Their documentation is very thorough. Remember, whether you admit it or not, these are professional programmers, not 14-year-old l33t k1dd13z who "write code" for Linux.
These "professional" programmers have released CONSTANTLY obviously buggy code for years. Big whoop about your opinion as the proof is in the result and it mostly sucks. Why the HELL do you not know that everyone associates the word "Microsoft" with "pain"? They can slap on all the "Microkernal", "Dynamic Functionality", and "More Better" bullshit buzzwords, but that doesn't stop me from being FORCED to reboot at least 3 times a day for fairly stupid OS reasons.
What I could really do without is the freaking King of the Hill. And don't flame me, I'm a southern boy (born and raised in Tennessee) - my dad *is* Hank Hill. I thought it was the greatest show ever the first, say, 6 episodes, but lately it's painful to watch.
I enjoyed "King of the Hill" for its rational attitude and realist values. However, I've decided to no longer watch it as having Hank Hill describe George Worthless Bush as magnificent when it was obvious he was cocaine-snorting, drunk until 40 (and still drunk now), Enron-loving, Nixon-secretive (he released Clinton's documents, but refuses to release Reagan's, his own when he was Governor of TexASS, and his own double-dealing documents of today), constantly lying, broke every promise but the pittance of a "tax break", and up to his hairline in sleazy money. Hell Bush even prevented and obstructed investigations into Osama bin Laden before 9/11. Bush is a treasonous worthless ass who should have been rotting in prison decades ago (unlike Jeb Bush's daughter or Jenna & Babs Bush who can commit any crime and serve no time).
If Mike Judge wants to promote a barely human piece of shit into crapping all over the Office of the President, he may. That is his right (until Ashcroft eliminates that part of the Constitution too). I will no longer reward him for it though. I see no logic in benefiting the allies of treason & tyranny. I now avoid "King of the Hill".
IMNSHO, a *much* better campaign would be to pick a network (scifi, comedy-central, whatever) and target *them* with a letter writing campaign, urging them to pick up the show, and treat it right.
Probably not Sci-Fi Channel. They just canceled "The Chronicle" so why bother urging them to get great stuff when they're canceling already fantastic programs?
Even when they do tell you it's on, you'll wind up watching about 20 minutes of post-game football followed by 10 minutes of Futurama "already in progress".
They probably want the space for "that 90s show".
I'd say that Matt Groening should find another network to run it on. FOX is ran and owned by pure assholes (FAUX NEWS is even worse but a shining example of pure corruption & shameless lying). Groening should be able to find a better network (just not the other asshole heaven ABC) perhaps even NBC.
As far as computers programming themselves, well... a c/c++ compiler translating c/c++ code into machine code isn't the same thing. Translation *is* a necessary step, but you also have to add the ability to change the running program. For that you need a language that blurs the distinction between data and instructions.
Ahh... but ponder this, young and curious mind, with multitasking operating systems an artificially intelligent bit of software could write a new version of itself, compile itself, run itself while giving access to its current data files, and if it decided the result was indeed better - write a script to delete itself after it shuts itself down. Thus allowing a seamless personal upgrade.
Consider the issue of teleporting a running computer (perhaps doing some math-intensive computation). You would have to freeze it in its current state (hardware, software, and energy patterns in motion). Unless you could jump it out of the time and reality we share the task is impossible. That was the state of single-tasking computers then. Today for your example, we'd put some jump pointers to the new code and the next trip it takes goes into the new code until it hits the jump pointers back to the old code around the repaired area.
By reading the article you linked too. I could still conclude that the ends don't justify the means. Condition 3 (from the initial list) states: "the good effect must be produced directly by the action" i.e. killing and such is bad, so the good that comes from the act of killing is bad. However, if one where to test a drug, and a participant would get sick or die, it would be excusable. "The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it." I could be misinterpreting it but that's my take on it.
--
Who am I? Why am I here? Whats my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I?
So it's fine to hand out 100 pills to children (50% sugar pills & 50% cyanide) because God will choose which ones are good and SHOULD survive?
I'm just taking the absurd concept to the extreme end. For another person that took an absurd "Christian" concept to extreme just look into the story of the family murderer John Emil List who decided that killing his family was more Godly than committing suicide. To paraphrase a quote from MST3K, "The Bible sure seems crazy if you start your reading in Revelations". Or perhaps insane people cloak themselves in the Bible and use it to justify their insanity. They misuse a tool as a murderer uses a hammer to bash heads in where a carpenter uses a hammer to build things of value.
http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/crime/list.html John had originally considered killing himself, but he didn't want to leave his children destitute and alone with a dying and demented mother. And suicide was a sin which would bar him from Heaven. Backruptcy and welfare were options too humiliating to consider. He was certain it would drive his wife and children even further from a life of faith. The only way he could solve his problems AND insure heaven for his family was to kill them. He knew, from John 3:16, that God would forgive him.
would think all those registers would be much more useful in context switches and/or pipelining issues.
Say, allocate, 30 registers to each context and keep 10 contexts running on the processor without much penalty. Prepare your variables for your next few operations for each conditional outcome on the registers. Stuff like that would be more useful (and less visible) in most cases.
That said, the new AMIGA TAO OS has Virtual Registers (not that I've seen diddly squat in the way of programs for it).
I've encountered about a half-dozen scientists in my time who seem to be more interested in public acclaim than actually doing useful work. They appear in Discover, Omni, etc., get spots on national news during slow weeks, and millions of people go "wow! what cool stuff these scientists are doing!". Problem is their work is never used by other scientists, and doesn't help to advance the field on iota.
