You are so full of shit. Not every developing country is a sustainance farming feudalistic one crop away from famine type of nightmare that the western TV likes to display. There are plenty (majority) of developing nations where the basic needs are met, yet the access to technology is severely limited because it's simply too expensive.
Case in point? Myself.
I grew up in rural Eastern Europe in the early eighties where life of most teenagers consisted of playing soccer on a dirt field and getting into trouble with the local cops. Unlike most other kids, my parents were thoughtful enough to save up $100 bucks and get me a second hand ZX Spectrum that someone smuggled from the west. It was primitive, limited and had severe quality issue. And I loved it. Now, I work as a senior developer making more than most people in the west, thanks to my early (self) education in programming.
I sooooo dig the OLPC project. If it comes to fruition I'll sponsor at least 20 laptops for those kids. Rising tide lifts all the boats.
And I have to say that Elbot is still by far and away, the most real sounding of the bunch. He still does get trapped, but the responses in those cases feel much more natural than with the other bots.
The joke is very lame. If the editors had the balls to continue the "Pony" theme for say, a week, then you'd have some sort of a Kaufmanesque type reality joke. However, I am 100% sure that come midnight the pony theme will be gone and everyone will consider this the lamest April Fools on slashdot to date. Deservedly so.
Lvov was a part of Poland then (many Poles still consider the city as being stolen from them by the Yalta deal) and he wrote in Polish and Polish only. Not in Ukranian, not in Russian. So he was as Polish as anyone born and raised in Warsaw. Case settled.
You're also trying to take Mickiewicz from them knowing that he's considered Poland's foremost writer and poet who helped maintain the spirit of the nation during some very trying times (Russia/Prussia/Austria 19th century annexion). FYI Lithuenia was in a union with Poland for several centuries and many, many people then considered themselves being both Polish and Lithuenian the same way that Scots consider themselves Scottish as well as British.
Your qualification that you're "not a Polish basher" sounds hollow given given that antipolonism has strong roots in America, stronger perhaps even than antisemitism.
Well, whatever you say. English _is_ my second language and I couldn't come up with a good pun in my life depended on it. Maybe I'm just not a very witty person in general...
The "Arab terrist" mythology is as much anecdotal evidence as my empirical experience. Since I trust my own experiences more than I trust the "big media" I'll go with my gut feel that on average, Arabs are funny and sociable. Much more so than the BBC/CNN/Fox want you to believe. Oh yeah, I did mention the Beeb in that group. They're just as biased as their American counterparts. They just talk with British accents and thus sound more smug and condescending.
When at my uni (long time ago, years before 9/11) I used to hang out with a bunch of Arabs. Most were from Jordan and one guy was from Syria.
They were some of the funniest people I ever met. They were able to come up with some hillarious puns in English even though it was their second language. How is that for a language skill? I've always been amazed at the mastery of the English language by Arab students, but I digress...
What gets me is the portrayal of muslims in the west, as people completely devoid of any sense of humour. It really could not be further from the truth.
If more westerners mingled with them, they'd realize just how sociable and interesting Arab people are. Of course, they have their own culture but they are much more open minded than the western media would make you believe. In fact they are far more open minded than most westerners I know.
The expectations change though. If those websites don't improve their appearance, speed and search technology I see a quickly growing google hegemony in the near future.
Perfect comparison. Those super duper high end gaming platforms is like people with ultra expensive DSLRs who can't take a nice photo to save their lives. The superb camera hadware they use, just helps them create sucky photos that happen to be really sharp.
Same deal with the game console race. Lots of cpu power wasted on brainless WWII shooters that don't even look very realistic either.
MWI is not any more far fetched than Copenhagen. Either will lead to the same math equations just in a different way. But by all standards of human logic both cannot be right at the same time.
Chernobyl was a bomb fuel making factory that was built to look like an atomic power station. That it generated some electricity in th process was a nice side effect but the Soviets didn't much care for that. Safety was also not a priority. Making nuke fuel was the goal number one.
How about a nice Gyrotourbillon?
It'll only set you back oh, maybe a quarter of a million USD. That or something with a minute repeater. Anything else is pure junk.
Well in this case it is a bad business model because those who do not yet have iPods or other mp3 devices represent the more conservative consumer market ie. they are not early adopters. Those people have not felt the need for a broadband connection and they likely won't fancy "upgrading" their dvd players so fast.
Those who do have broadband are much more likely to forgo the blockbuster stores thus making blockbuster totally redundant for Apple. And that's why Cringely is full of it.
I'm actually this *extreme* case. The house is all baseboard electric heat (believe it or not, that is the cheapest way to heat a house in my area and the majority of homes use electric baseboard here) so energy efficient bulbs provide no benefit at all as most light is used in winter time when nights are long and cold. Same goes for water tanks vs tankless systems. My tank is in the basement and whatever heat does escape from it it's simply reducing the amount time the electric baseboard has to come on. obviously that is only true in the winter so there would be some savings in replacing it with a tankless system. However, it would take many, many years to recoup the cost of a tankless water heater.
I'm actually a big fan of electric baseboard and recommend it anywhere where it's affordable. It's very simple to install and maintain, there are no moving parts, breakages are typically localized to a single room, there is no furnace to uprgrade, maintain fix etc. It's a win-win deal and I don't understand why the USA still pushes natural gas as a way to heat homes given that the natural gas situation is even more precarious than for liquid oil.
I can beat this. Not only did I not get a console, I got a ZX Spectrum 48K one Christmas and was hooked from day one. The kicker is though, I had no tape recorder to load any games into it because my parents were too poor to buy one (honest story). My only entertainment with it for the first year was to write silly Basic programs. I still had a ball with it. Clive Sinclair is a wizard.
