I read Slashdot on a daily basis but I rarely post comments. Sometimes I read them, and often become annoyed at the triviality the conversations almost always focus on. The times I do actually post, as I am right now, I carefully select my words and structure my sentences so that they're grammatically correct. I have never been attacked by the so-called Slashdot Grammar Nazis.
Sadly, though, my posts almost always go unnoticed, unmodded, and unreplied. Sometimes I wish I weren't such a perfectionist so that someone would actually read and reply, but sadly, everyone seems too busy posting long diatribes about how bad so-and-so's grammar or spelling is, and how important correctness in communication is. I say get over yourselves! If I wasted my time every other post to point out some poor chap's misspelling of some obscure word or abuse of some unheard of grammatical rule I would have time to do nothing else. That would make me an arrogant fool, a bigoted loser, and an unproductive wanker.
If they can't spell immaculately or construct grammatically perfect sentences, who cares? Life goes on. These people will probably go through the rest of their lives not caring, and not encountering many problems in life due to the inability you perceive them to have at communicating. Yes, basic communication skills are necessary for most jobs but the vast majority of the complaining that goes on here is not focused on basic communication, it is focused on details that simply don't matter.
One can say that incorrect usage of a language dilutes its usage but actually, language evolves over time due to misuse. One person alone is powerless to curb this effect, which has been a force in changing the shape of languages for centuries. Often the ignorant, uneducated or simply careless writers of a language misuse words because they are arcane or overcomplicated in the first place. The English language is, after all, one of the most pointlessly complex languages in use on this planet. Such comments are hardly timeless anyway. What would you say to your ancestors, who probably complained just as loudly as you about words which are now completely unused?
I consider myself blessed to have had a family that taught me to value correctness in communication. However, this same family taught me that sometimes, the mistakes of others are best ignored, especially when correcting them would interrupt the flow of more important events in life. I even go as far as to believe that imperfection is part of the beauty of life. Would you curse the flowers for a bent petal?
So I say to you, Pedant Police of Slashdot, stop interrupting the conversation here with your uppity corrections. If the mistaken posters actually cared, I'm sure they would use Google or some other internet tool to discover the correct usage of whatever it is they're trying to say. Sadly, the moderation system here does not immediately relieve us of your worthless intellectual masturbation, and meaningful comments with actual content (which I enjoy reading from time to time) are lost in the abyss of complaintive nit-pickers. Go teach a high school English course where you can bitch every day to a captive audience. If you want to come here, put your penis envy behind you and act like a fucking adult.
Sadly this comment will probably be unread, because I'm not enough of a whore to reply to the first poster. Oh well, time to go back to lurking.
Clemson University's Psychology Department has a driving simulator that they use for transportation psychology studies. I did an interview with Dr. Fred Switzer who put it all together and manages the lab, it includes some pictures and my review of the project. The best part about the whole thing is that it runs Linux. In fact, I have been asked to join a research team as the "tech guy" next semester, meaning I get to work on the machines and play with the simulator. It should be fun...
Better question...when did (the majority of) Americans gain the ability to spell?
As an American and a spelling nazi I can vouch that Americans are not the hottest spellers. That's not to say that I'm perfect, but I see plenty of mistakes all the time...
the whole delete your cookies thing is silly. i run several web sites that use cookies to track logins, not for me to track them but for the site to track who is logged in. the browser sends the cookie to the site, and if the cookie's id matches the one stored in the database, the user is trusted. this is a fairly good way of identifying logins and if you delete your cookie you will simply be logged out. most sites use cookies this way and if you have a good browser, you can see what info is stored there anyway. i suggest opera because it has a good cookie manager that also integrates well with its password manager. if those numbers are correct, then 58% of internet users have been misled by some media outlet into believing that browser cookies are evil. that's not to say that some aren't used for marketing purposes, but really, if you think a site is trying to track all that info then find a better site. don't just randomly delete cookies, some web administrator put them there for a reason, and it's probably to help you use their site.
I have found that Maple and Matlab are both licensed by my university in UNIX form (Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris). Unfortunately, of course these are not Free (libre) but they are free (gratis) to students and have helped convince several Math majors and professors to switch to Linux. Personally, I use OpenOffice.org Writer (for its LaTeX-like formula notation) to take notes and do homework, and octave & gnuplot for some other things. I also found that wine will run some software required in my classes like Statistix. All that said, there's not a lot I can't do with my TI89 and HP48G+...
