been unexplored, you'd be making a whole lot more than you could ever imagine.
But hey. Most folks on Slashdot are no different than most folks elsewhere. They would rather whine than do something about it.
You should look up Constructionist learning sometime.
Or maybe something on situating constructionism or it's applications. It's cog-sci + AI, done by folks who're definitely way smarter than you ever will be.
I mean, all those folks from MIT and elsewhere with degrees in AI and Cog Sci who're recognized the world over, what do they know, right?
But don't worry, though - your ignorance is amusing.
Even assuming I was, one administration does not become the whole nation.
It depends on what you're using it for.
Are you a geek, who wants a productive interface? KDE is the way to go - actually, I prefer Windowmaker myself.
OTOH, are you an end user who wants a simplified UI? Gnome is the way to go.
Linus, obviously, is a geek and chooses the former. However, that does not make the choice universal.
That's the best part about Linux and Open Source in general, isn't it? The freedom to choose and use what suits you the best?
The question then is, do they believe in Intelligent Design?
(and more importantly, would that make us Gods, ummm?)
For one, Wikipedia's online home page (and every other page) that says:
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
How much more obvious do you want it to be? Oh wait, disclaimers on every page? You know, I've this book called Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where a really *really* smart guy talks about instructions and disclaimers on toothpicks.
Maybe you think we should have 50kb disclaimers on 2kb articles?
And let's go to any page - it starts out with the same old quote: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It even says quite clearly on the left, underneath the Wikipedia picture: Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
The guy thought that Wikipedia was a joke? I mean, give me a break - any page quite clearly and seriously talks about topics, and ONE click on what Wikipedia is tells you what it's all about. Oh wait, officer - I thought this whole don't say nasty things was a joke, it wasn't slander, I swear! I thought it was funny to say that you molest children for fun.
Lose his job?! It was libel, pure and simple, and it should be treated as such, rather than blame Wikipedia for the way it actually works. Give back his job, hell, he should be tried in court for libel.
Exactly.
/. troll, or worse, a school kid who's picking on something he doesn't like and keeps whining.
Wikipedia is a wiki - quite obviously, the system is not perfect and it has its benefits and its downfalls. They are not claiming otherwise, either.
Now, what is the Register's alternative? Rather, what's Andy Orlowsku's alternative? That dude seems to rate a classic
Wikipedia isn't perfect, and there are always morons out there who'd do some nasty things. If you're using Wikipedia for your research, you must be nuts. However, it is a starting point.
In fact, in some domains (e.g. Physics), Wikipedia has oodles of good information that it becomes an excellent reference. Is it a 100% reliable reference? No. But it is a reference, and like anything else, it has its pros and cons.
These guys sound like little whiners - who just know a wee little and go on and on about something. Reminds me of the case with Al Fasoldt who kept doing the exact same thing.
Wikipedia is a dynamic, free, open encyclopedia that is more sophisticated and more comprehensive than a lot of encyclopedias out there. And this dynamicism brings with it a small price - brainless morons and vandals who, like in every other system, have no moral scruples or accountability.
That does not mean the system is flawed - that means some of the people are.
Ouch!
;)
Brings a new meaning to "bite size", eh?
*rimshot*
>But it's much easier to just read it on Slashdot, in one place, when I
>can be sure that it will eventually show up.
Several times, even, in case you missed it.
I see that as a feature, not a bug.
Am sure almost every article on Slashdot was "reported" elsewhere beforehand.
That is not the point. Some of us simply don't have the time to check a million other websites, instead we use Slashdot and a handful few others that can filter out stuff of interest.
Maybe if you subscribed to a couple of hundred tech-blogs, you might end up knowing half the headlines on Slashdot. But it's much easier to just read it on Slashdot, in one place, when I can be sure that it will eventually show up.
It was a couple of days late. So what? By the time the service would be available, it would be more than a few days later.
I do not understand this obsession with, "Oooh, I saw this on $foo 32 minutes and 23 seconds ago. Slashdot is SLOWWWWWWWWWWW."
Big deal. Some of us don't really care, as long as we hear about it somehow. Slashdot is primarily a forum, if you are a news junkie, look at other sources.
*shakes head*
FWIW, I just can't imagine that people are SMS'ing proprietary information. If its private and confidential, keep it on paper (preferably typed with a typewriter). Digital information will always be too insecure.
Oh, no. You'd be surprised.
At a certain national lab I used to work at, people used to SMS system login information - of course, the presence of additional security (e.g. a Cryptocard which is basically like an RSA random number generator tag) minimized the risks of someone breaking into the system, but you'd be surprised.
I should have been clearer - I was referring to economic resources, skilled workforce and most importantly existing infrastructure.
Japan had little to no metal and yet, they overcame that. I'm fairly certain that Pakistan has/had a lot more metal than Japan did. The US had vast natural resources for its size, that is all.
But the US did not have much of an infrastructure or vast economic resources to start out with (the OP made a comparison to Japan vs. Pakistan) - yet, the reason it got better was because the people (and the leaders) made a conscious effort to better the situation.