If you're interested in say, Quantum Mechanics, I can see why certain belief in spirituality may be justified (consciousness collapses the wavefunction etc). However, if anything this seems to be more related to the beliefs of the far East than to Christianity.
Because as far as I can tell it's only some American Christian fundamenalist sects that believe in Intelligent Design. I believe Catholicism, Islam and Buddhism (ie. the big three) are all OK with evolution.
But the whole point is that time did move slower for the guy in the spacecraft. The two reference systems are not symmetrical (you seem to be confused by this fallacy). The time flowed 12x slower for the guy in the spacecraft. Read up on the "twin paradox" and why it's not a paradox at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Case in point? Myself.
I grew up in rural Eastern Europe in the early eighties where life of most teenagers consisted of playing soccer on a dirt field and getting into trouble with the local cops. Unlike most other kids, my parents were thoughtful enough to save up $100 bucks and get me a second hand ZX Spectrum that someone smuggled from the west. It was primitive, limited and had severe quality issue. And I loved it. Now, I work as a senior developer making more than most people in the west, thanks to my early (self) education in programming.
I sooooo dig the OLPC project. If it comes to fruition I'll sponsor at least 20 laptops for those kids. Rising tide lifts all the boats.
And I have to say that Elbot is still by far and away, the most real sounding of the bunch. He still does get trapped, but the responses in those cases feel much more natural than with the other bots.
The joke is very lame. If the editors had the balls to continue the "Pony" theme for say, a week, then you'd have some sort of a Kaufmanesque type reality joke. However, I am 100% sure that come midnight the pony theme will be gone and everyone will consider this the lamest April Fools on slashdot to date. Deservedly so.
You're also trying to take Mickiewicz from them knowing that he's considered Poland's foremost writer and poet who helped maintain the spirit of the nation during some very trying times (Russia/Prussia/Austria 19th century annexion). FYI Lithuenia was in a union with Poland for several centuries and many, many people then considered themselves being both Polish and Lithuenian the same way that Scots consider themselves Scottish as well as British.
Your qualification that you're "not a Polish basher" sounds hollow given given that antipolonism has strong roots in America, stronger perhaps even than antisemitism.
Yeah, except you'd never have guessed that from the way they're shown in the western media.
Well, whatever you say. English _is_ my second language and I couldn't come up with a good pun in my life depended on it. Maybe I'm just not a very witty person in general...
Their puns were intentional. I should have clarified that.
The "Arab terrist" mythology is as much anecdotal evidence as my empirical experience. Since I trust my own experiences more than I trust the "big media" I'll go with my gut feel that on average, Arabs are funny and sociable. Much more so than the BBC/CNN/Fox want you to believe. Oh yeah, I did mention the Beeb in that group. They're just as biased as their American counterparts. They just talk with British accents and thus sound more smug and condescending.
They were some of the funniest people I ever met. They were able to come up with some hillarious puns in English even though it was their second language. How is that for a language skill? I've always been amazed at the mastery of the English language by Arab students, but I digress...
What gets me is the portrayal of muslims in the west, as people completely devoid of any sense of humour. It really could not be further from the truth.
If more westerners mingled with them, they'd realize just how sociable and interesting Arab people are. Of course, they have their own culture but they are much more open minded than the western media would make you believe. In fact they are far more open minded than most westerners I know.
The expectations change though. If those websites don't improve their appearance, speed and search technology I see a quickly growing google hegemony in the near future.
http://www.amazon.com/
Butt ugly, horrible backends and still rolling in dough.
Same deal with the game console race. Lots of cpu power wasted on brainless WWII shooters that don't even look very realistic either.
Given that those things aren't made of actual gold anymore, perhaps this is more of a Freudian slip than a typo?
MWI is not any more far fetched than Copenhagen. Either will lead to the same math equations just in a different way. But by all standards of human logic both cannot be right at the same time.
Chernobyl was a bomb fuel making factory that was built to look like an atomic power station. That it generated some electricity in th process was a nice side effect but the Soviets didn't much care for that. Safety was also not a priority. Making nuke fuel was the goal number one.
How about a nice Gyrotourbillon? It'll only set you back oh, maybe a quarter of a million USD. That or something with a minute repeater. Anything else is pure junk.
Those who do have broadband are much more likely to forgo the blockbuster stores thus making blockbuster totally redundant for Apple. And that's why Cringely is full of it.
I'm actually a big fan of electric baseboard and recommend it anywhere where it's affordable. It's very simple to install and maintain, there are no moving parts, breakages are typically localized to a single room, there is no furnace to uprgrade, maintain fix etc. It's a win-win deal and I don't understand why the USA still pushes natural gas as a way to heat homes given that the natural gas situation is even more precarious than for liquid oil.
yessir, guilty as charged :)
I can beat this. Not only did I not get a console, I got a ZX Spectrum 48K one Christmas and was hooked from day one. The kicker is though, I had no tape recorder to load any games into it because my parents were too poor to buy one (honest story). My only entertainment with it for the first year was to write silly Basic programs. I still had a ball with it. Clive Sinclair is a wizard.
If you're interested in say, Quantum Mechanics, I can see why certain belief in spirituality may be justified (consciousness collapses the wavefunction etc). However, if anything this seems to be more related to the beliefs of the far East than to Christianity.
There are lots of similarities between Bush's and Hitler's style of governing. What's your point?
Because as far as I can tell it's only some American Christian fundamenalist sects that believe in Intelligent Design. I believe Catholicism, Islam and Buddhism (ie. the big three) are all OK with evolution.
But the whole point is that time did move slower for the guy in the spacecraft. The two reference systems are not symmetrical (you seem to be confused by this fallacy). The time flowed 12x slower for the guy in the spacecraft. Read up on the "twin paradox" and why it's not a paradox at all.