I never use the ISP-supplied E-mail anyway, except once a month or so to check on messages from the ISP (and even then usually forget to check that regularly.)
I use longer-term ISP addresses, like Hotmail (ok, MS has access to me that way) and AOL.
> All the newer interfaces (USB, IEEE-1394, PCI, PCMCIA)
PCMCIA is still a sack of shit. I have any number of laptops, PCMCIA cards, tower drive PCMCIA drive bay units, whatever, and I always have to go find drivers for those devices, then for the PCMCIA devices, and plug them in, many combos don't work, lock up the PC, prevent it from booting, don't get recognized even with drivers installed, or do get recognized, driver loaded, but just don't "take" as far as the OS is concerned.
Nah, it has a long way to go. Another "Mac" idea was requiring hardware to configure itself, or at least prompt the user to push in the install floppy, which executes and configures automatically. I'll never forget the idiocy of using a PC at work for the first time (after college) and, what the hell is with all this IRQ crap, I/O port address stuff, just to get my modem working? How in God's name do I find this out (no Internet back then)? Why doesn't the manual say? Where is my computer's manual? What's all this IRQ crap in Duke Nukem just to get the SoundBlaster to work? WTH?
All you PC programmers suck! It was the only logical, rational conclusion.
Re:The day when computers program themselves
on
Autonomic Computing
·
· Score: 1
This is the common myth that troubles European countries because they believe it and implement laws based on it.
Productivity increases of any type -- cheaper labor, more automation, better manufacturing techniques, revolutionary ideas -- all increase the overall quality of life for society, whatever the temporary bumps.
If everyone still works a 40 hour week, then quite simply, all that much more work is done, and everyone lives a better life. Europe trades off that productivity increase by decreasing hours worked. This gives more free time (good) but you don't get that for free. This makes inefficiency, leading not to decreased unemployment, but increased unemployment.
The ultimate of this, of course, is to have Reed Richards invent a machine that produces copies of anything, including itself, and start passing them around.
By European, or the "oh no, this is progress?!?!?" theory of economics, everyone will be out of a job and starve. Yet what would happen is exactly the opposite. For a few $ a year of energy, people will have all the food, excellent items, big houses, and whatnot that they could desire.
> This could add a real safty factor, seeing as 95%
> of autos are driven by poorly skilled drivers.
More than a few Sci-Fi stories have proposed as part of the background that human-driven vehicles will be outlawed on the general roads simply because they are the only ones causing any accidents anymore.
> No expert would wipe a hard drive as a general fix
> for a PC, and would not write these instructions
> into the PC.
Hence any number of OS's where the equivalent of "rm *.* -R" never even so much as warned you before forging ahead. I concurr. They were not experts -- they couldn't be. They were forging new ground. They were those who thought performing the first trapeze triple was a fancy thing for the future.
Re:Is there a life expectancy?
on
Autonomic Computing
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The most likely cause for aging and death are that evolution never bred for that. By the time things start winding down -- late 30's to early 40's -- a dozen children have been squoze out, thus instantiating "evolution" as highly successful for that individual -- and with it only the genes that guaranteed "youthfulness" into the late 30's to early 40's.
Yes, continued breeding into the 40's, 50's, 120's, etc. would indeed add to the age via genetics, but it is relatively minor and must overcome the energetic, wanting-the-females up and coming next generation to actually get the females.
Furthermore, we do probably gain the slow advantage of increased age from evolution. Do any other mammals live as long as humans, even given ideal nutrition? Close, yes, but we should be dying in our 40's or 50's of old age after a healthy life based on our size, not 70's and 80's. For thousands of years, some people, mainly kings and the wealthy, have lived to old age even by modern standards, and they have continued to breed up into that great age, passing along their genes. I will bet this is the source of what appears to be the relatively unnaturally long healthy lifespan vis-a-vis other mammal species.
We'll probably get the first big forays into extended life (well, second after good nutrition) via replacement parts. More $$$ for acephalous cloning experiments now! After that, chemistry (or other stem cell research) into preventing/reversing brain breakdown. More $$$ for cloning research now!
Actually, it's all supply and demand. Programming, engineering, and medical are common fields yet the pay is good.
Art is a fairly rare field, and the pay generally sucks. Acting, music too. Sucks, unless you bedome popular, then you become a natural monopoly on "you" and your pay skyrockets.
I've a 2-story great room. 100" is kind of small. This tech is moving forward so slowly.
When's that damned HDTV-quality, cheap TI massively-tiny mirror thing going to move out of the rediculous business presentation camp and into the home consumer non-wealthy market?
Of course, the first thing any serious Quake player will do is disable force feedback, how much the gun weight, etc. In fact, I doubt it would do much against the "Thresh" configuration, with independent fingers controlling each of f, b, strafe l, strafe r.
