Okay... The epilepsy bit I can understand. The rest of it, though...
You *must* be joking. You are joking, aren't you? Please say that I've fallen for a troll. I just don't know that I could stand knowing there was somebody out there that believes that imagination is a dangerous thing.
I seem to recall that the Puppeteers weren't looking to get rid of a threat--they were looking for a home. Their population had grown so incredibly large that they needed the space available on the Ringworld and wanted to set themselves up as rulers. A little superconductive-eating plague was applied and the Ringworld was quickly seen as something to be avoided at all cost by outsiders. Not a bad plan, until Teela Brown was sent there...
Re:Is this the right thing to do?
on
TigerCloning
·
· Score: 1
Okay, so we are. I was referring to the 'normal' relationship between predator and prey, in which the predator kills and then consumes the prey for the purposes of nutrition and continued survival.
The stupidity of man part was in reference to our habits of killing for sport, killing simply because there is a perceived surplus of prey, and systematically destroying a species because it is believed to threaten our own food sources or health.
If I'm not mistaken, the Tasmanian Tiger was hunted to near extinction (and then, when the last known creature in captivity expired, experienced extinction) because it was perceived to threaten livestock. Similarly, cats in the Dark Ages of Europe were hunted and killed because they were believed to spread the bubonic plague. We all know how that misconception cost 'em, don't we? On a show recently aired on the Discovery Channel (regarding swarms), a lake in Africa was shown where overfishing had taken place. As a result, insect larvae hatched in amazing numbers and the resulting swarms of insects pose a very real threat to human health. *This* is the stupidity of man.
Well, it's one of them, anyway.
--- Chris
Re:Is this the right thing to do?
on
TigerCloning
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, so perhaps it was a little nonsensical. That's what I get for making posts without the appropriate levels of caffeine in my system.
If the Tasmanian Tiger is re-introduced, then I suppose it has become fit again. What's the impact, though, on whatever ecosystem it's placed in? Haven't we already tampered enough? Biodiversity is a wonderful, essential thing when it comes about naturally, but I have yet to see that any human-engineered biodiversity comes close to the real thing. Please feel free to prove me wrong.
Still, it's been the human way (ever since our particular brand of culture became so prevalent) to kill what threatens our food, what's ugly or stupid-looking, and whatever looks good hanging from our walls. We're 'doing the evolution', as Eddie Vedder would scream.
I don't agree with this mindset, but there are enough people who do that I fully believe we're all going to end up paying the price. Can you see the human race ever living on this planet as harmless as a rattlesnake or a scorpion? (Another obscure reference--check out Daniel Quinn's work, with an appropriately open mind.) A relative handful of people may live in such a way, but I've no doubt that the net effect of all of us living our lives will leave this place in utter ruin.
In this light, then I do believe that we probably shouldn't try to 'save' extinct creatures. It will just increase the total amount of suffering in the world, once we get around to killing them off again.
Oh, hold on--I'm still under my RDA for caffeine! Please take all of this with a big grain of salt.
--- Chris
Re:Is this the right thing to do?
on
TigerCloning
·
· Score: 2
Hear, hear...kind of.
This most certainly isn't an answer to righting the wrongs of the past. The only place for such an animal today is in captivity, which is worse than extinction, I'm inclined to think. Still, the sheer accomplishment of cloning an extinct creature probably makes the entire endeavor worthwhile.
A while back, I was criticized for presenting basically the same viewpoint you have, but nothing's really changed. When a creature falls prey to extinction, be it through natural predation or the stupidity of man, it is following the rule of "Survival Of The Fittest". Obviously, it wasn't fit at the time. The day may come when, after we've totally decimated the ecosystem, man isn't fit to survive either. On that day, we'll fall, and inevitably something else will come along to take our place. It's the way things work, and fighting it is only self-congratulatory nonsense.
I believe it was in Stranger In A Strange Land that the main character (Michael Valentine Smith, if my memory is correct) finally learns that humor is borne from the misfortune of others. I happen to agree.
Additionally, death is something that happens 103 times a minute worldwide, if the U.S. Census Bureau is to be believed. Unless you were personally affected by the death of those 118 unfortunate sailors, I don't see what the problem is. If you were, then I extend my deepest sympathies.
This sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to me. Would the statement have been substantially better if phrased 'installing Linux for himself', or 'itself', or 'him/her/itself'? The trend now is to alternate between the pronouns to avoid singling out a particular gender, and I think it's refreshing. Put away the paranoia, and just read the review....
I checked out that link, and was surprised to see that the feature list included:
"Dairy alarm"
Now *that's* an odd thing for a watch to do. Does it let you know when your milk is going bad? When you're getting close to a lactating animal? I'm confused.
If you think it is worth something to someone, why not license it to them and make a few bucks?
Because the potential boost in code quality or performance resulting from contributions may be worth more to your organization than the few bucks is, perhaps.
If you don't think it is worth something to someone, why bother opening it up?
Because you might be wrong. Even if you're not, 'worth' sometimes doesn't have anything to do with why a hacker might spend some time optimizing code or fixing bugs.
I've been thinking lately about your item #2, so this caught my eye.
It seems to me that, in a work environment at least, people tend to organize their work in various ways depending on the task at hand. For instance, papers devoted to a particular project get tossed into the same file folder or binder no matter what their format, and ongoing KOI reports will all get filed together as well.
A searchable 'pool' of documents would work great for this, coupled with the ability to create 'projects' that consolidate several different, but related, documents into an easy-to-navigate group.
Oddly enough, I seem to recall something like this (well, the document-grouping function, anyway) being a part of Microsoft Office at one point. It didn't provide for 'linking', if I remember correctly--instead, it created a single file which contained each of the component documents. Like so much of Microsoft's work, this was close but not quite there...
We used to ride around in horse-drawn carriages. They worked great. Use was widespread. Carriage wheels could be found anywhere. Then came the automobile. Parts were scarce, almost nobody knew how to fix them when they broke.
But they were better. And they caught on. And now we all use them (well not all of us, but you get my point). It certainly wasn't because the government broke the back of the horse-drawn carriage industry.
We don't need the US Government to win our battles for us. If Linux or some other OS is superior and people are able to work more productively with it, then it will eclipse Windows just as the automobile eclipses carriages as a means of transportation.
For goodness sake, let's stop asking our government to do more for us and insist that it start doing less!
As the other respondant said, a contract isn't legally binding unless both parties agree to the conditions. If Circuit City doesn't mention that I have a legal obligation to subscribe, then the fault isn't mine.
Oh, and for what it's worth, you might try stowing your preconceptions. I'm hardly a kid, own a car and a house, and understand the way the world works as well as the next guy. That doesn't change the way that contract law works.
Since Netpliance made their agreement known, I'd never buy an I-Opener without subscribing to their service. Before, however, it was pretty much an optional thing. In fact, weren't their own salespeople ignoring the service subscription issue?
Oh, that's ridiculous. They may be selling these as 'loss leaders' and they may want you to use their service after you purchase one, but if you pay what they're asking to purchase an i-Opener then you OWN it.
It's not a lease. It's not rental. It's a purchase. Opening it up and modifying it to make it do something else is no more stealing than buying a Playstation and letting it sit in a closet. Both are situations that result in a monetary loss for the manufacturer, but that's one of the risks they take by relying on their business model.
I recall an article in an Omni magazine waaaaay back when that talked about cortical blindness patients, where the optical portions of their brains had been physically damaged. With some training, several people have been able to regain sight. See, the electical impulses from their eyes propagated to other portions of their brains, which the patients were eventually able to monitor the same way they did when the original 'sight centers' worked. It's all about training.
When we're born, we flail around for a few months while our brain sorts out what does what, and we get positive reinforcement on the motions and sounds we make, and on the interpretations we make of our sensory inputs. If you stick a pickup into the brain somewhere and wire it into a robotic arm or even a suitably-modified camera, enough practice should give us the ability to use them just like a limb or an eyeball.
That's what limbs and sensory organs are, right? They're (organic) devices that either take signals from or deliver signals to the brain.
My bet is that, several years down the road, we'll be able to do some pretty amazing things based on this line of thinking.
Why make it *that* kind of issue? Comdex is just being a little stupid here--I don't see anybody (reputable) saying that a civil liberty has been violated or anything.
Lighten up, and when you've regained your composure look at the real problem (that the scene is changing, and arbitrary age limits for things like this are just bad business) instead of some made-up issue.
Imagine if instead of paying Unisys $5K to get legal for using.gif images, companies paid a similar amount to a non-profit Open Source patent organization? I think that'd be pretty cool.
I think it'd be horrible! One of the principles behind Open Source software is free usage. Insisting that another party pay for the use of a piece of OSS is totally contrary to the philosophy. Suggesting that a party contribute to a worthy cause in exchange for the free use of the software is another matter completely, however...
'Twasn't Waco! Yeah, yeah--the media always *says* Waco, but they say 'hacker' too, don't they?
It happened well outside Waco, near a community called (if I remember correctly) Mount Calm. The most exciting thing to happen in Waco since the city was formed was the tornado that leveled downtown.
Any other Wacoans get sick of the constant mis-attribution?
It sounds like we've replaced strength and agility with bank accounts. What of it?
When mankind's most lasting fad (kill everything that might threaten your food) became fashionable, we took a step away from the natural selection that the rest of the animals follow. Since then, no predators threaten us because we destroy or cripple them long before they become dangerous to us. We had to move on to another kind of competition, so why not this? The rich and poor compete (and the rich win) while politics and big business strive to keep one side from getting *too* far ahead lest they lose a source of income
Was it Niven's _The Integral Trees_ where modified children suddenly started spontaneously dying because of interactions between various 'perfect' gene sequences? Whole generations of rich kids dropping like flies, leaving the more robust 'naturals' behind.
Bah. Whatever. This is just accelerating evolution. More power to 'em--as long as they accept all the consequences of their choices.
Slashdot Mirror
For this bit of code to be useful, one still needs the title key, right? So where would one find the title key for a given DVD?
I did a quick search on Google, and turned up nothing.
--- Chris
Okay... The epilepsy bit I can understand. The rest of it, though...
You *must* be joking. You are joking, aren't you? Please say that I've fallen for a troll. I just don't know that I could stand knowing there was somebody out there that believes that imagination is a dangerous thing.
--- Chris
There aren't many distributors yet, but I bet their list will grow by leaps and bounds after the California debacle.
--- Chris
I seem to recall that the Puppeteers weren't looking to get rid of a threat--they were looking for a home. Their population had grown so incredibly large that they needed the space available on the Ringworld and wanted to set themselves up as rulers. A little superconductive-eating plague was applied and the Ringworld was quickly seen as something to be avoided at all cost by outsiders. Not a bad plan, until Teela Brown was sent there...
Okay, so we are. I was referring to the 'normal' relationship between predator and prey, in which the predator kills and then consumes the prey for the purposes of nutrition and continued survival.
The stupidity of man part was in reference to our habits of killing for sport, killing simply because there is a perceived surplus of prey, and systematically destroying a species because it is believed to threaten our own food sources or health.
If I'm not mistaken, the Tasmanian Tiger was hunted to near extinction (and then, when the last known creature in captivity expired, experienced extinction) because it was perceived to threaten livestock. Similarly, cats in the Dark Ages of Europe were hunted and killed because they were believed to spread the bubonic plague. We all know how that misconception cost 'em, don't we? On a show recently aired on the Discovery Channel (regarding swarms), a lake in Africa was shown where overfishing had taken place. As a result, insect larvae hatched in amazing numbers and the resulting swarms of insects pose a very real threat to human health. *This* is the stupidity of man.
Well, it's one of them, anyway.
--- Chris
Yeah, so perhaps it was a little nonsensical. That's what I get for making posts without the appropriate levels of caffeine in my system.
If the Tasmanian Tiger is re-introduced, then I suppose it has become fit again. What's the impact, though, on whatever ecosystem it's placed in? Haven't we already tampered enough? Biodiversity is a wonderful, essential thing when it comes about naturally, but I have yet to see that any human-engineered biodiversity comes close to the real thing. Please feel free to prove me wrong.
Still, it's been the human way (ever since our particular brand of culture became so prevalent) to kill what threatens our food, what's ugly or stupid-looking, and whatever looks good hanging from our walls. We're 'doing the evolution', as Eddie Vedder would scream.
I don't agree with this mindset, but there are enough people who do that I fully believe we're all going to end up paying the price. Can you see the human race ever living on this planet as harmless as a rattlesnake or a scorpion? (Another obscure reference--check out Daniel Quinn's work, with an appropriately open mind.) A relative handful of people may live in such a way, but I've no doubt that the net effect of all of us living our lives will leave this place in utter ruin.
In this light, then I do believe that we probably shouldn't try to 'save' extinct creatures. It will just increase the total amount of suffering in the world, once we get around to killing them off again.
Oh, hold on--I'm still under my RDA for caffeine! Please take all of this with a big grain of salt.
--- Chris
Hear, hear...kind of.
This most certainly isn't an answer to righting the wrongs of the past. The only place for such an animal today is in captivity, which is worse than extinction, I'm inclined to think. Still, the sheer accomplishment of cloning an extinct creature probably makes the entire endeavor worthwhile.
A while back, I was criticized for presenting basically the same viewpoint you have, but nothing's really changed. When a creature falls prey to extinction, be it through natural predation or the stupidity of man, it is following the rule of "Survival Of The Fittest". Obviously, it wasn't fit at the time. The day may come when, after we've totally decimated the ecosystem, man isn't fit to survive either. On that day, we'll fall, and inevitably something else will come along to take our place. It's the way things work, and fighting it is only self-congratulatory nonsense.
--- Chris
Additionally, death is something that happens 103 times a minute worldwide, if the U.S. Census Bureau is to be believed. Unless you were personally affected by the death of those 118 unfortunate sailors, I don't see what the problem is. If you were, then I extend my deepest sympathies.
--- Chris
[Off-topic]
This sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to me. Would the statement have been substantially better if phrased 'installing Linux for himself', or 'itself', or 'him/her/itself'? The trend now is to alternate between the pronouns to avoid singling out a particular gender, and I think it's refreshing. Put away the paranoia, and just read the review....
Can't we all just get along?
I checked out that link, and was surprised to see that the feature list included:
"Dairy alarm"
Now *that's* an odd thing for a watch to do. Does it let you know when your milk is going bad? When you're getting close to a lactating animal? I'm confused.
Of course, I'm also off-topic. Oh, well...
--- Chris
Because the potential boost in code quality or performance resulting from contributions may be worth more to your organization than the few bucks is, perhaps.
If you don't think it is worth something to someone, why bother opening it up?
Because you might be wrong. Even if you're not, 'worth' sometimes doesn't have anything to do with why a hacker might spend some time optimizing code or fixing bugs.
I've been thinking lately about your item #2, so this caught my eye.
It seems to me that, in a work environment at least, people tend to organize their work in various ways depending on the task at hand. For instance, papers devoted to a particular project get tossed into the same file folder or binder no matter what their format, and ongoing KOI reports will all get filed together as well.
A searchable 'pool' of documents would work great for this, coupled with the ability to create 'projects' that consolidate several different, but related, documents into an easy-to-navigate group.
Oddly enough, I seem to recall something like this (well, the document-grouping function, anyway) being a part of Microsoft Office at one point. It didn't provide for 'linking', if I remember correctly--instead, it created a single file which contained each of the component documents. Like so much of Microsoft's work, this was close but not quite there...
The only reason I want TPM on DVD is so that I can watch the Darth Maul/Obi Wan/Qui Gon Jinn duel with more clarity than my friends can.
I'm still swinging for an 'Episode 0.5', wherein we learn more about Maul and get to see some incredible lightsaber fighting.
Let's see...
We used to ride around in horse-drawn carriages. They worked great. Use was widespread. Carriage wheels could be found anywhere. Then came the automobile. Parts were scarce, almost nobody knew how to fix them when they broke.
But they were better. And they caught on. And now we all use them (well not all of us, but you get my point). It certainly wasn't because the government broke the back of the horse-drawn carriage industry.
We don't need the US Government to win our battles for us. If Linux or some other OS is superior and people are able to work more productively with it, then it will eclipse Windows just as the automobile eclipses carriages as a means of transportation.
For goodness sake, let's stop asking our government to do more for us and insist that it start doing less!
Yawn.
As the other respondant said, a contract isn't legally binding unless both parties agree to the conditions. If Circuit City doesn't mention that I have a legal obligation to subscribe, then the fault isn't mine.
Oh, and for what it's worth, you might try stowing your preconceptions. I'm hardly a kid, own a car and a house, and understand the way the world works as well as the next guy. That doesn't change the way that contract law works.
Since Netpliance made their agreement known, I'd never buy an I-Opener without subscribing to their service. Before, however, it was pretty much an optional thing. In fact, weren't their own salespeople ignoring the service subscription issue?
As I said:
Theft, indeed!
Oh, that's ridiculous. They may be selling these as 'loss leaders' and they may want you to use their service after you purchase one, but if you pay what they're asking to purchase an i-Opener then you OWN it.
It's not a lease. It's not rental. It's a purchase. Opening it up and modifying it to make it do something else is no more stealing than buying a Playstation and letting it sit in a closet. Both are situations that result in a monetary loss for the manufacturer, but that's one of the risks they take by relying on their business model.
Theft, indeed!
Go on to The Story Of B, My Ishmael, and Beyond Civilization. All good stuff, assuming you can open your mind enough...
FWIW, the Dreamcast web browser is usable without a keyboard.
Barely.
Still, it *does* work.
Let's see...
I recall an article in an Omni magazine waaaaay back when that talked about cortical blindness patients, where the optical portions of their brains had been physically damaged. With some training, several people have been able to regain sight. See, the electical impulses from their eyes propagated to other portions of their brains, which the patients were eventually able to monitor the same way they did when the original 'sight centers' worked. It's all about training.
When we're born, we flail around for a few months while our brain sorts out what does what, and we get positive reinforcement on the motions and sounds we make, and on the interpretations we make of our sensory inputs. If you stick a pickup into the brain somewhere and wire it into a robotic arm or even a suitably-modified camera, enough practice should give us the ability to use them just like a limb or an eyeball.
That's what limbs and sensory organs are, right? They're (organic) devices that either take signals from or deliver signals to the brain.
My bet is that, several years down the road, we'll be able to do some pretty amazing things based on this line of thinking.
Any thoughts?
Boo.
Why make it *that* kind of issue? Comdex is just being a little stupid here--I don't see anybody (reputable) saying that a civil liberty has been violated or anything.
Lighten up, and when you've regained your composure look at the real problem (that the scene is changing, and arbitrary age limits for things like this are just bad business) instead of some made-up issue.
I think it'd be horrible! One of the principles behind Open Source software is free usage. Insisting that another party pay for the use of a piece of OSS is totally contrary to the philosophy. Suggesting that a party contribute to a worthy cause in exchange for the free use of the software is another matter completely, however...
Grr.
'Twasn't Waco! Yeah, yeah--the media always *says* Waco, but they say 'hacker' too, don't they?
It happened well outside Waco, near a community called (if I remember correctly) Mount Calm. The most exciting thing to happen in Waco since the city was formed was the tornado that leveled downtown.
Any other Wacoans get sick of the constant mis-attribution?
Economic evolution?
It sounds like we've replaced strength and agility with bank accounts. What of it?
When mankind's most lasting fad (kill everything that might threaten your food) became fashionable, we took a step away from the natural selection that the rest of the animals follow. Since then, no predators threaten us because we destroy or cripple them long before they become dangerous to us. We had to move on to another kind of competition, so why not this? The rich and poor compete (and the rich win) while politics and big business strive to keep one side from getting *too* far ahead lest they lose a source of income
Bleah. The news has made me sick with apathy.
Was it Niven's _The Integral Trees_ where modified children suddenly started spontaneously dying because of interactions between various 'perfect' gene sequences? Whole generations of rich kids dropping like flies, leaving the more robust 'naturals' behind.
Bah. Whatever. This is just accelerating evolution. More power to 'em--as long as they accept all the consequences of their choices.
Ooh!
;)