With that much kissing up, you're obviously some kind of sock puppet. Get a life. You think posting AC will protect you? Bzzzzzt! Wrong! I'm writing an email to Taco right now - consider yourself BANNED.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Mac Zealots, Please Note: I'm not knocking OSX, and I'm not knocking this book, and I'm not knocking the review. It's just not front page material. Let me explain.
It doesn't apply to people who don't use OSX, and it doesn't really apply to experienced users of OSX. It only applies to a very specific subset of a very small userbase, ONE WHICH HAS THEIR OWN SECTION.
It's like having a filing cabinet marked "Apple Stuff" and then putting all your files into "Miscellaneous" instead. If the article is of WIDESPREAD GENERAL INTEREST, then put it on the front page. If it is IMPORTANT or URGENT (like security alerts), put it on the front page. Otherwise, put it ONLY where it belongs. We ARE smart enough to find it.
Slashdot Editors: PLEASE use the system YOU yourselves have created. The main page should have LESS superfluous junk on it, and the sections should be more specific and detailed. If we want to read about Apple, we click the Apple link. If we want to read about BSD, we click BSD. It's easy. It's logical. It works. Unless YOU don't let it work. Please be discerning. I don't see a book review as a "Headlining Story".
Or are you going to have a Slashdot Platinum Supreme(tm) plan, where we pay to have things sorted correctly?;-)
Everytime a company starts pushing for stupid, anal patents like this one, I swear I can psychically hear their accountants jingling the company's last two coins together and nodding ruefully.
In other words, Amazon's fast on the way to a permanent financial dirt nap and are desperate to stay alive by any means necessary - kind of like SCO.
If basic economic information like that is FLAMEBAIT, then I'd hate to see what you "Patriots" think of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's dealings with Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, and Harken Oil.
It's so sad that you mods actually believe the CIA, George W, and the rest of the US Government aren't just a *wee bit dirty*, despite decades worth of overwhelming evidence. Give me a break. Or did you forget it all?
The bottom line is that corruption, whether by the Republicans, Democrats, or whoever, hurts everyone. Just because you "love George W" and you "believe in America" doesn't make it right, and the sooner you realize that your "favoritest president of all time" must be held accountable for his actions, the sooner we can safeguard America against a total loss of freedoms and a total fascist state.
If you don't understand or agree with me, I don't care. Read a book or use google. You'll figure it out eventually. But not before you and your brown-nosing, turn-a-blind-eye attitude do irreperable harm to the country you claim to love.
Actually, the current proprietary government-owned GPS System was not paid for by tax dollars, but by heroin and cocaine revenues and the sale of military-grade plutonium, missiles and helicopters to middle east and south american nations. Don't laugh - we NEED to sell weapons and drugs to service our MASSIVE federal debt. If we can't make our payments (very possible), we'll be declared bankrupt by the big financiers of the world, and all the George Soros' out there will short us into the ground (and rightly so). Our dollar is already losing its "holy grail" status internationally...
But soon, our newfound oil revenues help us to prop up our failing system almost indefinitely, so no worries.
Your tax dollars DO pay for George W's $1100 haircuts though. Damn, his cousin must cut hair good.
1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media... An attempt to bypass peer review by taking a new result directly to the media, and thence to the public, suggests that the work is unlikely to stand up to close examination by other scientists.
The world of science is being affected by the media far more than the media is affected by science. If somebody comes up with an anti-gravity machine, for example, it is QUITE possible that they will try to secure their place in history by announcing it directly to the media, to prevent the news from leaking prematurely or other scientists from stealing the idea, or, heaven forbid, patenting it before the originator can claim "prior art". The other scientists can examine it to their hearts content, ONCE the originator has had his day in the sun. Look at Apple's secrecy with their products. News leaks KILL these people. The same psychological principles hold true for a scientist who comes up with something completely new. Look at the greatest invention of the 20th Century, the Segway [snicker].