Yet for some reason they INSPIRE people to pursue scientific careers. Mister Wizard wasn't a great researcher and Bill Nye hasn't created any new industries, but they kids they inspire go on to do just that. If science interests nobody, then nobody benefits. We need a few FLASHY THEORISTS to get the people creating. The Mother of Invention never got pregnant by sitting in her room watching sitcoms.
While it is true that modern medicine and human culture has nearly (not completely) stoped natural selection on humans, cultural prefrences still exhibit selective breeding.
What does this mean? Human beings will continue to become more intelligent, probably taller, and probably more beautiful.
Intelligence creates material success, which is a prize factor for breeding.
But why only probably more beautiful? Beauty is fairly relative, and for the human race to become more beautuful there has to be prolonged cultural stability.
So we will stop being wolves and start being domestic dogs.
I think of it this way. Pretty people breed easier because they find sexual partners easily. Dumb people don't think about contraception and have more babies. Smart people hem & haw over giving birth until the "perfect time".
Dumb people will mate with the pretty people giving birth to plenty of pretty offspring. Smart people will protect their offspring from mating with the "pretty but dumb" folks. With the dumb ones outbreeding the smart ones and producing desireable children the "pretty stupid" people inherit the Earth. The smart people can overcome the tidal wave of idiocy by underhanded planning, but only if they are very rich and control the masses with religion, propaganda, and stormtrooper police forces. Thusly we begin the setting for the FRENCH REVOLUTION once again. The smart rich folks inbreed (losing their advantage) and the pretty stupid people get pissed off and kill them.
Advances in technology can prolong this cycle and social breeding changes can eliminate it (breed Olympic athletes with Mensa members thusly making "smart" = "sexy"). This is not to breed a superrace, but to raise the overall level of intellect across the world. Unless people start getting the "smart" = "sexy" message we're headed for another very bad time (given that George Worthless Bush will leave us $30 trillion in debt when the rest of the world goes broke in 2025, though Clinton tried his hardest not to let that happen). Given the current war of rich verses poor and the eventual collapse of the world currency exchange I simply tell you to learn to love speaking Chinese. That is the road we're doomed to live on now provide George Worthless Bush survives this year. We'll have another Nazi era and the Chinese will mop up what is left and take our natural resources for their own use.
> Any sized icons.
And that was just outrageously stupid.
And when I go to Adjust Display Properties/Advanced/General/Font Size
and change "Large Fonts" to "Small Fonts" I get the popup window stating, "You must restart your computer before the new settings will take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now? Yes / No"
Every fucking time you changed the display resolution all of Windows had to reboot up to Windows 98!
The Amiga was launched in the mid-1980s and NEVER had to reboot to change the display resolution size. It took over a decade and a half to have Winblows catch up with even basic interface issues. And that's only one thing in which the Amiga beat Windows easily at the time. Hell, it even had a Mac emulator that was faster than an accellerated Macintosh.
Come on, lets be honest. Do you REALLY go and buy a CD after having the MP3's in your hand ?
Thats almost like having sex with your girlfriend, then going out and paying a hooker for it. If you want the CD, just decompress the tracks back into wave and make your own CD.
Don't like the quality of the convertaed waves ? Download higher quality MP3's.
Well... some of us know that if we want more music from the talents we enjoy listening to, we have to buy the CD so they'll be encouraged to make more. Your example is better laid as "Why pay for a prostitute when there are plenty of barfly sluts to lay?" Hell we can still do things by hand and enjoy the results of that work. If we share, other people can enjoy what we do. If they really love it, they can keep it forever too.
They can make it the size of an eraser head, If they cant get me a battery for it that lasts as long as a full day of use then it's worthless technology.
I'd think a few grains of Plutonium-238(in a companion ring with a hard shield protecting the battery) would be enough fuel for anyone. Unfortunately average humans of today would crack it open and irradiate themselves to death.
Though there are other fuel sources, which given the unique properties of mems, could simply tap atomic motion itself for power with microspring capacitors if needed. The rythmn of your pulse, plus the motion of your hand, and the difference in temperature of your flesh and the outside air itself combined could be more than enough power to keep a micro-cellphone ring running indefinitely.
There is a huge arena of ambient energy to be tapped once you can define the microscopic world efficently.
The idea was nice:) Combine bodybuilding and websurfing and we'll get a new generation of geeks...
I AM THE SUPERGEEK!
(But what happens to the poor guys with legs like tree trunks and arms like twigs? Never get them angry enough to give you a groin kick I guess.)
This seems like a HUGE liability. What happens when bugs in the game allow players to steal money? Or when someone DoS' the servers, and people can't play for days, or weeks? Many players would be quite angry that their personal finances would be interruped, perhaps even destroyed.
Of course it is not a good idea to rely on the game for your income, but there will be people that will do this, and they will complain loudly when problems arise.
I don't see how any lawyer would allow this - the liability is too great.</I>
Then introduce the in-game legal teams. Virtual lawyers with virtual judges with cyber-mobsters helping grease the wheels of justice in one player's favor.
<B>WOW! This would really suck! (Well, not for the virtual mobsters.)</B>
Quinn: "That was what you call it... 'moronic'."
Jane: "I think you mean 'ironic'."
Daria: "No. Quinn was right this time."
A separation of church and state is not defined in the
Constitution, nor in the amendments. It's slightly implied, but not really
stated clearly. Rather, it was an idea put forth by Thomas Jefferson and people
have taken it to heart as he was one of the largest players in the development
of the US in those early years.
Oh yeah... sure... just because you read it or heard it
somewhere and can cackle like a hen in heat it must be true?
BULLSHIT!
In 1962 Madalyn Murray O'Hair Kicked God, the Bible and Prayer Out of Public Schools . . . And 10 Other Myths About Church and State
http://www.au.org/myths.htm
Thinking people might want to remember that blacks,
women,& non-landownersdidn't have the right to vote then.
Also remember that a sudden upsurge of anti-church mania didn't hit the
Constitution makers back then either. There was a DAMN GOOD REASON WHY
CHURCH & STATE ARE SEPARATE IN AMENDMENT #1 of the
Constitution. The church was going nuts with power back then
discriminating against other Christians (just as they do now)!
It helps greatly to look at history along with the words of
our Founding Fathers to see just how shameless a lie the current church is
trying to sell the sheeple. When given absolute power, the church has
proven time and again that they cannot restrain themselves from using it and
abusing it for their own ends. The sad fact that so many "Christians"
bear false witness, or bluntly, lie(It's
in the Ten Commandments for God's sake! Which these fake
Christians are so eager to get propped on courthouse walls and in schools and
yet have never taken to heart) to get their way that they know little about the
religion they proclaim loudly and endlessly to serve. Give these men of
God the state's power and they'll abuse it again without pause or
reflection.
http://www.ifas.org/fw/9606/newengland.html
(Article copied without permission of the author)
Church and
state in early New
England
By Bernard A. Drew The Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth,
first onto a firm rock, then sandy soil. This is symbolic of a young America: at
first stonily exclusive in its religious tolerance and governance, then becoming
more giving with the spiritual divergence of the population. The democratic urge
which came with the struggle for revolution culminated in the adoption of a
Constitution, and its Bill of Rights, which formally separated church and state.
The Mayflower,
with 102 passengers, most simple farmers and artisans, sailed for the New World
in 1620 in search of religious freedom. They disagreed with the ritual and
doctrine of the Anglican faith in England, and felt a loss of cultural identity
in Holland, where they had taken refuge. Arriving north of the bounds of the
Virginia Colony, from which they had secured a grant, the travelers forged a
Mayflower Compact before setting ashore at Plymouth. The agreement to form a
government was a compromise, as only a third of the voyagers were religious
separatists; it referred to God, but allowed liberty of worship.
However,
a Bible commonwealth -- if not strictly speaking a theocracy -- emerged in
practice, with the coming within a decade of another group of restless English.
The Puritans crossed the sea, not to escape their mother country's state religion, but to
establish it in what they felt would be a purer form. They wanted less "popish"
ceremony. There was strict observance of the Sabbath. Frivolity was prohibited;
Christmas ignored. Nonconformists and reformers, they were to be intolerant of
any but their own church.
Settling in Salem, the Massachusetts Bay Company held a broad charter to rule
itself, admit members, bear arms, and defend itself.
Clergymen didn't
hold public office, but they advised magistrates on major matters. Elections
were held each year by public assembly. But the privilege to vote or hold office
was restricted to those who belonged to the established church.
"They were
advocates of a definite religious system, which they came to the new world to
put into practice," asserted historian Herbert L. Osgood. "So important did this
system seem to them that they made all interests, social and political,
contribute to its maintenance and advancement."
There soon arose
challenges to the Puritan system. Roger Williams refused to take the pulpit in
Boston because the congregation would not publicly renounce ties with the Church of England. He
further challenged powers of magistrates and questioned the right to take land
from Native Americans.
Williams spoke loudly, and in 1635 he was tried
and banished. He removed to the wilderness at Providence, and soon established a
government which was the first in America to be democratic and with church and state functions separate.
Wil-liams remained rigid in his own church, but the Rhode Island
colony was openly tolerant of all sects. It became a haven for Baptists,
Quakers, Jews and others.
On Williams' heels, Anne Hutchinson in 1637
took exception to the Massachusetts establishment on religious as well as
political grounds. She said that grace, not works, was the key to an
individual's entrance to heaven. At gatherings with colonial women, she
satirized sermons and criticized leadership. She said she heard directly from
God -- grounds, the Puritans felt, to try her for heresy and excommunicate
her.
America's population grew, and it became more socially and
religiously diverse. During the Great Awakening in the 1640s, Presbyterians and
others asserted their need to worship in their own way. In 1849, Maryland passed
the Toleration Act guaranteeing freedom of religion and protecting its Catholic
population.
Religiously zealous Quakers, believing in inner lights from
the Holy Ghost, came to this country in the 1650s with missionary purposes. They
were particularly vilified by the Puritans. Punishment for a first conviction of
Quakerism was one ear cut off; for a second offense, the second ear, and for
third, the tongue bored with a hot iron. Mary Dyer, a persistent Quaker, ignored
her banishment once too often and was hanged in Boston in 1660.
Cracks in
the Puritan bulwark appeared from within as well. The second generation began to
draw away from the rigid church. This prompted a
lowering of membership requirements in 1662.
There was a general
rationalist movement of thought in Western culture. The British Crown, reacting
to an age of enlightenment in Europe, signed a Declaration of Indulgence in 1687
giving toleration to Quakers, Baptists, and Episcopalians. The Crown revoked
Massachusetts' charter in 1684, partly because of discrimination issues, and in
rewriting Massachusetts' charter in 1691 removed a religious test for
voting.
A last gasp of the Puritan iron hand came with the Salem trials
in the 1690s, when Cotton Mather and others stirred fear of rampant witchcraft.
Twenty died before public sense intervened and the debacle ended.
Theocentricity was severely diluted in the colonies by the time of the
American Revolution. The issue was slightly different in Virginia. A colony
staunchly Church of
England from the start, it allowed other faiths, but reserved tax income to
itself. The Revolution tainted the Anglican church because of its
association with the Crown. A fervid democratic spirit emerged from the
war.
Thomas Jefferson, convinced that government had no business in the
affairs of man and religion, with the support of James Madison and others,
prevailed with the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom which was enacted in
1786. It established tolerance and disallowed the use of general tax funds to
support a single church.
The framers
of the Constitution largely ignored religion in drafting their document. The
only reference is to there being no religious test to vote or hold public
office. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights asserts that there be no
abridgment of the right to worship, and that government remain neutral in
matters of religion.
In debating the Constitution at the Virginia
convention in 1787, delegate Zachariah Johnston asserted that by not sanctioning
a single religion, "You will find that the exclusion of tests will strongly tend
to establish religious freedom."
French historian Alexis de
Tocqueville, writing in 1835, thought this was a paradox, but upon investigation
concluded, "I know that, apart from influence proper to itself, religions can at
times rely on the artificial strength of laws and the support of the material
powers that direct society. There have been religions intimately linked to
earthly governments, dominating men's souls both by terror and by faith, but
when a religion makes such an alliance, I am not afraid to say that it makes the
same mistake as any man might; it sacrifices the future for the present, and by
gaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks its legitimate
authority."
Bernard Drew is a freelance writer and historian who lives in
Massachusetts.
Maybe you think it sounds cool, but ask a dozen people on the street and they'll tell you it's the ugliest name ever. It's too bad that the Ogg guys don't understand the importance of good marketing, because whatever its merits, the format's name alone ensures it will never take off. And the odds are stacked against them in any case. I hope they will prove me wrong, but I don't think they will: tech history is littered with the corpses of superior technologies that weren't marketed properly.
As with all things sometimes it's how you pronounce something that matters.
We call it "ah-guh" like it is spelled.
Yet the singer "Sade" was able to get people to call he "Shah-day" (despite not having an "h" anywhere to be seen) in place of the more obvious pronunciation of "Say-D". Arkansas is called "Ark-an-Saw" despite having no "W" to be seen.
I propose a more frisky way of saying "OGG" which people will like.
"Oh-Gee-Gee" which sounds like an aside comment to a woman named Gigi.
The only thing this mental tie needs to sell it is an attractive Italian woman singing somewhat off tone with audible Blade encoder artifacts and a handsome Italian man walking on. Cut to a lighted button with the letters "MP3" on it. Then we see a button with "OGG" under it. The handsome man pushes the button marked "OGG" as the light goes off on the "MP3" button and instantly the sounds get better and on-key. The man is in a above waist shot so that he faces the woman and is sideways in the shot to her facing us. Close up to his face still in profile smiling as if telling a joke and saying, "Oh Gigi". Singing stops. Close up on frontal shot of Gigi looking embarrassed and very cute while appearing to be on the verge of laughing. Then again the man smirks cutely and chuckling while he speaks says, "Ohhh... Gee Gee".
The article was really short on details, I think, so I found it very hard to understand what was new about this. Some time ago, Prof Jaan Pelt (who is also going to be the referee of my thesis), gave a really mind-blowing lecture about non-uniform sampling. Shortly thereafter, I posted a message to the Vorbis-dev mailing list [xiph.org] about this stuff.
So this is a classical expansion on the variable bit rate sampling as is done on MP3 files now. The only difference is that this is done on bitmap files in place of sound files.
Dave Foley (as Newsradio's Dave Nelson): "Excuse me, listen if you are insinuating that I am a spy or that any member of my family is a spy then you're way off base! Look, just because we're Canadian does not mean we are spies"
I believe that unless the technology is a complete commodity , no company is going to be excited about signing up for something thats subscription and rely their business on it.
Indeed. There's that and the EXTORTION-WARE aspect of it.
Bill Gates: "We've decided to compete with your product and are now canceling your Windows subscription. You may sell your source code to us now for $1000 or just sign the bankruptcy papers now."
Bill Gates: "We've decided to raise our subscription fees 1000% because you occupy a niche we want to dominate with mediocre buggy betaware crap. Don't like it? The world is my toy now!"
(Hey SONY - I told you it'd be a nice idea to hire some Yakuza to terminate Gates before the XBOX shipped. It's not as if any Americans would give a damn after the total scam Microsoft has been running these past few decades.)
Now some talking paperclip is going to say to me "It look like you've been R00T3D" and a security 'wizard' will pop up to teach me (in five easy to follow steps) how it unplug my Windows BS Professional box from the network in order to make it secure.
And then it will ask you to reboot and connect to the network to see if there is a security update available (there won't be). AND... if you select "Cancel" it will force you to reboot anyway and run you through the identical script.
do M$ really have hoards of incompetent developers?I thouught they had a reputation for hiring and retaining some of the best developers around.
BIG FUCKING WHOOPTIE DOO!
As the saying goes, "The proof is in the result."
Microsoft software is buggy as hell and unreliable to the extreme. I can hire a genius to do my programming, but if it is buggy does this mean my money was well spent?
To you I say once again, BIG FUCKING WHOOPTIE DOO!
Their software is crap and it shows EVERY FUCKING DAY!
Automan. Vauge memories are coming back to me now. Sidekick was "Cursor"? Was rendered/created on a Apple II of some sort?
Geez, I recall that I liked that show too. I wonder when the episodes will be released on DVD?
They're reran on the SCI-FI CHANNEL's SCI-FI WORLD afternoon block. Check the schedule regularly as SCI-FI WORLD changes often, then set your VCR or PVR or TIVO...
Slashdot Mirror
The more Microsoft products you use the worse off you are basically.
This is timeless wisdom perfect for a line of T-Shirts.