...I remember thee well. I always had trouble getting my little brother to give up the C64 he got from my uncle's basement, so maybe this little toy is just what I need to repolish my old BASIC skills. I used to write prime number generators on these things, then let them run for days to see how quickly they could reach 1 million, then try to optimize them. Just how hackable is this thing? Could you easily hook up a keyboard? What about a cassette tape reader?
I agree. While I've never tried Sony service, I have tried to get our Sony CD player/tape player/radio serviced several times and each time, it worked for a little while - and then it would report "no disc" on perfectly good CD's. I have had issues with every Sony CD player I've ever owned - if you can, avoid them.
Likelihood is that the hackers were just harmless students playing around on the university system. They haven't proved that the attacker actually copied any data, just that they had access to it. This sounds like a classical case of The Media demonizing hackers. It's been almost a month and a half and they haven't determined if the hacker actually downloaded anything? They're not going to. If they catch the person responsible they will probably make up a lot of dubious "damages" that this person is not really responsible for, and after their "fair" court case is over they will have to pay for the time they wasted - or rather, the time that the people in charge wasted worrying over their fears.
Gaim has had this feature for a long time. Click: Away -> set all away -> pick the away message. Some crappy protocols (MSN, Yahoo) only support predefined away messages.
Looks like I'll be getting one of these for my five-year-old after all. I had was going to get him an Advance SP because I figured these new ones would be way over my price range...but $150 isn't too bad! Now to wait for the reviews...
when the smashing pumpkins released machina 2: the friends and enemies of modern music on the internet, it was partly because virgin records wasn't interested in the album (especially not a double album) after the lackluster sales of their previous album, machina: the machines of god. there is a link explaining all about it here, and you can download machina 2 here.
if most universities police file sharing, block lots of ports, etc. what can you do with it, besides maybe download linux iso's? you can't run a server on most university networks without permission...i agree with previous posters that all that bandwidth will simply be wasted.
puh-lease. you must work for sony. that, or you have never read this. there are a ton of artists out there you don't know about. all these unknowns are working their asses off to make albums for the big corporate monsters and being swindled every step of the way. and all of them end up never making any money off of it, probably because they never got any in the first place. and i can't count on my fingers and toes all the bands i've loved that put out a few albums that sold fairly well, then they make a new one that's groundbreakingly different and the record company just doesn't bother to market it. and let's not forget the story seen here a few days ago about artists not being paid royalties. artists put their blood, sweat and tears into music, and the music industry just puts money and marketing into it. they surely don't immerse their lives in music like the artists all do. they don't try to live on nothing for months just to make an album. no, they work 9-5, have big houses and 3 bmw's. and i'm sick of hearing how the music industry is 'necessary' for music distribution, ani difranco has sold her albums _by herself_ for years and has made a huge name for herself. hundreds of independent artists work outside the industry under indie labels. all the music industry is good for is 1) gouging the public 2) ripping off artists 3) turning art into marketing 4) supporting the payola system 5) mtv (which sucks anyway) 6) forcing drm on people. these are not good things. the only artists who are happy with the industry are those who are good enough that they make tons of money off any album they make. these are the same 20 artists you see on mtv every day, and the same 40 you hear on the radio over and over. in their cases, the RIAA may "deserve" what they make, but for the thousands upon thousands of other artists out there, they are simply choking the life out of them.
sorry for the rant, but if you can't tell, this shit really pisses me off.
If I had mod points, I would mod you back up. Still I'm not really interested in the celebrity...just the facts, ma'am. Surprisingly, the server has held up, while the DSL, of course, has not. The server isn't exactly responding quickly or anything, but it isn't down, either.
I see this possibility...if VIA has a problem with it I will pull it off my web site (I probably should anyway, my upload bandwidth is hurtin'...). However VIA has not given any reasons for removing their page, for all I know they are having server problems (though I doubt this is the case). Other posters have mentioned that the original GPL release was invalid...this may be so, but if AOL was really interested in it why have they not taken action against the sourceforge project? Either way I'm happy no matter what happens here - even if I have to remove my copy of the code. I think a lot of you/.ers are paranoid.:)
In a way, I am supporting WASTE. Couldn't that project (which seems inactive) incorporate the changes VIA made, using their source code (which I'm trying to make sure is still available)?
Slashdot Mirror
How could I forget? Here in the Southeastern US there is one on every frickin' corner (across from a Baptist Church).
