According to Strunk & White's Elements of Style 3rd. Revision, datum is the singular. This holds to convention: bacterium/bacteria, for example. Thus, one would not, strictly speaking, write "we collected this data," but rather, "we collected these data." Similarly, the data are collected, a datum is collected.
Now, a datum can be, in general, any single piece of information. I've actually seen a USGS Topographic Map titled a "datum."
As an American, I support Australia in this. I expect other countries to respect the sovereignty (and thus would be thoroughly pissed if the US government handed over a US citizen to *any* international "authority")--and insist that we respect the sovereignty of the other nations.
However,
Thus the US has no intention of ever handing over any of its citizens to even an internationa[l] court. (emphasis yours)
I have to say that I'm glad of this. It gives me comfort to know that I'm not subject to the arbitrary rule of a body that one, I have not elected, two, does not represent me or my interests in any recognizable fashion, and three, is not subject to the dictates of the citizens.
The idea of international courts and international governing bodies truly distrubs me. I didn't elect Kofi Anan. My consent wasn't asked when the World Court was established. I dismiss its authority entirely.
Excellent. Maybe these departments will start to be populated by students who actually have a passion for computer science (in its actual definition), not those who simply want to graduate with a working knowledge of VB and C++ and make their way into the world of "software engineering."
everything2 [everything2.org] is also excellent and offers some great insight and even advice.
That's like saying Slashdot is excellent and offers insight and even advice. While it's certainly true, I'd take the (especially legal) advice with a grain of salt!
I disagree with that entirely. No flamebait here, but RMS is not *that* influential. Honestly. Gutenberg gave us a printing press--and changed the course of history. RMS gave us...the Free Software Foundation. If the GPL is going to change history, I have yet to see it.
In all honesty, the Open Source camp stands more poised to make drastic change than the Free Software folks. Open Source, like most historical changes, is pragmatic.
(No offense to RMS. I use Linux From Scratch, I can't exactly go "hatin' on" Stallman.)
Why not just get Mandrake which is already compiled like that for you?
For a few reasons. One, there's the issue of trusted source. I like Gentoo, but my love is LFS. When I build my own system (which is what Gentoo is, which is what LFS is), I know -exactly- what's on my computer. I know exactly what the source is, I can verify that there's no malware/spyware/trojans on the system.
Further, I can set compiler-flags and all those other nifty things to get more performance out of the system. I can build it exactly the way I want. This is a large part of Linux. Linux is...whatever you want it to be.
You want Linux to be...Mandrake? Then get Mandrake. But don't bash me (don't even csh me!) for building my system from the ground up. Using a precompiled distro doesn't make you "smarter," or even more efficient.
What does this mean for...any number of things? If the coin toss is no longer a theoretically valid randomizer (or at least a completely unbiased one), what's going to happen to, for instance, the NFL? That whole initial coin toss thing kinda goes out the window, I guess.
I think you are forgetting something though... C and C++ are the most powerful higher level languages that exist today... Why? Because with them... you can easily mess everything up!
Not so. Lisp is far more powerful than C/C++. Macros alone are evidence of this. Paul Graham wrote an excellent piece on this here.
(Note: this is not a troll. I said "more powerful" not "better." The first is a quantitative fact, the second an opinion that has no meaning.)
About a year ago, I had started work on something I called YX (yes, the pun was intended). It didn't get very far, I'm glad that someone is working on such a project. I definitely intend to help with this project, though.
If this is the way that Open Source treats its friends, I'd hate to see how it treats its enemies..
Since when is Sun a friend of open source? They may be more "open sourcey" than, say, Microsoft, but I wouldn't call them friends. Maybe temporary allies.
It's like IBM. I'm glad they're running pro-Linux ads. It's helpful. It's nice to see corporate support. But remember when IBM was the "bad guy?"
My question is: what is a "friend" of open source? The GNU project is a friend of open source. Eric Raymond is a friend of open source (if an embarrassing one at times like these). Until I see more proof, I'm hesitant to call Sun any more a friend of Open Source than Microsoft a friend of IBM in the 80s.
Bottom line: Raymond was off the cuff and out of line. He was (and rightly so) called for it. But I'll wait until I see more "friendship" from Sun before I jump ship.
As long as spammers can take in more money than it costs them, they will continue to spam. This is "rational" behavior in the economic sense.'"
I don't follow. Responding to "market forces" (and God knows I'm an ESR-esque capitalist) doesn't give you the right to invade my privacy. Arguably, the mafia responds to market forces. Extortion is "rational behavior in the economic sense." Your point being?
