Actually I don't believe fusion gives off radiation as part of its process, and its by-products are not radioactive waste, but typically water. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Funny the submitter thought that the USPS would only be good for "nothing but junk mail" because I get multitudes more junk email than snail mail. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Even many of the so-called anonymous remailers keep the information from clients and will and have released such information to law enforcement. They probably can't afford defending against criminal charges (founded or not) and they would probably be subjected to blackholing (that is, other ISPs refuse to route to them). -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Of course, RMS, having a Genius Award and thus not having to flip hamburgers or rake leaves is in no position to make that call. He has, however, been paid (quite handsomely) for contract work. There is no evidence that Linus is working on proprietary code so just the fact that he is getting paid to code does not mean the code will not be released under a free software license. It doesn't seem that Transmeta, presumably being a chip design company, would have a need for a lot of proprietary code. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I don't know about SETI, but RC5 also has a monetary prize.
But anyways, how many of you trust that you'll be told if and when your SETI@Home client discovers what might be alien life? The client could just be written to return a false negative while alarms ring at the gov'ment offices.
-- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I've got a TNT running at 1024x768 at 32bit depth. 16 megs is plenty enough to handle that in 2D mode; with a z-buffer in 3D mode is another story. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
ncompress comes with Red Hat at least and provides the compress/uncompress programs which handle LZW compression. gzip also is compatible with compress'd files, so that too much handle LZW compression. Is there some sort of general license agreement whic Unisys provided for these programs? -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Legally you're right. But the thing is that Unisys sat on their patent while the GIF format gained popularity starting in 1987 or thereabouts and didn't bring up the issue until 1993. So while Unisys may be able to cook up a legal reason for this ("we didn't realize GIF used LZW compression"), morally no one is buying it. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I'm sorry, but let me clear up some points dealt with in that article you linked to.
First of all, Middle Earth *should* seem familiar to us...it's supposed to be prehistoric Europe!
Second, anyone who challenges Tolkien's ability to write is a boob. Tolkien was an accomplished linguist, a student of the English language and mythology (he is the interpreter of Sir Gawain and the Green Night from Old English, many of the Rorrihim names in LOTR are in Old English). Of course his language uses archaic forms!
And the way Tolkien downplays many of the more "fantastic" aspects of the story is a great style, IMO. It allows the world to blend together comfortably, like the Ted Nasmith paintings depicting it. Any AD&D book can give you vivid discriptions of the wonderful golden dragon; Tolkien makes you think that it's real. And as for being down to earth, Tolkien is nothing of the sort; his writing is fantastical in its best-- if you want extensive descriptions of the mundane, read Raymond Feist (whom I also enjoy). I admit that LOTR is not all that fast-moving, but one's displeasement with this is more a testament to their attention span than the author's skill. Tolkien was writing an epic, not a serial, and so he had the time and space to stretch his arms out and build an entire world.
About the only good point the article made was that Tolkien and Le Guin have different styles of writing. I read the Wizard of Earthsea and liked it, but for different reasons. Anyone who demands conformance to one style is limiting themselves.
Of course, if Tolkien's writing style is not one you enjoy then feel free not to read it; but to imply that he is not talented? Well ask yourself where your writings will be 100 years later and where will Tolkien's be? -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
There were rumors that Warwick Davis would make a cameo, but whether there's any truth to that or not I don't know.
But I have heard what you said about using "normal-sized" actors for all the hobbits (and presumably the dwarves) and I must say what a disgraceful idea. I mean, how often is there a mainstream movie in which midgets can play a major part, now here is the perfect movie for them to be in one and instead full-size actors are going to be used and "shrunk" down to hobbit-size. That's just ridiculous! Jackson could better spend that money on the Nazgul, Orcs, Balrog, etc. And I doubt lack of talent is an issue, I mean you'd need what, 4 leads (Frodo, Sam, Merri, Pippin) and a bunch of extras (and of course, an old Bilbo).
I'm not usually one to agree with the contraversies which always come up (for instance, Jar Jar being racist, etc), but I think this will cause somewhat of a contraversy and I think it's perfectly justified. There are going to be a lot of fans of the books who are already nervous about seeing the movie as it is (esp. after the animated ones) and it doesn't need any other contraversy to keep them away.
I've been waiting for a live action LOTR for a long time and whatever decisions are made, it better be good. It may still be good, I think this just adds unecessary complications to the movie.
That Jackson better just watch it! -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
...he may be a talented actor and all but I'm disapointed they couldn't spend a little more time and find a real midget (or whatever they prefer to be called these days), like was done for Willow, because it looks more realistic and I'm sure there are some talented, diminutive actors out there who could use the role (and would better suit it).
This makes me cautious about the movie. If Jackson messes this up, then it will be the greatest movie disapointment for me of all time. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Re:An opportunity to change the political paradigm
on
Voting over the net?
·
· Score: 1
Yeah. How many hours per day do you spend watching C-SPAN? Anyone in software can tell you, the users *don't* know what they want; and I'll tell you, I don't want to have to deal with all the long congressional sessions and endless debating and have to read hundres of thousands of pages on the current fiscal year budget. That's what we elect people for. True, many of them don't do that, but in that case we should choose someone else to represent us. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Of course, it's obviously much better to limit voting power to the rich (as is effectually done in America)
That's funny, I don't remember having to pay any fee to register to vote. I don't remember having to pay an entrance fee to get into my polling place (the local public library). Are you even in America? Have you voted recently? What could we do more to get poorer people to vote? Hold polling places at the welfare centers? I mean there's a certain point where you have to stop holding people's hand and they need to stand up for themselves. If poorer folks don't vote these days, it's their own fault, and not their pocketbooks.
-- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Actually we've (America) have limited by not allowing direct vote for presidents. The Electoral College was set up originally to vote for the president (and the runner up would be the vice president); presidential candidates were chosen by the legislature and how electoral delegates were chosen was left up to the states, there was no requirement for a public vote.
The previous poster was right- people should be informed before voting. That doesn't mean they have to have a college education, or a formal education at all, but that you should at least learn what the candidates stand for (and if you can't- don't vote for them!) and if you agree with their stances and ideas. The most dangerous thing to a democracy is tyranny of the majority, and its true that many people who are legally eligible are unfit to practice their right to vote and should reconsider their motivations. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
..have your call traced or intercepted, the brownshirts show up at your door...yeah that sounds fun. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I agree, but it *is* our obligation to vote, it is just an obligation to vote informed. Those who aren't interested enough in their government to vote when they are eligible I don't consider real citizens. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
The problem is that most issues are far more complex (and boring!) than Joe Schmo wants to take the time to learn in its entirety. Total democracy works in the microscale, at the community level. I'm not sure it is suited for the national level when you're talking about millions of people. We'd be better to start taking serious interests in electing people who are intelligent and can represent us instead of demogogues who use us for their own proffessional political career. If we can't do that, then we can't be trusted to make the decisions directly.
A republic works, as long as the citizens remember what to do their part and that is *be informed* and *be responsible* in your voting. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Re:How will this affect the parties in power?
on
Voting over the net?
·
· Score: 1
Well sure there is enough pandering to go around. But if you think that the majority of voters overall are impoverished, you've got another think coming, as they say.;-) -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Pretty funny that you say "This would screw up demographics entirely, especially if people could walk into any library with net access and vote." because the library is *exactly* where I go to vote every election. If people can get up off their asses to go the library computer and vote then they sure as hell can go to the other side of the library and pull some levers.
I don't want lazy voters, I want people who care enough to take 15 minutes from their "busy" day to participate in democracy. -- Aaron Gaudio "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Slashdot Mirror
Finger don't work so good when your buddies don't have stable IP addresses.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Funny that at the top of this article is an advertisement banner using an animated gif.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Actually I don't believe fusion gives off radiation as part of its process, and its by-products are not radioactive waste, but typically water.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
What good is a cake if you can't eat it?
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Funny the submitter thought that the USPS would only be good for "nothing but junk mail" because I get multitudes more junk email than snail mail.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Even many of the so-called anonymous remailers keep the information from clients and will and have released such information to law enforcement. They probably can't afford defending against criminal charges (founded or not) and they would probably be subjected to blackholing (that is, other ISPs refuse to route to them).
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Of course, RMS, having a Genius Award and thus not having to flip hamburgers or rake leaves is in no position to make that call. He has, however, been paid (quite handsomely) for contract work. There is no evidence that Linus is working on proprietary code so just the fact that he is getting paid to code does not mean the code will not be released under a free software license. It doesn't seem that Transmeta, presumably being a chip design company, would have a need for a lot of proprietary code.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I don't know about SETI, but RC5 also has a monetary prize.
But anyways, how many of you trust that you'll be told if and when your SETI@Home client discovers what might be alien life? The client could just be written to return a false negative while alarms ring at the gov'ment offices.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I've got a TNT running at 1024x768 at 32bit depth. 16 megs is plenty enough to handle that in 2D mode; with a z-buffer in 3D mode is another story.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Compress uses (appropriately) compression.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
ncompress comes with Red Hat at least and provides the compress/uncompress programs which handle LZW compression. gzip also is compatible with compress'd files, so that too much handle LZW compression. Is there some sort of general license agreement whic Unisys provided for these programs?
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Legally you're right. But the thing is that Unisys sat on their patent while the GIF format gained popularity starting in 1987 or thereabouts and didn't bring up the issue until 1993. So while Unisys may be able to cook up a legal reason for this ("we didn't realize GIF used LZW compression"), morally no one is buying it.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I'm sorry, but let me clear up some points dealt with in that article you linked to.
First of all, Middle Earth *should* seem familiar to us...it's supposed to be prehistoric Europe!
Second, anyone who challenges Tolkien's ability to write is a boob. Tolkien was an accomplished linguist, a student of the English language and mythology (he is the interpreter of Sir Gawain and the Green Night from Old English, many of the Rorrihim names in LOTR are in Old English). Of course his language uses archaic forms!