Thanks, it's truly appreciated. :)
I read Slashdot on a daily basis but I rarely post comments. Sometimes I read them, and often become annoyed at the triviality the conversations almost always focus on. The times I do actually post, as I am right now, I carefully select my words and structure my sentences so that they're grammatically correct. I have never been attacked by the so-called Slashdot Grammar Nazis.
Sadly, though, my posts almost always go unnoticed, unmodded, and unreplied. Sometimes I wish I weren't such a perfectionist so that someone would actually read and reply, but sadly, everyone seems too busy posting long diatribes about how bad so-and-so's grammar or spelling is, and how important correctness in communication is. I say get over yourselves! If I wasted my time every other post to point out some poor chap's misspelling of some obscure word or abuse of some unheard of grammatical rule I would have time to do nothing else. That would make me an arrogant fool, a bigoted loser, and an unproductive wanker.
If they can't spell immaculately or construct grammatically perfect sentences, who cares? Life goes on. These people will probably go through the rest of their lives not caring, and not encountering many problems in life due to the inability you perceive them to have at communicating. Yes, basic communication skills are necessary for most jobs but the vast majority of the complaining that goes on here is not focused on basic communication, it is focused on details that simply don't matter.
One can say that incorrect usage of a language dilutes its usage but actually, language evolves over time due to misuse. One person alone is powerless to curb this effect, which has been a force in changing the shape of languages for centuries. Often the ignorant, uneducated or simply careless writers of a language misuse words because they are arcane or overcomplicated in the first place. The English language is, after all, one of the most pointlessly complex languages in use on this planet. Such comments are hardly timeless anyway. What would you say to your ancestors, who probably complained just as loudly as you about words which are now completely unused?
I consider myself blessed to have had a family that taught me to value correctness in communication. However, this same family taught me that sometimes, the mistakes of others are best ignored, especially when correcting them would interrupt the flow of more important events in life. I even go as far as to believe that imperfection is part of the beauty of life. Would you curse the flowers for a bent petal?
So I say to you, Pedant Police of Slashdot, stop interrupting the conversation here with your uppity corrections. If the mistaken posters actually cared, I'm sure they would use Google or some other internet tool to discover the correct usage of whatever it is they're trying to say. Sadly, the moderation system here does not immediately relieve us of your worthless intellectual masturbation, and meaningful comments with actual content (which I enjoy reading from time to time) are lost in the abyss of complaintive nit-pickers. Go teach a high school English course where you can bitch every day to a captive audience. If you want to come here, put your penis envy behind you and act like a fucking adult.
Sadly this comment will probably be unread, because I'm not enough of a whore to reply to the first poster. Oh well, time to go back to lurking.
Clemson University's Psychology Department has a driving simulator that they use for transportation psychology studies. I did an interview with Dr. Fred Switzer who put it all together and manages the lab, it includes some pictures and my review of the project. The best part about the whole thing is that it runs Linux. In fact, I have been asked to join a research team as the "tech guy" next semester, meaning I get to work on the machines and play with the simulator. It should be fun...
Better question...when did (the majority of) Americans gain the ability to spell?
As an American and a spelling nazi I can vouch that Americans are not the hottest spellers. That's not to say that I'm perfect, but I see plenty of mistakes all the time...
the whole delete your cookies thing is silly. i run several web sites that use cookies to track logins, not for me to track them but for the site to track who is logged in. the browser sends the cookie to the site, and if the cookie's id matches the one stored in the database, the user is trusted. this is a fairly good way of identifying logins and if you delete your cookie you will simply be logged out. most sites use cookies this way and if you have a good browser, you can see what info is stored there anyway. i suggest opera because it has a good cookie manager that also integrates well with its password manager. if those numbers are correct, then 58% of internet users have been misled by some media outlet into believing that browser cookies are evil. that's not to say that some aren't used for marketing purposes, but really, if you think a site is trying to track all that info then find a better site. don't just randomly delete cookies, some web administrator put them there for a reason, and it's probably to help you use their site.
I have found that Maple and Matlab are both licensed by my university in UNIX form (Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris). Unfortunately, of course these are not Free (libre) but they are free (gratis) to students and have helped convince several Math majors and professors to switch to Linux. Personally, I use OpenOffice.org Writer (for its LaTeX-like formula notation) to take notes and do homework, and octave & gnuplot for some other things. I also found that wine will run some software required in my classes like Statistix. All that said, there's not a lot I can't do with my TI89 and HP48G+...
Yes, but I find novelty in doing this kind of thing on (something like) the original hardware, which runs at (something like) the original speed.