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
Yes, conspiracy theorists often seem like quackpots. But to discount the POSSIBILITY of establishment interference is to deny basic economic theories of self-preservation. Don't you think it's possible that oil companies would fight to stop alternative fuels from coming forth, or would they welcome their own doom joyously? Would Microsoft welcome a perfect disassembler that would reveal all their source code, or would they see this as a threat? Does Microsoft support Java for its cross-platform functionality? How about a pill that took the place of food, would MacDonalds say, "Sounds good, who cares about the bottom line and the millions of jobs we're going to lose?" If the establishment didn't want to preserve the status quo at all costs, FUD wouldn't exist. But it DOES exist, and I see it being used daily to kill small innovators (BeOS, anyone?). NOBODY welcomes a better product or idea if it's coming from a competitor.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection. Alas, there is never a clear photograph of a flying saucer, or the Loch Ness monster. Thousands of published papers in para-psychology, for example, claim to report verified instances of telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition. But those effects show up only in tortured analyses of statistics. The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn't really there.
Nice science - If we can't prove something exists, it doesn't. This ignores the reality that our scientific methods are still in their infancy. *Of course* we can't prove aliens exist in the billions of galaxies out there, we can't even make our own space shuttles work without exploding. And just because I've never been to China doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. There are enough people who claim to have been there, and many even have photographs of it, but I've never been there, so I wisely discount these "tourists" as quacks. Same goes for religious experiences, aliens, telepathy, precognition, etc. 100 years ago, Nuclear Power would have seemed insane, but not because it is "crazy", but because our own limitations prevented it from becoming reality for us. Everything is "at the very limit of detection" at one time or another.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal. If modern science has learned anything in the past century, it is to distrust anecdotal evidence. Because anecdotes have a very strong emotional impact, they serve to keep superstitious beliefs alive in an age of science. The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't. Contrary to the saying, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote."
See my last answer. Anecdotal evidence is not hard science, but it points toward science. The millions of people who speak in tongues should direct scientists toward examining the possibility and searching to explain and understand the phenomena. Scientists must keep their minds open, not closed.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries. There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed "alternative medicine" is part of that myth. Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the output of modern scientific laboratories.
Acupuncture. Works.
And a lot of "old wives tales" have a logical scientific basis that was undiscovered until much later. But people recognized that certain things worked for them, for whatever reasons (like bread poultices, washing regularly to prevent illness, etc.) And I still think the Pyramids, the ancient batteries, and Captain Kidd's Island security system are pretty cool. Oh yeah, crop circles, Bermuda Triangle, blah blah blah. We don't understand everything, but we also shouldn't discount everything we don't understand, either. I personally don't understand wrestling, so it must be a hoax, too... No, wait, bad example...
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
Didn't ALL the great scientists work in isolation? It's hard to say "Nobody understands me" when everybody you know works at your lab 8 hours a day and is in total agreement with your seemingly insane ideas. Same with persecution. Persecution never happened, since everybody was on the same page. "You're right, dude, the world ISN'T flat!" "The world revolves around the WHAT?? Oh, yeah, right. Okay, cool. I'll change the history books." "God isn't smiting the sinners with the Black Plague, it's just a disease? Damn, shoulda known. Thanks for the update."
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.
That Einstein guy was a quack. Same with Newton. Same with Copernicus. Our knowledge of the world is full and complete and needs no revision. Thank you.
Okay, I took a handfull of those little processors that power my digital watch, wired them together with the help of sixteen garden gnomes, a spoonful of peanut butter, and a ziplock bag of weasel-flavored cocaine, and currently have them running BeOS6 inside an old Doc Marten boot that was worn by Marilyn Manson on his "Antichrist Superstar" tour. They are currently clocked to 100 Trillion Zigahertz, which is defined as whatever you have plus one. Thank you.
As for the color of the chip, Apple had originally intended to use 'Banana'. Unfortunately, they were served with a cease and desist from Intel over concern that it might be confused with Banias.
At which time, Steve Jobs and Jon Ives chose the color of an apple, but were immediately served with a Cease and Desist from their own lawyers, who said they were having "a slow day".
Has anyone checked Mac OSX's communications with home base for similar things?
Yes, I know you probably want to mod me a troll for flagrantly questioning dear old Apple's motives, but Apple Corporate isn't *really* that much nicer than Microsoft. It's quite possible that Apple's doing the same - or worse. I just want to know.
One - I'll be able to make a HUGE wad (sorry) of cash off this one, and
Two - I'm pretty damn sure nobody will be whacked enough (sorry again) to come forward with any "prior art" (jeez, sorry sorry sorry)
The only problem is it's not really an "invention" per se. But I'm gonna get a Microsoft leftover lawyer, so reality won't matter much. I'm gonna be richer than Bill Gates, the last guy to successfully charge the world for getting f*&%$ked.