Everything is a "niche market." The trick is covering as many niches as you can. That's why MS Office is so successful. Ubiquitous word processor of marginal quality? Check. Crappy relational database software? Check. Slide-show software with gazillions of incredibly annoying backgrounds and clip-arts? Check.
Open Office, if it is to succeed MS Office, must be of better quality. Makign inroads into niche markets is fine, but if Linux zealots are the only people your making inroads to, it doesn't really help much.
I don't know if "your geek" likes to read, but my (fairly geeky) Amazon.com wishlist is below. He might have similar tastes.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator -- Edwin Lefevre The Universe in a Nutshell -- Stephen Hawking Point Counter Point -- Aldous Huxley The Works of Flavius Josephus Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praie of the Music of Language -- Douglas Hofstadter The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1 - 3 -- Don Knuth The Art of Unix Programming -- Eric S Raymond Lies My Teacher Told Me -- James W Loewen
Fairly geeky, I suppose. A fair representation of a lot of "geek topics."
Physicist-turned-economist David D. Friedman mentioned that he sends his children to a Sudbury School. You might find the concept interesting: it's an entirely de-institutionalized, student led form of schooling. Being a high school senior now, I wish I had had the opportunity to go to a place like that.
You know, your words are so true and so right yet so hard to take seriously from one of the less than 3 individuals in the western world who believes the HIV virus does not cause AIDS.
I don't know why you were modded Insightful, because there was nothing insightful about your post. But I guess I'll feed the troll:
Here is a list of scientists and doctors who are part of The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis.
Slashdot Mirror
Certainly. But I was referring to its use with "to be." Thus, the data are ___.
Not so.
According to Strunk & White's Elements of Style 3rd. Revision, datum is the singular. This holds to convention: bacterium/bacteria, for example. Thus, one would not, strictly speaking, write "we collected this data," but rather, "we collected these data." Similarly, the data are collected, a datum is collected.
Now, a datum can be, in general, any single piece of information. I've actually seen a USGS Topographic Map titled a "datum."
Dr. Ditto
Wait...Rush Limbaugh has a Ph.D?
As an American, I support Australia in this. I expect other countries to respect the sovereignty (and thus would be thoroughly pissed if the US government handed over a US citizen to *any* international "authority")--and insist that we respect the sovereignty of the other nations.
However,
Thus the US has no intention of ever handing over any of its citizens to even an internationa[l] court. (emphasis yours)
I have to say that I'm glad of this. It gives me comfort to know that I'm not subject to the arbitrary rule of a body that one, I have not elected, two, does not represent me or my interests in any recognizable fashion, and three, is not subject to the dictates of the citizens.
The idea of international courts and international governing bodies truly distrubs me. I didn't elect Kofi Anan. My consent wasn't asked when the World Court was established. I dismiss its authority entirely.
Excellent. Maybe these departments will start to be populated by students who actually have a passion for computer science (in its actual definition), not those who simply want to graduate with a working knowledge of VB and C++ and make their way into the world of "software engineering."
Robot 1: Who is this clown?
Robot 2: Yo mama!
Robot 1: What'd you say about my mama? Yo' mama so dumb she brought a knife to a gunfight!
Robot 2: Yeah? Well yo' mama so poor I stood on a skateboard and she said "Get off the family car!"
Robot 1: Well yo' mama so fat she got baptized in the ocean!
Robot 2: That's nothing. Yo' mama went an ugly contest and they said "Sorry, no professionals."
Robot 1: Ha. Your puny insults have no effect on me.
Robot 2: Yo mama!
Duh. It's called Nethack! What more do you want?
You and your newfangled first person whatchamacallits...
I'd be interested to see how often he pays for something he never receives...
everything2 [everything2.org] is also excellent and offers some great insight and even advice.
That's like saying Slashdot is excellent and offers insight and even advice. While it's certainly true, I'd take the (especially legal) advice with a grain of salt!
I disagree with that entirely. No flamebait here, but RMS is not *that* influential. Honestly. Gutenberg gave us a printing press--and changed the course of history. RMS gave us...the Free Software Foundation. If the GPL is going to change history, I have yet to see it.
In all honesty, the Open Source camp stands more poised to make drastic change than the Free Software folks. Open Source, like most historical changes, is pragmatic.
(No offense to RMS. I use Linux From Scratch, I can't exactly go "hatin' on" Stallman.)
Why not just get Mandrake which is already compiled like that for you?