...I remember thee well. I always had trouble getting my little brother to give up the C64 he got from my uncle's basement, so maybe this little toy is just what I need to repolish my old BASIC skills. I used to write prime number generators on these things, then let them run for days to see how quickly they could reach 1 million, then try to optimize them. Just how hackable is this thing? Could you easily hook up a keyboard? What about a cassette tape reader?
I agree. While I've never tried Sony service, I have tried to get our Sony CD player/tape player/radio serviced several times and each time, it worked for a little while - and then it would report "no disc" on perfectly good CD's. I have had issues with every Sony CD player I've ever owned - if you can, avoid them.
Likelihood is that the hackers were just harmless students playing around on the university system. They haven't proved that the attacker actually copied any data, just that they had access to it. This sounds like a classical case of The Media demonizing hackers. It's been almost a month and a half and they haven't determined if the hacker actually downloaded anything? They're not going to. If they catch the person responsible they will probably make up a lot of dubious "damages" that this person is not really responsible for, and after their "fair" court case is over they will have to pay for the time they wasted - or rather, the time that the people in charge wasted worrying over their fears.
Gaim has had this feature for a long time. Click: Away -> set all away -> pick the away message. Some crappy protocols (MSN, Yahoo) only support predefined away messages.
will it run in Linux?
Looks like I'll be getting one of these for my five-year-old after all. I had was going to get him an Advance SP because I figured these new ones would be way over my price range...but $150 isn't too bad! Now to wait for the reviews...
download.com only has the highest quality crap.
School kids see past most blatant attempts to brainwash them. Case in point: Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE.
Excellent!
(air guitars)
Actually it's 3 color, if you count the off-black that they used for the background.
when the smashing pumpkins released machina 2: the friends and enemies of modern music on the internet, it was partly because virgin records wasn't interested in the album (especially not a double album) after the lackluster sales of their previous album, machina: the machines of god. there is a link explaining all about it here, and you can download machina 2 here.
nothing like a good laugh in the morning! i think i made a potato gun once that looked better than that thing...
if most universities police file sharing, block lots of ports, etc. what can you do with it, besides maybe download linux iso's? you can't run a server on most university networks without permission...i agree with previous posters that all that bandwidth will simply be wasted.
puh-lease. you must work for sony. that, or you have never read this. there are a ton of artists out there you don't know about. all these unknowns are working their asses off to make albums for the big corporate monsters and being swindled every step of the way. and all of them end up never making any money off of it, probably because they never got any in the first place. and i can't count on my fingers and toes all the bands i've loved that put out a few albums that sold fairly well, then they make a new one that's groundbreakingly different and the record company just doesn't bother to market it. and let's not forget the story seen here a few days ago about artists not being paid royalties. artists put their blood, sweat and tears into music, and the music industry just puts money and marketing into it. they surely don't immerse their lives in music like the artists all do. they don't try to live on nothing for months just to make an album. no, they work 9-5, have big houses and 3 bmw's. and i'm sick of hearing how the music industry is 'necessary' for music distribution, ani difranco has sold her albums _by herself_ for years and has made a huge name for herself. hundreds of independent artists work outside the industry under indie labels. all the music industry is good for is 1) gouging the public 2) ripping off artists 3) turning art into marketing 4) supporting the payola system 5) mtv (which sucks anyway) 6) forcing drm on people. these are not good things. the only artists who are happy with the industry are those who are good enough that they make tons of money off any album they make. these are the same 20 artists you see on mtv every day, and the same 40 you hear on the radio over and over. in their cases, the RIAA may "deserve" what they make, but for the thousands upon thousands of other artists out there, they are simply choking the life out of them.
sorry for the rant, but if you can't tell, this shit really pisses me off.
If I had mod points, I would mod you back up. Still I'm not really interested in the celebrity...just the facts, ma'am. Surprisingly, the server has held up, while the DSL, of course, has not. The server isn't exactly responding quickly or anything, but it isn't down, either.
I see this possibility...if VIA has a problem with it I will pull it off my web site (I probably should anyway, my upload bandwidth is hurtin'...). However VIA has not given any reasons for removing their page, for all I know they are having server problems (though I doubt this is the case). Other posters have mentioned that the original GPL release was invalid...this may be so, but if AOL was really interested in it why have they not taken action against the sourceforge project? Either way I'm happy no matter what happens here - even if I have to remove my copy of the code. I think a lot of you /.ers are paranoid. :)
In a way, I am supporting WASTE. Couldn't that project (which seems inactive) incorporate the changes VIA made, using their source code (which I'm trying to make sure is still available)?