Their documentation is very thorough. Remember, whether you admit it or not, these are professional programmers, not 14-year-old l33t k1dd13z who "write code" for Linux.
These "professional" programmers have released CONSTANTLY obviously buggy code for years. Big whoop about your opinion as the proof is in the result and it mostly sucks. Why the HELL do you not know that everyone associates the word "Microsoft" with "pain"? They can slap on all the "Microkernal", "Dynamic Functionality", and "More Better" bullshit buzzwords, but that doesn't stop me from being FORCED to reboot at least 3 times a day for fairly stupid OS reasons.
What I could really do without is the freaking King of the Hill. And don't flame me, I'm a southern boy (born and raised in Tennessee) - my dad *is* Hank Hill. I thought it was the greatest show ever the first, say, 6 episodes, but lately it's painful to watch.
I enjoyed "King of the Hill" for its rational attitude and realist values. However, I've decided to no longer watch it as having Hank Hill describe George Worthless Bush as magnificent when it was obvious he was cocaine-snorting, drunk until 40 (and still drunk now), Enron-loving, Nixon-secretive (he released Clinton's documents, but refuses to release Reagan's, his own when he was Governor of TexASS, and his own double-dealing documents of today), constantly lying, broke every promise but the pittance of a "tax break", and up to his hairline in sleazy money. Hell Bush even prevented and obstructed investigations into Osama bin Laden before 9/11. Bush is a treasonous worthless ass who should have been rotting in prison decades ago (unlike Jeb Bush's daughter or Jenna & Babs Bush who can commit any crime and serve no time).
If Mike Judge wants to promote a barely human piece of shit into crapping all over the Office of the President, he may. That is his right (until Ashcroft eliminates that part of the Constitution too). I will no longer reward him for it though. I see no logic in benefiting the allies of treason & tyranny. I now avoid "King of the Hill".
IMNSHO, a *much* better campaign would be to pick a network (scifi, comedy-central, whatever) and target *them* with a letter writing campaign, urging them to pick up the show, and treat it right.
Probably not Sci-Fi Channel. They just canceled "The Chronicle" so why bother urging them to get great stuff when they're canceling already fantastic programs?
Even when they do tell you it's on, you'll wind up watching about 20 minutes of post-game football followed by 10 minutes of Futurama "already in progress".
They probably want the space for "that 90s show".
I'd say that Matt Groening should find another network to run it on. FOX is ran and owned by pure assholes (FAUX NEWS is even worse but a shining example of pure corruption & shameless lying). Groening should be able to find a better network (just not the other asshole heaven ABC) perhaps even NBC.
As far as computers programming themselves, well... a c/c++ compiler translating c/c++ code into machine code isn't the same thing. Translation *is* a necessary step, but you also have to add the ability to change the running program. For that you need a language that blurs the distinction between data and instructions.
Ahh... but ponder this, young and curious mind, with multitasking operating systems an artificially intelligent bit of software could write a new version of itself, compile itself, run itself while giving access to its current data files, and if it decided the result was indeed better - write a script to delete itself after it shuts itself down. Thus allowing a seamless personal upgrade.
Consider the issue of teleporting a running computer (perhaps doing some math-intensive computation). You would have to freeze it in its current state (hardware, software, and energy patterns in motion). Unless you could jump it out of the time and reality we share the task is impossible. That was the state of single-tasking computers then. Today for your example, we'd put some jump pointers to the new code and the next trip it takes goes into the new code until it hits the jump pointers back to the old code around the repaired area.
This can be summed up very easy. Power corrupts. Doesn't matter if its religious, political, or charisma. Power corrupts all it touches.
All sin begins when one person has power over another.
Simple and sad as that.
By reading the article you linked too. I could still conclude that the ends don't justify the means. Condition 3 (from the initial list) states: "the good effect must be produced directly by the action" i.e. killing and such is bad, so the good that comes from the act of killing is bad. However, if one where to test a drug, and a participant would get sick or die, it would be excusable. "The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it." I could be misinterpreting it but that's my take on it.
--
Who am I? Why am I here? Whats my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I?
So it's fine to hand out 100 pills to children (50% sugar pills & 50% cyanide) because God will choose which ones are good and SHOULD survive?
I'm just taking the absurd concept to the extreme end. For another person that took an absurd "Christian" concept to extreme just look into the story of the family murderer John Emil List who decided that killing his family was more Godly than committing suicide. To paraphrase a quote from MST3K, "The Bible sure seems crazy if you start your reading in Revelations". Or perhaps insane people cloak themselves in the Bible and use it to justify their insanity. They misuse a tool as a murderer uses a hammer to bash heads in where a carpenter uses a hammer to build things of value.
http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/crime/list.html
John had originally considered killing himself, but he didn't want to leave his children destitute and alone with a dying and demented mother. And suicide was a sin which would bar him from Heaven. Backruptcy and welfare were options too humiliating to consider. He was certain it would drive his wife and children even further from a life of faith. The only way he could solve his problems AND insure heaven for his family was to kill them. He knew, from John 3:16, that God would forgive him.
would think all those registers would be much more useful in context switches and/or pipelining issues.
Say, allocate, 30 registers to each context and keep 10 contexts running on the processor without much penalty. Prepare your variables for your next few operations for each conditional outcome on the registers. Stuff like that would be more useful (and less visible) in most cases.
That said, the new AMIGA TAO OS has Virtual Registers (not that I've seen diddly squat in the way of programs for it).
I've encountered about a half-dozen scientists in my time who seem to be more interested in public acclaim than actually doing useful work. They appear in Discover, Omni, etc., get spots on national news during slow weeks, and millions of people go "wow! what cool stuff these scientists are doing!". Problem is their work is never used by other scientists, and doesn't help to advance the field on iota.
Yet for some reason they INSPIRE people to pursue scientific careers. Mister Wizard wasn't a great researcher and Bill Nye hasn't created any new industries, but they kids they inspire go on to do just that. If science interests nobody, then nobody benefits. We need a few FLASHY THEORISTS to get the people creating. The Mother of Invention never got pregnant by sitting in her room watching sitcoms.
While it is true that modern medicine and human culture has nearly (not completely) stoped natural selection on humans, cultural prefrences still exhibit selective breeding.
What does this mean? Human beings will continue to become more intelligent, probably taller, and probably more beautiful.
Intelligence creates material success, which is a prize factor for breeding.
But why only probably more beautiful? Beauty is fairly relative, and for the human race to become more beautuful there has to be prolonged cultural stability.
So we will stop being wolves and start being domestic dogs.
I think of it this way. Pretty people breed easier because they find sexual partners easily. Dumb people don't think about contraception and have more babies. Smart people hem & haw over giving birth until the "perfect time".
Dumb people will mate with the pretty people giving birth to plenty of pretty offspring. Smart people will protect their offspring from mating with the "pretty but dumb" folks. With the dumb ones outbreeding the smart ones and producing desireable children the "pretty stupid" people inherit the Earth. The smart people can overcome the tidal wave of idiocy by underhanded planning, but only if they are very rich and control the masses with religion, propaganda, and stormtrooper police forces. Thusly we begin the setting for the FRENCH REVOLUTION once again. The smart rich folks inbreed (losing their advantage) and the pretty stupid people get pissed off and kill them.
Advances in technology can prolong this cycle and social breeding changes can eliminate it (breed Olympic athletes with Mensa members thusly making "smart" = "sexy"). This is not to breed a superrace, but to raise the overall level of intellect across the world. Unless people start getting the "smart" = "sexy" message we're headed for another very bad time (given that George Worthless Bush will leave us $30 trillion in debt when the rest of the world goes broke in 2025, though Clinton tried his hardest not to let that happen). Given the current war of rich verses poor and the eventual collapse of the world currency exchange I simply tell you to learn to love speaking Chinese. That is the road we're doomed to live on now provide George Worthless Bush survives this year. We'll have another Nazi era and the Chinese will mop up what is left and take our natural resources for their own use.
> Any sized icons.
And that was just outrageously stupid.
And when I go to Adjust Display Properties/Advanced/General/Font Size
and change "Large Fonts" to "Small Fonts" I get the popup window stating, "You must restart your computer before the new settings will take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now? Yes / No"
Every fucking time you changed the display resolution all of Windows had to reboot up to Windows 98!
The Amiga was launched in the mid-1980s and NEVER had to reboot to change the display resolution size. It took over a decade and a half to have Winblows catch up with even basic interface issues. And that's only one thing in which the Amiga beat Windows easily at the time. Hell, it even had a Mac emulator that was faster than an accellerated Macintosh.
So tell me again about outrageous stupidity?
Come on, lets be honest. Do you REALLY go and buy a CD after having the MP3's in your hand ?
Thats almost like having sex with your girlfriend, then going out and paying a hooker for it. If you want the CD, just decompress the tracks back into wave and make your own CD.
Don't like the quality of the convertaed waves ? Download higher quality MP3's.
Well... some of us know that if we want more music from the talents we enjoy listening to, we have to buy the CD so they'll be encouraged to make more. Your example is better laid as "Why pay for a prostitute when there are plenty of barfly sluts to lay?" Hell we can still do things by hand and enjoy the results of that work. If we share, other people can enjoy what we do. If they really love it, they can keep it forever too.
They can make it the size of an eraser head, If they cant get me a battery for it that lasts as long as a full day of use then it's worthless technology.
I'd think a few grains of Plutonium-238(in a companion ring with a hard shield protecting the battery) would be enough fuel for anyone. Unfortunately average humans of today would crack it open and irradiate themselves to death.
Though there are other fuel sources, which given the unique properties of mems, could simply tap atomic motion itself for power with microspring capacitors if needed. The rythmn of your pulse, plus the motion of your hand, and the difference in temperature of your flesh and the outside air itself combined could be more than enough power to keep a micro-cellphone ring running indefinitely.
There is a huge arena of ambient energy to be tapped once you can define the microscopic world efficently.
The idea was nice :) Combine bodybuilding and websurfing and we'll get a new generation of geeks...
I AM THE SUPERGEEK!
(But what happens to the poor guys with legs like tree trunks and arms like twigs? Never get them angry enough to give you a groin kick I guess.)
And yet EVERYTIME I TRY TO "Send page by email" to my friends my ISP disconnects me.
Curious no?!?
Try it.
I'm using OUTLOOK EXPRESS 6 and it is buggy.
This seems like a HUGE liability. What happens when bugs in the game allow players to steal money? Or when someone DoS' the servers, and people can't play for days, or weeks? Many players would be quite angry that their personal finances would be interruped, perhaps even destroyed.
Of course it is not a good idea to rely on the game for your income, but there will be people that will do this, and they will complain loudly when problems arise.
I don't see how any lawyer would allow this - the liability is too great.</I>
Then introduce the in-game legal teams. Virtual lawyers with virtual judges with cyber-mobsters helping grease the wheels of justice in one player's favor.
<B>WOW! This would really suck! (Well, not for the virtual mobsters.)</B>
Quinn: "That was what you call it... 'moronic'."
Jane: "I think you mean 'ironic'."
Daria: "No. Quinn was right this time."
A separation of church and state is not defined in the Constitution, nor in the amendments. It's slightly implied, but not really stated clearly. Rather, it was an idea put forth by Thomas Jefferson and people have taken it to heart as he was one of the largest players in the development of the US in those early years. Oh yeah... sure... just because you read it or heard it somewhere and can cackle like a hen in heat it must be true? BULLSHIT! In 1962 Madalyn Murray O'Hair Kicked God, the Bible and Prayer Out of Public Schools . . . And 10 Other Myths About Church and State http://www.au.org/myths.htm Thinking people might want to remember that blacks, women,& non-landownersdidn't have the right to vote then. Also remember that a sudden upsurge of anti-church mania didn't hit the Constitution makers back then either. There was a DAMN GOOD REASON WHY CHURCH & STATE ARE SEPARATE IN AMENDMENT #1 of the Constitution. The church was going nuts with power back then discriminating against other Christians (just as they do now)! It helps greatly to look at history along with the words of our Founding Fathers to see just how shameless a lie the current church is trying to sell the sheeple. When given absolute power, the church has proven time and again that they cannot restrain themselves from using it and abusing it for their own ends. The sad fact that so many "Christians" bear false witness, or bluntly, lie(It's in the Ten Commandments for God's sake! Which these fake Christians are so eager to get propped on courthouse walls and in schools and yet have never taken to heart) to get their way that they know little about the religion they proclaim loudly and endlessly to serve. Give these men of God the state's power and they'll abuse it again without pause or reflection. http://www.ifas.org/fw/9606/newengland.html (Article copied without permission of the author) Church and state in early New England
By Bernard A. Drew
The Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth, first onto a firm rock, then sandy soil. This is symbolic of a young America: at first stonily exclusive in its religious tolerance and governance, then becoming more giving with the spiritual divergence of the population. The democratic urge which came with the struggle for revolution culminated in the adoption of a Constitution, and its Bill of Rights, which formally separated church and state.
The Mayflower, with 102 passengers, most simple farmers and artisans, sailed for the New World in 1620 in search of religious freedom. They disagreed with the ritual and doctrine of the Anglican faith in England, and felt a loss of cultural identity in Holland, where they had taken refuge. Arriving north of the bounds of the Virginia Colony, from which they had secured a grant, the travelers forged a Mayflower Compact before setting ashore at Plymouth. The agreement to form a government was a compromise, as only a third of the voyagers were religious separatists; it referred to God, but allowed liberty of worship.
However, a Bible commonwealth -- if not strictly speaking a theocracy -- emerged in practice, with the coming within a decade of another group of restless English. The Puritans crossed the sea, not to escape their mother country's state religion, but to establish it in what they felt would be a purer form. They wanted less "popish" ceremony. There was strict observance of the Sabbath. Frivolity was prohibited; Christmas ignored. Nonconformists and reformers, they were to be intolerant of any but their own church. Settling in Salem, the Massachusetts Bay Company held a broad charter to rule itself, admit members, bear arms, and defend itself.
Clergymen didn't hold public office, but they advised magistrates on major matters. Elections were held each year by public assembly. But the privilege to vote or hold office was restricted to those who belonged to the established church.
"They were advocates of a definite religious system, which they came to the new world to put into practice," asserted historian Herbert L. Osgood. "So important did this system seem to them that they made all interests, social and political, contribute to its maintenance and advancement."
There soon arose challenges to the Puritan system. Roger Williams refused to take the pulpit in Boston because the congregation would not publicly renounce ties with the Church of England. He further challenged powers of magistrates and questioned the right to take land from Native Americans.
Williams spoke loudly, and in 1635 he was tried and banished. He removed to the wilderness at Providence, and soon established a government which was the first in America to be democratic and with church and state functions separate. Wil-liams remained rigid in his own church, but the Rhode Island colony was openly tolerant of all sects. It became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and others.
On Williams' heels, Anne Hutchinson in 1637 took exception to the Massachusetts establishment on religious as well as political grounds. She said that grace, not works, was the key to an individual's entrance to heaven.
At gatherings with colonial women, she satirized sermons and criticized leadership. She said she heard directly from God -- grounds, the Puritans felt, to try her for heresy and excommunicate her.
America's population grew, and it became more socially and religiously diverse. During the Great Awakening in the 1640s, Presbyterians and others asserted their need to worship in their own way. In 1849, Maryland passed the Toleration Act guaranteeing freedom of religion and protecting its Catholic population.
Religiously zealous Quakers, believing in inner lights from the Holy Ghost, came to this country in the 1650s with missionary purposes. They were particularly vilified by the Puritans. Punishment for a first conviction of Quakerism was one ear cut off; for a second offense, the second ear, and for third, the tongue bored with a hot iron. Mary Dyer, a persistent Quaker, ignored her banishment once too often and was hanged in Boston in 1660.
Cracks in the Puritan bulwark appeared from within as well. The second generation began to draw away from the rigid church. This prompted a lowering of membership requirements in 1662.
There was a general rationalist movement of thought in Western culture. The British Crown, reacting to an age of enlightenment in Europe, signed a Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 giving toleration to Quakers, Baptists, and Episcopalians. The Crown revoked Massachusetts' charter in 1684, partly because of discrimination issues, and in rewriting Massachusetts' charter in 1691 removed a religious test for voting.
A last gasp of the Puritan iron hand came with the Salem trials in the 1690s, when Cotton Mather and others stirred fear of rampant witchcraft. Twenty died before public sense intervened and the debacle ended.
Theocentricity was severely diluted in the colonies by the time of the American Revolution. The issue was slightly different in Virginia. A colony staunchly Church of England from the start, it allowed other faiths, but reserved tax income to itself. The Revolution tainted the Anglican church because of its association with the Crown. A fervid democratic spirit emerged from the war.
Thomas Jefferson, convinced that government had no business in the affairs of man and religion, with the support of James Madison and others, prevailed with the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom which was enacted in 1786. It established tolerance and disallowed the use of general tax funds to support a single church.
The framers of the Constitution largely ignored religion in drafting their document. The only reference is to there being no religious test to vote or hold public office. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights asserts that there be no abridgment of the right to worship, and that government remain neutral in matters of religion.
In debating the Constitution at the Virginia convention in 1787, delegate Zachariah Johnston asserted that by not sanctioning a single religion, "You will find that the exclusion of tests will strongly tend to establish religious freedom."
French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in 1835, thought this was a paradox, but upon investigation concluded, "I know that, apart from influence proper to itself, religions can at times rely on the artificial strength of laws and the support of the material powers that direct society. There have been religions intimately linked to earthly governments, dominating men's souls both by terror and by faith, but when a religion makes such an alliance, I am not afraid to say that it makes the same mistake as any man might; it sacrifices the future for the present, and by gaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks its legitimate authority."
Bernard Drew is a freelance writer and historian who lives in Massachusetts.
© 1998 Institute for First Amendment Studies, Inc.
Maybe you think it sounds cool, but ask a dozen people on the street and they'll tell you it's the ugliest name ever. It's too bad that the Ogg guys don't understand the importance of good marketing, because whatever its merits, the format's name alone ensures it will never take off. And the odds are stacked against them in any case. I hope they will prove me wrong, but I don't think they will: tech history is littered with the corpses of superior technologies that weren't marketed properly.
As with all things sometimes it's how you pronounce something that matters.
We call it "ah-guh" like it is spelled.
Yet the singer "Sade" was able to get people to call he "Shah-day" (despite not having an "h" anywhere to be seen) in place of the more obvious pronunciation of "Say-D". Arkansas is called "Ark-an-Saw" despite having no "W" to be seen.
I propose a more frisky way of saying "OGG" which people will like.
"Oh-Gee-Gee" which sounds like an aside comment to a woman named Gigi.
The only thing this mental tie needs to sell it is an attractive Italian woman singing somewhat off tone with audible Blade encoder artifacts and a handsome Italian man walking on. Cut to a lighted button with the letters "MP3" on it. Then we see a button with "OGG" under it. The handsome man pushes the button marked "OGG" as the light goes off on the "MP3" button and instantly the sounds get better and on-key. The man is in a above waist shot so that he faces the woman and is sideways in the shot to her facing us. Close up to his face still in profile smiling as if telling a joke and saying, "Oh Gigi". Singing stops. Close up on frontal shot of Gigi looking embarrassed and very cute while appearing to be on the verge of laughing. Then again the man smirks cutely and chuckling while he speaks says, "Ohhh... Gee Gee".
The article was really short on details, I think, so I found it very hard to understand what was new about this. Some time ago, Prof Jaan Pelt (who is also going to be the referee of my thesis), gave a really mind-blowing lecture about non-uniform sampling. Shortly thereafter, I posted a message to the Vorbis-dev mailing list [xiph.org] about this stuff.
So this is a classical expansion on the variable bit rate sampling as is done on MP3 files now. The only difference is that this is done on bitmap files in place of sound files.
Why would the US be spying on CANADA?
Conversely, why would Canada fear US spying?
Dave Foley (as Newsradio's Dave Nelson): "Excuse me, listen if you are insinuating that I am a spy or that any member of my family is a spy then you're way off base! Look, just because we're Canadian does not mean we are spies"
Newsradio Dave sounds
I believe that unless the technology is a complete commodity , no company is going to be excited about signing up for something thats subscription and rely their business on it.
Indeed. There's that and the EXTORTION-WARE aspect of it.
Bill Gates: "We've decided to compete with your product and are now canceling your Windows subscription. You may sell your source code to us now for $1000 or just sign the bankruptcy papers now."
Bill Gates: "We've decided to raise our subscription fees 1000% because you occupy a niche we want to dominate with mediocre buggy betaware crap. Don't like it? The world is my toy now!"
(Hey SONY - I told you it'd be a nice idea to hire some Yakuza to terminate Gates before the XBOX shipped. It's not as if any Americans would give a damn after the total scam Microsoft has been running these past few decades.)
Now some talking paperclip is going to say to me "It look like you've been R00T3D" and a security 'wizard' will pop up to teach me (in five easy to follow steps) how it unplug my Windows BS Professional box from the network in order to make it secure.
And then it will ask you to reboot and connect to the network to see if there is a security update available (there won't be). AND... if you select "Cancel" it will force you to reboot anyway and run you through the identical script.
do M$ really have hoards of incompetent developers?I thouught they had a reputation for hiring and retaining some of the best developers around.
BIG FUCKING WHOOPTIE DOO!
As the saying goes, "The proof is in the result."
Microsoft software is buggy as hell and unreliable to the extreme. I can hire a genius to do my programming, but if it is buggy does this mean my money was well spent?
To you I say once again, BIG FUCKING WHOOPTIE DOO!
Their software is crap and it shows EVERY FUCKING DAY!
Automan. Vauge memories are coming back to me now. Sidekick was "Cursor"? Was rendered/created on a Apple II of some sort?
Geez, I recall that I liked that show too. I wonder when the episodes will be released on DVD?
They're reran on the SCI-FI CHANNEL's SCI-FI WORLD afternoon block. Check the schedule regularly as SCI-FI WORLD changes often, then set your VCR or PVR or TIVO...