The purpose of giving the federal government the power to regulate interstate trade was to allow them to prevent states from imposing tarif, tarrif, uh, taxes or other barriers, bannings, on things flowing through them to other states.
It has been perverted out of all rationality. Why must a local hotel of one building adhere to federal laws to have a handicap ramp? Because a businessman from another state *might* stay there, and thus it falls under "interstate commerce". It's the same reason the feds get involved in schools. Because the intelligence of the next generation might affect interstate commerce. That was the reason behind the "gun-free zone for schools." Because guns might affect schools which might affect intelligence which might at some future date affect interstate commerce.
> I graduated from the University of Kentucky with a
> degree in Telecommunications (was a CS major, but
> couldn't take the math). Unfortunately, it wasn't
> a technical program...[now] I am in charge of the
> ATM backbone
> I should not be forced to take a foreign language
> course if I am fluent in 3 languages
I find it hard to believe anyone who was capable of this couldn't get an opt-out by taking a test of capability.
> nor an art course if I already consider myself
> to be an "artist" - for the sake of being
> "well-rounded".
Usually only 1 art course is required, and if you have a portfolio of serious, professional-level stuff, then I'm sure you could opt out, too. If not, have fun making fun of your professor.
> This is not to say peripheral subjects is not a
> good idea - in moderation. Take a semester
> learning something non-technical just for fun.
>
Then, your.sig
> Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And if it weren't, a couple of "fun" courses wouldn't do much to tell you otherwise, eh?
> What a moronically idealistic interpretation of
> the ability to vote. What an even more infuriating
> belief that one should be forced to take such a
> class.
The number of people who voted for Clinton because he chews his lower lip well probably outnumber Linux users by 1000:1. Aside from that, you have a good, umm, point about the ability to vote.
As far as "being forced to take", you are viewing a university as if it were a buffet where you don't want to be forced to drink your milk and eat your vegetables. You just wanna pick the cheesburger and chocolate milk.
Well, guess again. Universities do have a decent handle on the types of things that do benefit general life thought.
Don't believe me? The earth's about to die from pollution! True? As far as you know. Why? I said so and you have no way to question this.
The biggest harm to people the last 150 years has been big business. True? As far as you know. Why? I said so and you have no way to question this.
Vox populi, vox dei? Eh?? True, as far as you know. Why? Many people say so, and you have no way to question this.
I don't know what any of you people are talking about.
The last time I checked, "well-rounded" meant, if you were focusing on science:
1. Taking one intro science course not in your major
2. Taking 2 or 3 "humanities"
3. Taking 2 or 3 "social studies"
Adds up to a semester and a half, not all that much since it's a course per semester over your education.
And yes, you do learn important things, assuming you pay attention.
Like when if an artist makes it look remotely like a penis, it almost always is a penis, especially in advertisement.
That attacking a loved thing makes you hated (known, but Burger King suffered for years because they kept attacking McDonald's.) Remember this the next time you argue politics.
That historically, one nation's god was the next nation over's devil.
That racism as a basis for slavery is a relatively recent concoction used to justify continued slavery after Western thought otherwise got rid of it (and not the Bible, sorry, bzzzt. Guess again. God doesn't care if you have slaves.) Historically, if your village or city-state lost a war, sorry, Charlie, if you were still alive after that, you were a slave.
That people will build up an emotional investment in their beliefs, and that the greater the investment, the more anger they have when their beliefs are questioned, especially if their beliefs are eviscerated logically. This forms the basis for problems discussing religion and politics.
Nah, let's all just study technical things so we can be Heinlein's "brain bugs" in Starship Troopers, doing technical work for our liberal arts lawyer masters, abso-fucking-lutely oblivious to manipulations around us.
While this is nice, the government is rather ballsy in thinking it can tax enterprises in outer space to begin with, even in orbit. That's not their jurisdiction.
>>> Trek..soft core porn, etc.
>>
>> It doesn't really fit into the series about
>> exploration and discovery.
>
> That statement is ASKING for a silly comment.
In a land of "You there! You look 37. Have you kissed a girl, yet?" there are many things that need exploration and discovery.
Slashdot Mirror
I never use the ISP-supplied E-mail anyway, except once a month or so to check on messages from the ISP (and even then usually forget to check that regularly.)
I use longer-term ISP addresses, like Hotmail (ok, MS has access to me that way) and AOL.
> All the newer interfaces (USB, IEEE-1394, PCI, PCMCIA)
PCMCIA is still a sack of shit. I have any number of laptops, PCMCIA cards, tower drive PCMCIA drive bay units, whatever, and I always have to go find drivers for those devices, then for the PCMCIA devices, and plug them in, many combos don't work, lock up the PC, prevent it from booting, don't get recognized even with drivers installed, or do get recognized, driver loaded, but just don't "take" as far as the OS is concerned.