For a few reasons. One, there's the issue of trusted source. I like Gentoo, but my love is LFS. When I build my own system (which is what Gentoo is, which is what LFS is), I know -exactly- what's on my computer. I know exactly what the source is, I can verify that there's no malware/spyware/trojans on the system.
Further, I can set compiler-flags and all those other nifty things to get more performance out of the system. I can build it exactly the way I want. This is a large part of Linux. Linux is...whatever you want it to be.
You want Linux to be...Mandrake? Then get Mandrake. But don't bash me (don't even csh me!) for building my system from the ground up. Using a precompiled distro doesn't make you "smarter," or even more efficient.
Well here goes my karma...
...because no religion is dependent upon the earth being the only planet with life on it?
How can any religion survive that revelation?
Hmm...I suppose that would make Mars the grassy knoll, right?
What does this mean for...any number of things? If the coin toss is no longer a theoretically valid randomizer (or at least a completely unbiased one), what's going to happen to, for instance, the NFL? That whole initial coin toss thing kinda goes out the window, I guess.
But don't ask me, I'm not a football guy.
will they put out the f*cking $100 one? The one we were all hoping for? Right after Duke Nukem Forever comes out, right?
;-)
I'm fairly certain that the HURD will come out before the $100 iPod
I think you are forgetting something though... C and C++ are the most powerful higher level languages that exist today... Why? Because with them... you can easily mess everything up!
Not so. Lisp is far more powerful than C/C++. Macros alone are evidence of this. Paul Graham wrote an excellent piece on this here.
(Note: this is not a troll. I said "more powerful" not "better." The first is a quantitative fact, the second an opinion that has no meaning.)
About a year ago, I had started work on something I called YX (yes, the pun was intended). It didn't get very far, I'm glad that someone is working on such a project. I definitely intend to help with this project, though.
If this is the way that Open Source treats its friends, I'd hate to see how it treats its enemies..
Since when is Sun a friend of open source? They may be more "open sourcey" than, say, Microsoft, but I wouldn't call them friends. Maybe temporary allies.
It's like IBM. I'm glad they're running pro-Linux ads. It's helpful. It's nice to see corporate support. But remember when IBM was the "bad guy?"
My question is: what is a "friend" of open source? The GNU project is a friend of open source. Eric Raymond is a friend of open source (if an embarrassing one at times like these). Until I see more proof, I'm hesitant to call Sun any more a friend of Open Source than Microsoft a friend of IBM in the 80s.
Bottom line: Raymond was off the cuff and out of line. He was (and rightly so) called for it. But I'll wait until I see more "friendship" from Sun before I jump ship.
(And let the karma burn begin.)
As long as spammers can take in more money than it costs them, they will continue to spam. This is "rational" behavior in the economic sense.'"
I don't follow. Responding to "market forces" (and God knows I'm an ESR-esque capitalist) doesn't give you the right to invade my privacy. Arguably, the mafia responds to market forces. Extortion is "rational behavior in the economic sense." Your point being?
Everything is a "niche market." The trick is covering as many niches as you can. That's why MS Office is so successful. Ubiquitous word processor of marginal quality? Check. Crappy relational database software? Check. Slide-show software with gazillions of incredibly annoying backgrounds and clip-arts? Check.
Open Office, if it is to succeed MS Office, must be of better quality. Makign inroads into niche markets is fine, but if Linux zealots are the only people your making inroads to, it doesn't really help much.
As for my niche, I'll use emacs, thanks.
what we, and other space agencies,
;-)
Is this guy referring to Slashdot?
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator -- Edwin Lefevre
The Universe in a Nutshell -- Stephen Hawking
Point Counter Point -- Aldous Huxley
The Works of Flavius Josephus
Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praie of the Music of Language -- Douglas Hofstadter
The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1 - 3 -- Don Knuth
The Art of Unix Programming -- Eric S Raymond
Lies My Teacher Told Me -- James W Loewen
Fairly geeky, I suppose. A fair representation of a lot of "geek topics."
Physicist-turned-economist David D. Friedman mentioned that he sends his children to a Sudbury School. You might find the concept interesting: it's an entirely de-institutionalized, student led form of schooling. Being a high school senior now, I wish I had had the opportunity to go to a place like that.
I don't know, I would guess CowboyNeal has pretty close to the ubergeek paradise job. I mean, come on, he's got unlimited mod points for God's sake!
You know, your words are so true and so right yet so hard to take seriously from one of the less than 3 individuals in the western world who believes the HIV virus does not cause AIDS.
I don't know why you were modded Insightful, because there was nothing insightful about your post. But I guess I'll feed the troll:
Here is a list of scientists and doctors who are part of The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis.