I suspect that most of these folks who do that blew off 'bonehead English' during their freshman year, and then complain to their professors about bad grades. "Dude, I spell checked it and everything!"
Homonyms: The landmine of the English Language!
I could always pull a B+ paper up to an A- or even an A just by making sure my spelling and punctuation was correct, and that I was using the right word with the right meaning in the right place.
And this in the days before personal computers! My ancient and well-taped together Doubleday Dictionary served me well, way back when. As did my typewriter.
OK, so I'll stick with DSL until it gets fixed. If I have to go with only TV, for a while, that'll be fine. Just so I can have the pleasure of telling Comcast to fuck off.
To be fair, Harlan HAS been on the right side of a lot of things in his life, and I respect him for that, in recent decades, he's just gotten to be a cranky old fuck. WAY back when, he was talking with St. Martin's Press about them publishing Last Dangerous Visions. Except that he wanted it as a single volume. A single hardbound volume.
Something that was impossible for SMP or any other commercial publishing house. And even when this was explained to him in words of one syllable, he refused to accept that it couldn't be done.
Oh, well. Once again, the fates conspired against Harlan and getting LDV published. Not his fault!
I got the details first hand from an editor at SMP who was there at the time.
Harlan hates the Internet, hates computers, hates people who use the Internet, loathes pretty much all of SF fandom, and his ego enters a room 20 minutes before he does. So these days, when someone pokes the Harlan with a stick, a LOT of people who have had to deal with his ego and cope with his tantrums, enjoy his chest beating, his angry hooting, his poo flinging.
At 73 years old, the whole enfant terrible shtick of his that worked as an Angry Young Fan, well, today, it's just pathetic.
They are fun to use. They make you think about the problem being solved. They exercise parts of the brain that don't usually get that exercise. There is a tactile pleasure in handling and using a finely crafted scientific instrument.
There is that 'connection' to the past, the knowledge that similar instruments helped design the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, Boulder Dam, the Saturn V booster, and were part of the onboard navigation kits for all Lunar Apollo flights.
The knowledge that Erico Fermi and Nils Bohr and Albert Einstein and James Clerk Maxwell and Robert Goddard and Clyde Tombaugh and Percivill Lowell and Edwin Hubble used similar rules as they advanced the human understanding of nature and the universe.
That you don't understand this is proof positive of my earlier comment. Truly, what a pathetic life you must have.
"slide rules offer no insight into how to approach problems"
Yeah, you're right. You don't need to understand anything whatsoever about solving a math problem with a slide rule. You just fiddle with it for a bit and the answer suddenly appears.
"Are you from the past?"
Have you not read all the comments about how you need toave a sense of how numbers work, in order to get a reasonable solution via a slipstick?
YOU do remember the diverse hardware errors in INTEL processors some years ago, not to mention the current hoorah?
I'm 56 years old. Been using a slide rule for 40 odd of those years.
I have see huge, hideous errors made by people using computers and calculators, and seen these errors accepted as the Gospel Truth, because it was computed by a computer and calculated by a calculator. It CAN'T be wrong.
Except I was there to catch the error, because I have that 'knowledge' of how numbers and math works.
"Mrs. Krabappel: Now whose calculator can tell me what 7 times 8 is? Milhouse: Oh! Oh! Oh! "Low battery?"".
Hope you're never the guy that winds up telling the boss: "Low Battery!".
Although, with your faith in the infallibility of your hardware...
And when your computer crashes due to hard drive problems, power supply blows up, motherboard fries, etc, etc, etc, then what? "oh, sorry Professor, the computer is dead and I can't do that bigass math problem until the computer is fixed. Can you get the trolls in IT to hurry up and fix it?"
Are there really people who read Slashdot who can't see the pleasure in learning something new, nor can they see the potential benefit in learning how to use something like the sliderule?
I can't imagine how intellectually pathetic they must be.
Hell, those 35s and 45s are being bought by people who want a sturdy reliable calculator for everyday use or to replace the 35 or 45 that FINALLY, after 30 or so years of use, stopped working.