Nah, it has a long way to go. Another "Mac" idea was requiring hardware to configure itself, or at least prompt the user to push in the install floppy, which executes and configures automatically. I'll never forget the idiocy of using a PC at work for the first time (after college) and, what the hell is with all this IRQ crap, I/O port address stuff, just to get my modem working? How in God's name do I find this out (no Internet back then)? Why doesn't the manual say? Where is my computer's manual? What's all this IRQ crap in Duke Nukem just to get the SoundBlaster to work? WTH?
All you PC programmers suck! It was the only logical, rational conclusion.
This is the common myth that troubles European countries because they believe it and implement laws based on it.
Productivity increases of any type -- cheaper labor, more automation, better manufacturing techniques, revolutionary ideas -- all increase the overall quality of life for society, whatever the temporary bumps.
If everyone still works a 40 hour week, then quite simply, all that much more work is done, and everyone lives a better life. Europe trades off that productivity increase by decreasing hours worked. This gives more free time (good) but you don't get that for free. This makes inefficiency, leading not to decreased unemployment, but increased unemployment.
The ultimate of this, of course, is to have Reed Richards invent a machine that produces copies of anything, including itself, and start passing them around.
By European, or the "oh no, this is progress?!?!?" theory of economics, everyone will be out of a job and starve. Yet what would happen is exactly the opposite. For a few $ a year of energy, people will have all the food, excellent items, big houses, and whatnot that they could desire.
> This could add a real safty factor, seeing as 95%
> of autos are driven by poorly skilled drivers.
More than a few Sci-Fi stories have proposed as part of the background that human-driven vehicles will be outlawed on the general roads simply because they are the only ones causing any accidents anymore.
> No expert would wipe a hard drive as a general fix
> for a PC, and would not write these instructions
> into the PC.
Hence any number of OS's where the equivalent of "rm *.* -R" never even so much as warned you before forging ahead. I concurr. They were not experts -- they couldn't be. They were forging new ground. They were those who thought performing the first trapeze triple was a fancy thing for the future.
> How do I/T customers want computing systems to function?
Sigh. They want to just pull it out of the box and plug idiot-proof plugs into various wall recepticals and just turn the damned thing on and be on the net and be able to send E-mail.
The most likely cause for aging and death are that evolution never bred for that. By the time things start winding down -- late 30's to early 40's -- a dozen children have been squoze out, thus instantiating "evolution" as highly successful for that individual -- and with it only the genes that guaranteed "youthfulness" into the late 30's to early 40's.
Yes, continued breeding into the 40's, 50's, 120's, etc. would indeed add to the age via genetics, but it is relatively minor and must overcome the energetic, wanting-the-females up and coming next generation to actually get the females.
Furthermore, we do probably gain the slow advantage of increased age from evolution. Do any other mammals live as long as humans, even given ideal nutrition? Close, yes, but we should be dying in our 40's or 50's of old age after a healthy life based on our size, not 70's and 80's. For thousands of years, some people, mainly kings and the wealthy, have lived to old age even by modern standards, and they have continued to breed up into that great age, passing along their genes. I will bet this is the source of what appears to be the relatively unnaturally long healthy lifespan vis-a-vis other mammal species.
We'll probably get the first big forays into extended life (well, second after good nutrition) via replacement parts. More $$$ for acephalous cloning experiments now! After that, chemistry (or other stem cell research) into preventing/reversing brain breakdown. More $$$ for cloning research now!
Actually, it's all supply and demand. Programming, engineering, and medical are common fields yet the pay is good.
Art is a fairly rare field, and the pay generally sucks. Acting, music too. Sucks, unless you bedome popular, then you become a natural monopoly on "you" and your pay skyrockets.
I've a 2-story great room. 100" is kind of small. This tech is moving forward so slowly.
When's that damned HDTV-quality, cheap TI massively-tiny mirror thing going to move out of the rediculous business presentation camp and into the home consumer non-wealthy market?
Sounds like someone got a little confused by this and a similar statement he did make, while president, about the Nicaraguan Contras.
Of course, the first thing any serious Quake player will do is disable force feedback, how much the gun weight, etc. In fact, I doubt it would do much against the "Thresh" configuration, with independent fingers controlling each of f, b, strafe l, strafe r.
Ehh, like wearing seat belts, it'll be the generation that grows up with this that will look upon you as an oddball.
Is this substantially different from Heinlein's waldos?
The purpose of giving the federal government the power to regulate interstate trade was to allow them to prevent states from imposing tarif, tarrif, uh, taxes or other barriers, bannings, on things flowing through them to other states.
It has been perverted out of all rationality. Why must a local hotel of one building adhere to federal laws to have a handicap ramp? Because a businessman from another state *might* stay there, and thus it falls under "interstate commerce". It's the same reason the feds get involved in schools. Because the intelligence of the next generation might affect interstate commerce. That was the reason behind the "gun-free zone for schools." Because guns might affect schools which might affect intelligence which might at some future date affect interstate commerce.
> I graduated from the University of Kentucky with a
:)
> degree in Telecommunications (was a CS major, but
> couldn't take the math). Unfortunately, it wasn't
> a technical program...[now] I am in charge of the
> ATM backbone
That enheartens me. >:(
> I should not be forced to take a foreign language
> course if I am fluent in 3 languages
I find it hard to believe anyone who was capable of this couldn't get an opt-out by taking a test of capability.
> nor an art course if I already consider myself
> to be an "artist" - for the sake of being
> "well-rounded".
Usually only 1 art course is required, and if you have a portfolio of serious, professional-level stuff, then I'm sure you could opt out, too. If not, have fun making fun of your professor.
> Anonymous Cowards filtered. If their words aren?t
> worth so much as a nom de plume why should I value
> them any mor
Becaus that is their nom de plum. Som, indeed, may be afraid and treat it rather as a nom de guerr.
> This is not to say peripheral subjects is not a .sig
> good idea - in moderation. Take a semester
> learning something non-technical just for fun.
>
Then, your
> Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And if it weren't, a couple of "fun" courses wouldn't do much to tell you otherwise, eh?
> What a moronically idealistic interpretation of
> the ability to vote. What an even more infuriating
> belief that one should be forced to take such a
> class.
The number of people who voted for Clinton because he chews his lower lip well probably outnumber Linux users by 1000:1. Aside from that, you have a good, umm, point about the ability to vote.
As far as "being forced to take", you are viewing a university as if it were a buffet where you don't want to be forced to drink your milk and eat your vegetables. You just wanna pick the cheesburger and chocolate milk.
Well, guess again. Universities do have a decent handle on the types of things that do benefit general life thought.
Don't believe me? The earth's about to die from pollution! True? As far as you know. Why? I said so and you have no way to question this.
The biggest harm to people the last 150 years has been big business. True? As far as you know. Why? I said so and you have no way to question this.
Vox populi, vox dei? Eh?? True, as far as you know. Why? Many people say so, and you have no way to question this.
> Greek mythology and American history are valuable
> subjects if you want to do more with your brain
> than hold down a job.
Or if you want your vote to means something more than that you accept at face value the shit all the politicians spew forth on a daily basis.
I don't know what any of you people are talking about.
The last time I checked, "well-rounded" meant, if you were focusing on science:
1. Taking one intro science course not in your major
2. Taking 2 or 3 "humanities"
3. Taking 2 or 3 "social studies"
Adds up to a semester and a half, not all that much since it's a course per semester over your education.
And yes, you do learn important things, assuming you pay attention.
Like when if an artist makes it look remotely like a penis, it almost always is a penis, especially in advertisement.
That attacking a loved thing makes you hated (known, but Burger King suffered for years because they kept attacking McDonald's.) Remember this the next time you argue politics.
That historically, one nation's god was the next nation over's devil.
That racism as a basis for slavery is a relatively recent concoction used to justify continued slavery after Western thought otherwise got rid of it (and not the Bible, sorry, bzzzt. Guess again. God doesn't care if you have slaves.) Historically, if your village or city-state lost a war, sorry, Charlie, if you were still alive after that, you were a slave.
That people will build up an emotional investment in their beliefs, and that the greater the investment, the more anger they have when their beliefs are questioned, especially if their beliefs are eviscerated logically. This forms the basis for problems discussing religion and politics.
Nah, let's all just study technical things so we can be Heinlein's "brain bugs" in Starship Troopers, doing technical work for our liberal arts lawyer masters, abso-fucking-lutely oblivious to manipulations around us.
Don't forget Al Gore's plan to use it to buy them computers and an Internet connection so they can surf with you, too.
Every bit you make
Every erg you bake
Every breath you take
Every move you make
They'll be taxing you...
Unless they were doing this deliberately to force the issue in the courts to get a precedence that this will NOT be allowed.
> ZERO GRAVITY, ZERO TAX ACT OF 2001
While this is nice, the government is rather ballsy in thinking it can tax enterprises in outer space to begin with, even in orbit. That's not their jurisdiction.
>>> Trek..soft core porn, etc.
>>
>> It doesn't really fit into the series about
>> exploration and discovery.
>
> That statement is ASKING for a silly comment.
In a land of "You there! You look 37. Have you kissed a girl, yet?" there are many things that need exploration and discovery.