But seriously - the more stupid patents, the more ridiculous the system becomes, and the quicker someone with power and a brain (a rare combo, to be sure) wakes up and throws the whole system in the trash.
It's hard being a mindless Apple zealot with Apple changing their minds so much. Our job as zealots is to screamingly defend whatever Apple does without thinking or considering what's best for the user or common sense. We defend Apple Corporation's interests over the users' desires at all costs. Our job is to claim tabs suck when they don't have tabs, the G4 1Ghz is as fast as the Pentium4 3.0Ghz, RISC is better than CISC, slower memory and busspeed is a GOOD thing, proprietary software is freer than open source, Safari Beta is more stable than established and mature browsers, paying for.Mac is a privilege, Steve didn't lie when he said "Free Forever.Mac", using the DMCA is justified when Apple does it but not anyone else, etc etc.
Originally, all us zealots had to violently attack everyone who said tabs were a good idea, saying they were crude and unintuitive. Now, we have to do a complete reversal and furiously attack anyone who is against tabs. It just never ends.
The life of a spin doctor is a tough one, but immensely satisfying.
And for you first person shooter fans, all we need to do is give Tux a gun and a psychopatic personality and we've got something really special all the kids can get into. "Dressed like James Bond, cool as ice, it's... Tux the chubby linux... penguin
Slashdot Mirror
With that much kissing up, you're obviously some kind of sock puppet. Get a life. You think posting AC will protect you? Bzzzzzt! Wrong! I'm writing an email to Taco right now - consider yourself BANNED.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Reading YOUR POST is a waste of time.
Screw off, go back to your Fark you faggot.
I agree, masq. Good point. You're obviously a super-intelligent guy.
:-(
Too bad those crazy mods hate you.
If I had mod points, you'd be +5, Informative! But instead I'm just a humble AC
Best,
Fred
that's not flamebait, that's FUNNY.
/. is a waste of time until tomorrow.
That's exactly how I feel.
Surfing
If I'm gonna get fired for reading Slashdot all day at work, at least I wanna read something USEFUL!!!
Gotta go, here comes the boss.
[with awe]
The. Ultimate. Napster.
Mac Zealots, Please Note: I'm not knocking OSX, and I'm not knocking this book, and I'm not knocking the review. It's just not front page material. Let me explain.
;-)
It doesn't apply to people who don't use OSX, and it doesn't really apply to experienced users of OSX. It only applies to a very specific subset of a very small userbase, ONE WHICH HAS THEIR OWN SECTION.
It's like having a filing cabinet marked "Apple Stuff" and then putting all your files into "Miscellaneous" instead. If the article is of WIDESPREAD GENERAL INTEREST, then put it on the front page. If it is IMPORTANT or URGENT (like security alerts), put it on the front page. Otherwise, put it ONLY where it belongs. We ARE smart enough to find it.
Slashdot Editors: PLEASE use the system YOU yourselves have created. The main page should have LESS superfluous junk on it, and the sections should be more specific and detailed. If we want to read about Apple, we click the Apple link. If we want to read about BSD, we click BSD. It's easy. It's logical. It works. Unless YOU don't let it work. Please be discerning. I don't see a book review as a "Headlining Story".
Or are you going to have a Slashdot Platinum Supreme(tm) plan, where we pay to have things sorted correctly?
Bah. Don't ask me - what do I know, anyway?
Yours Truly,
J. Jonah Jameson
Daily Bugle
Everytime a company starts pushing for stupid, anal patents like this one, I swear I can psychically hear their accountants jingling the company's last two coins together and nodding ruefully.
In other words, Amazon's fast on the way to a permanent financial dirt nap and are desperate to stay alive by any means necessary - kind of like SCO.
If basic economic information like that is FLAMEBAIT, then I'd hate to see what you "Patriots" think of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's dealings with Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, and Harken Oil.
It's so sad that you mods actually believe the CIA, George W, and the rest of the US Government aren't just a *wee bit dirty*, despite decades worth of overwhelming evidence. Give me a break. Or did you forget it all?
The bottom line is that corruption, whether by the Republicans, Democrats, or whoever, hurts everyone. Just because you "love George W" and you "believe in America" doesn't make it right, and the sooner you realize that your "favoritest president of all time" must be held accountable for his actions, the sooner we can safeguard America against a total loss of freedoms and a total fascist state.