Slashdot Mirror
Bite my shiny metal ass!
So it does. Still and all, this IS /.!
I suspect that most of these folks who do that blew off 'bonehead English' during their freshman year, and then complain to their professors about bad grades. "Dude, I spell checked it and everything!"
Homonyms: The landmine of the English Language!
I could always pull a B+ paper up to an A- or even an A just by making sure my spelling and punctuation was correct, and that I was using the right word with the right meaning in the right place.
And this in the days before personal computers! My ancient and well-taped together Doubleday Dictionary served me well, way back when. As did my typewriter.
"Please remember that Firefox has a spell checker, and will automatically highlight your typos."
"Fallow" is a perfectly cromulent word, and as such, would not be considered a typo by the Firefox spell checker.
OK, so I'll stick with DSL until it gets fixed. If I have to go with only TV, for a while, that'll be fine. Just so I can have the pleasure of telling Comcast to fuck off.
Yes, I do, but Comcast here in Boston has been doing these tests at the most idiotic times.
I've seen them in the afternoon and mornings.
Now, EVERY other broadcast medium here in town usually waits until 3-4 AM for the tests, so as not to inconvenience their audiences.
Comcast did this EBS test BEFORE midnight. About 10 minutes into the Family Guy episode on [adult swim]. That would be about 11:40 PM.
It affects every channel on their service, too.
...just about a minute ago, the Boston Comcast cable TV service, during the Family Guy episode on [adult swim], did their monthly EBS test.
Stupid little fuckmonkeys!
I can't wait for Verizon to lay fiber here in Boston. Then it's "Screw Off, Comcast!"
To be fair, Harlan HAS been on the right side of a lot of things in his life, and I respect him for that, in recent decades, he's just gotten to be a cranky old fuck. WAY back when, he was talking with St. Martin's Press about them publishing Last Dangerous Visions. Except that he wanted it as a single volume. A single hardbound volume.
Something that was impossible for SMP or any other commercial publishing house. And even when this was explained to him in words of one syllable, he refused to accept that it couldn't be done.
Oh, well. Once again, the fates conspired against Harlan and getting LDV published. Not his fault!
I got the details first hand from an editor at SMP who was there at the time.
Harlan hates the Internet, hates computers, hates people who use the Internet, loathes pretty much all of SF fandom, and his ego enters a room 20 minutes before he does. So these days, when someone pokes the Harlan with a stick, a LOT of people who have had to deal with his ego and cope with his tantrums, enjoy his chest beating, his angry hooting, his poo flinging.
At 73 years old, the whole enfant terrible shtick of his that worked as an Angry Young Fan, well, today, it's just pathetic.
Interesting. I was under the impression that "work for hire" was the SOP for TV series back then.
So, perhaps Harlan DOES have a leg to stand on. A teeny, tiny, wee little leg, perhaps.
But a leg nevertheless.
So, Harlan DIDN'T have a standard "Work for Hire" contract with paramount/DesiLu/Roddenberry/rest of world + dog?
And that he somehow OWNS all the non-Trek specific aspects?
Yeah, good luck, Harlan.
As an aside, WAY back when, when Budweiser introduced 8 oz cans of beer, we called them "Harlans".
They were, after all, bitter, impotent half pints.
Now I've got stupid ALL OVER ME!
Thanks a lot, Slashdot!
What is this "reactivation" you speak of when installing memory or a new video card or updating a driver?
"He should have been punished through the legal system, not through a criminal organization."
The Russian legal system?
Don't make me laugh. I have chapped lips.
Now THERE'S a law firm with attitude!
(and yes, they knew full well exactly what they were doing when they registered that domain name.)
"*Goes of to register paulalanlevy-fanclub.org*"
Don't forget to copyright it, too!
EJECT! EJECT!
Oh, wait. Wrong geenky genre film.
Never mind.
Carry on.
Given all that oxygen contaminated copper, the appallingly low-fi speaker and microphone, the 3kilohertz bandwidth.
Surely, it must be absolute TORTURE for them.
Poor bastards!
Someone needs to rape them out of their last dollar by selling them "Audiophile" quality telephones.
It's an untapped market! Think of the money to be made!
" Owning a slide rule means you recognize that computers can't do your thinking for you. "
I bow thrice in thy honored direction, oh, great sensei!
I regret that I cannot use my mod points, as I have made some previous comments here.
"so again, what benefits do slide rules bring?"
They are fun to use. They make you think about the problem being solved. They exercise parts of the brain that don't usually get that exercise. There is a tactile pleasure in handling and using a finely crafted scientific instrument.
There is that 'connection' to the past, the knowledge that similar instruments helped design the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, Boulder Dam, the Saturn V booster, and were part of the onboard navigation kits for all Lunar Apollo flights.
The knowledge that Erico Fermi and Nils Bohr and Albert Einstein and James Clerk Maxwell and Robert Goddard and Clyde Tombaugh and Percivill Lowell and Edwin Hubble used similar rules as they advanced the human understanding of nature and the universe.
That you don't understand this is proof positive of my earlier comment. Truly, what a pathetic life you must have.
Seriously, I pity you greatly.
"slide rules offer no insight into how to approach problems"
Yeah, you're right. You don't need to understand anything whatsoever about solving a math problem with a slide rule. You just fiddle with it for a bit and the answer suddenly appears.
"Are you from the past?"
Have you not read all the comments about how you need toave a sense of how numbers work, in order to get a reasonable solution via a slipstick?
YOU do remember the diverse hardware errors in INTEL processors some years ago, not to mention the current hoorah?
I'm 56 years old. Been using a slide rule for 40 odd of those years.
I have see huge, hideous errors made by people using computers and calculators, and seen these errors accepted as the Gospel Truth, because it was computed by a computer and calculated by a calculator. It CAN'T be wrong.
Except I was there to catch the error, because I have that 'knowledge' of how numbers and math works.
"Mrs. Krabappel: Now whose calculator can tell me what 7 times 8 is? Milhouse: Oh! Oh! Oh! "Low battery?"".
Hope you're never the guy that winds up telling the boss: "Low Battery!".
Although, with your faith in the infallibility of your hardware...
Ebay. Search for "Pickett slide rule"
Grab a Microline 120 or 140 for about US$10.00.
Yes, it's plastic, but it's a damn fine slipstick for a beginner, and there's several "How to use a Slide Rule" books on the Gutenberg site.
And when your computer crashes due to hard drive problems, power supply blows up, motherboard fries, etc, etc, etc, then what? "oh, sorry Professor, the computer is dead and I can't do that bigass math problem until the computer is fixed. Can you get the trolls in IT to hurry up and fix it?"
Are there really people who read Slashdot who can't see the pleasure in learning something new, nor can they see the potential benefit in learning how to use something like the sliderule?
I can't imagine how intellectually pathetic they must be.
Try this site .
A Microline 120 or 140 would be an excellent starter slipstick for you, and not at all expensive.
Collectors?
Hell, those 35s and 45s are being bought by people who want a sturdy reliable calculator for everyday use or to replace the 35 or 45 that FINALLY, after 30 or so years of use, stopped working.
My HP-45 is still on my desktop , still working, still used on a daily basis.
Yeah. And there are polls that show that 90% of those polled know that the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Nice try, Fox News Fan. Anyone with any experience with polling can generate the answers desired by the entity paying for the poll.
"If you knew there were terrorists under your bed with an atomic bomb, would be less likely to be afriad or more likely to be afraid?"
So sod right off, Mr. Lying Sack o'Crap! Ain't no one here buying what you're selling!
In 1.5, leftclick and hold brings up the contextual menu.
In 2.0 and up, you HAVE to hold down a key on the keyboard and right click.
And there is NO preferences option to change it back.
What dipwad thought THAT was a good idea?
Fix the broken usabilty/human interface bits, as well as the memory leaks and then maybe you'll have a decent browser once again.
In the meantime, I'm sticking with 1.5. The FireFox browser that's not broken.