If you don't understand or agree with me, I don't care. Read a book or use google. You'll figure it out eventually. But not before you and your brown-nosing, turn-a-blind-eye attitude do irreperable harm to the country you claim to love.
Very True. Thanks for the reminder.
Please Note: I slagged Clinton just as hard while he was in power - I don't have a "biased agenda".
Actually, the current proprietary government-owned GPS System was not paid for by tax dollars, but by heroin and cocaine revenues and the sale of military-grade plutonium, missiles and helicopters to middle east and south american nations. Don't laugh - we NEED to sell weapons and drugs to service our MASSIVE federal debt. If we can't make our payments (very possible), we'll be declared bankrupt by the big financiers of the world, and all the George Soros' out there will short us into the ground (and rightly so). Our dollar is already losing its "holy grail" status internationally...
But soon, our newfound oil revenues help us to prop up our failing system almost indefinitely, so no worries.
Your tax dollars DO pay for George W's $1100 haircuts though. Damn, his cousin must cut hair good.
In the future, please refrain from helping me. Thank you for your cooperation.
The world of science is being affected by the media far more than the media is affected by science. If somebody comes up with an anti-gravity machine, for example, it is QUITE possible that they will try to secure their place in history by announcing it directly to the media, to prevent the news from leaking prematurely or other scientists from stealing the idea, or, heaven forbid, patenting it before the originator can claim "prior art". The other scientists can examine it to their hearts content, ONCE the originator has had his day in the sun. Look at Apple's secrecy with their products. News leaks KILL these people. The same psychological principles hold true for a scientist who comes up with something completely new. Look at the greatest invention of the 20th Century, the Segway [snicker].
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
Yes, conspiracy theorists often seem like quackpots. But to discount the POSSIBILITY of establishment interference is to deny basic economic theories of self-preservation. Don't you think it's possible that oil companies would fight to stop alternative fuels from coming forth, or would they welcome their own doom joyously? Would Microsoft welcome a perfect disassembler that would reveal all their source code, or would they see this as a threat? Does Microsoft support Java for its cross-platform functionality? How about a pill that took the place of food, would MacDonalds say, "Sounds good, who cares about the bottom line and the millions of jobs we're going to lose?" If the establishment didn't want to preserve the status quo at all costs, FUD wouldn't exist. But it DOES exist, and I see it being used daily to kill small innovators (BeOS, anyone?). NOBODY welcomes a better product or idea if it's coming from a competitor.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection. Alas, there is never a clear photograph of a flying saucer, or the Loch Ness monster. Thousands of published papers in para-psychology, for example, claim to report verified instances of telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition. But those effects show up only in tortured analyses of statistics. The researchers can find no way to boost the signal, which suggests that it isn't really there.
Nice science - If we can't prove something exists, it doesn't. This ignores the reality that our scientific methods are still in their infancy. *Of course* we can't prove aliens exist in the billions of galaxies out there, we can't even make our own space shuttles work without exploding. And just because I've never been to China doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. There are enough people who claim to have been there, and many even have photographs of it, but I've never been there, so I wisely discount these "tourists" as quacks. Same goes for religious experiences, aliens, telepathy, precognition, etc. 100 years ago, Nuclear Power would have seemed insane, but not because it is "crazy", but because our own limitations prevented it from becoming reality for us. Everything is "at the very limit of detection" at one time or another.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal. If modern science has learned anything in the past century, it is to distrust anecdotal evidence. Because anecdotes have a very strong emotional impact, they serve to keep superstitious beliefs alive in an age of science. The most important discovery of modern medicine is not vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized double-blind test, by means of which we know what works and what doesn't. Contrary to the saying, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote."
See my last answer. Anecdotal evidence is not hard science, but it points toward science. The millions of people who speak in tongues should direct scientists toward examining the possibility and searching to explain and understand the phenomena. Scientists must keep their minds open, not closed.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries. There is a persistent myth that hundreds or even thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew that blood circulates throughout the body, or that germs cause disease, our ancestors possessed miraculous remedies that modern science cannot understand. Much of what is termed "alternative medicine" is part of that myth. Ancient folk wisdom, rediscovered or repackaged, is unlikely to match the output of modern scientific laboratories.
Acupuncture. Works.
And a lot of "old wives tales" have a logical scientific basis that was undiscovered until much later. But people recognized that certain things worked for them, for whatever reasons (like bread poultices, washing regularly to prevent illness, etc.) And I still think the Pyramids, the ancient batteries, and Captain Kidd's Island security system are pretty cool. Oh yeah, crop circles, Bermuda Triangle, blah blah blah. We don't understand everything, but we also shouldn't discount everything we don't understand, either. I personally don't understand wrestling, so it must be a hoax, too... No, wait, bad example...
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
Didn't ALL the great scientists work in isolation? It's hard to say "Nobody understands me" when everybody you know works at your lab 8 hours a day and is in total agreement with your seemingly insane ideas. Same with persecution. Persecution never happened, since everybody was on the same page. "You're right, dude, the world ISN'T flat!" "The world revolves around the WHAT?? Oh, yeah, right. Okay, cool. I'll change the history books." "God isn't smiting the sinners with the Black Plague, it's just a disease? Damn, shoulda known. Thanks for the update."
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation. A new law of nature, invoked to explain some extraordinary result, must not conflict with what is already known. If we must change existing laws of nature or propose new laws to account for an observation, it is almost certainly wrong.
That Einstein guy was a quack. Same with Newton. Same with Copernicus. Our knowledge of the world is full and complete and needs no revision. Thank you.
You are one scary a**hole.
What exactly is it you do for a living?! Do you hear these silent alarms often?
He said he's 100% Irish. I think that's explanation enough.
Any more of these probing questions and we'll probably be seeing your name in the papers, and I don't mean the funnies.
Okay, I took a handfull of those little processors that power my digital watch, wired them together with the help of sixteen garden gnomes, a spoonful of peanut butter, and a ziplock bag of weasel-flavored cocaine, and currently have them running BeOS6 inside an old Doc Marten boot that was worn by Marilyn Manson on his "Antichrist Superstar" tour. They are currently clocked to 100 Trillion Zigahertz, which is defined as whatever you have plus one. Thank you.
At which time, Steve Jobs and Jon Ives chose the color of an apple, but were immediately served with a Cease and Desist from their own lawyers, who said they were having "a slow day".
Has anyone checked Mac OSX's communications with home base for similar things?
Yes, I know you probably want to mod me a troll for flagrantly questioning dear old Apple's motives, but Apple Corporate isn't *really* that much nicer than Microsoft. It's quite possible that Apple's doing the same - or worse. I just want to know.
Anybody?
One - I'll be able to make a HUGE wad (sorry) of cash off this one, and
Two - I'm pretty damn sure nobody will be whacked enough (sorry again) to come forward with any "prior art" (jeez, sorry sorry sorry)
The only problem is it's not really an "invention" per se. But I'm gonna get a Microsoft leftover lawyer, so reality won't matter much. I'm gonna be richer than Bill Gates, the last guy to successfully charge the world for getting f*&%$ked.
But seriously - the more stupid patents, the more ridiculous the system becomes, and the quicker someone with power and a brain (a rare combo, to be sure) wakes up and throws the whole system in the trash.
Dude, this is Slashdot. If I wasn't misguided, I wouldn't *be* here.
It's hard being a mindless Apple zealot with Apple changing their minds so much. Our job as zealots is to screamingly defend whatever Apple does without thinking or considering what's best for the user or common sense. We defend Apple Corporation's interests over the users' desires at all costs. Our job is to claim tabs suck when they don't have tabs, the G4 1Ghz is as fast as the Pentium4 3.0Ghz, RISC is better than CISC, slower memory and busspeed is a GOOD thing, proprietary software is freer than open source, Safari Beta is more stable than established and mature browsers, paying for .Mac is a privilege, Steve didn't lie when he said "Free Forever .Mac", using the DMCA is justified when Apple does it but not anyone else, etc etc.
Originally, all us zealots had to violently attack everyone who said tabs were a good idea, saying they were crude and unintuitive. Now, we have to do a complete reversal and furiously attack anyone who is against tabs. It just never ends.
The life of a spin doctor is a tough one, but immensely satisfying.
Hello? TUX RACER???!!! Duhh.
... Tux the chubby linux... penguin
Who needs anything more?
And for you first person shooter fans, all we need to do is give Tux a gun and a psychopatic personality and we've got something really special all the kids can get into. "Dressed like James Bond, cool as ice, it's
yeah, i guess i see your point.
Actually, I usually have a copy *before* it comes out.
..that Motorola is somewhat immune to the ravaging effects of Moore's Law.
How did they escape "Moore's" clutches, and more importantly, how do we get them back in?