And the way Tolkien downplays many of the more "fantastic" aspects of the story is a great style, IMO. It allows the world to blend together comfortably, like the Ted Nasmith paintings depicting it. Any AD&D book can give you vivid discriptions of the wonderful golden dragon; Tolkien makes you think that it's real. And as for being down to earth, Tolkien is nothing of the sort; his writing is fantastical in its best-- if you want extensive descriptions of the mundane, read Raymond Feist (whom I also enjoy). I admit that LOTR is not all that fast-moving, but one's displeasement with this is more a testament to their attention span than the author's skill. Tolkien was writing an epic, not a serial, and so he had the time and space to stretch his arms out and build an entire world.
About the only good point the article made was that Tolkien and Le Guin have different styles of writing. I read the Wizard of Earthsea and liked it, but for different reasons. Anyone who demands conformance to one style is limiting themselves.
Of course, if Tolkien's writing style is not one you enjoy then feel free not to read it; but to imply that he is not talented? Well ask yourself where your writings will be 100 years later and where will Tolkien's be?
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
There were rumors that Warwick Davis would make a cameo, but whether there's any truth to that or not I don't know.
But I have heard what you said about using "normal-sized" actors for all the hobbits (and presumably the dwarves) and I must say what a disgraceful idea. I mean, how often is there a mainstream movie in which midgets can play a major part, now here is the perfect movie for them to be in one and instead full-size actors are going to be used and "shrunk" down to hobbit-size. That's just ridiculous! Jackson could better spend that money on the Nazgul, Orcs, Balrog, etc. And I doubt lack of talent is an issue, I mean you'd need what, 4 leads (Frodo, Sam, Merri, Pippin) and a bunch of extras (and of course, an old Bilbo).
I'm not usually one to agree with the contraversies which always come up (for instance, Jar Jar being racist, etc), but I think this will cause somewhat of a contraversy and I think it's perfectly justified. There are going to be a lot of fans of the books who are already nervous about seeing the movie as it is (esp. after the animated ones) and it doesn't need any other contraversy to keep them away.
I've been waiting for a live action LOTR for a long time and whatever decisions are made, it better be good. It may still be good, I think this just adds unecessary complications to the movie.
That Jackson better just watch it!
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
...he may be a talented actor and all but I'm disapointed they couldn't spend a little more time and find a real midget (or whatever they prefer to be called these days), like was done for Willow, because it looks more realistic and I'm sure there are some talented, diminutive actors out there who could use the role (and would better suit it).
This makes me cautious about the movie. If Jackson messes this up, then it will be the greatest movie disapointment for me of all time.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Yeah. How many hours per day do you spend watching C-SPAN? Anyone in software can tell you, the users *don't* know what they want; and I'll tell you, I don't want to have to deal with all the long congressional sessions and endless debating and have to read hundres of thousands of pages on the current fiscal year budget. That's what we elect people for. True, many of them don't do that, but in that case we should choose someone else to represent us.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Of course, it's obviously much better to limit voting power to the rich (as is effectually done in America)
That's funny, I don't remember having to pay any fee to register to vote. I don't remember having to pay an entrance fee to get into my polling place (the local public library). Are you even in America? Have you voted recently? What could we do more to get poorer people to vote? Hold polling places at the welfare centers? I mean there's a certain point where you have to stop holding people's hand and they need to stand up for themselves. If poorer folks don't vote these days, it's their own fault, and not their pocketbooks.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Actually we've (America) have limited by not allowing direct vote for presidents. The Electoral College was set up originally to vote for the president (and the runner up would be the vice president); presidential candidates were chosen by the legislature and how electoral delegates were chosen was left up to the states, there was no requirement for a public vote.
The previous poster was right- people should be informed before voting. That doesn't mean they have to have a college education, or a formal education at all, but that you should at least learn what the candidates stand for (and if you can't- don't vote for them!) and if you agree with their stances and ideas. The most dangerous thing to a democracy is tyranny of the majority, and its true that many people who are legally eligible are unfit to practice their right to vote and should reconsider their motivations.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
..have your call traced or intercepted, the brownshirts show up at your door...yeah that sounds fun.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
I agree, but it *is* our obligation to vote, it is just an obligation to vote informed. Those who aren't interested enough in their government to vote when they are eligible I don't consider real citizens.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Amen!
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
The problem is that most issues are far more complex (and boring!) than Joe Schmo wants to take the time to learn in its entirety. Total democracy works in the microscale, at the community level. I'm not sure it is suited for the national level when you're talking about millions of people. We'd be better to start taking serious interests in electing people who are intelligent and can represent us instead of demogogues who use us for their own proffessional political career. If we can't do that, then we can't be trusted to make the decisions directly.
A republic works, as long as the citizens remember what to do their part and that is *be informed* and *be responsible* in your voting.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Well sure there is enough pandering to go around. But if you think that the majority of voters overall are impoverished, you've got another think coming, as they say. ;-)
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.
Pretty funny that you say "This would screw up demographics entirely, especially if people could walk into any library with net access and vote." because the library is *exactly* where I go to vote every election. If people can get up off their asses to go the library computer and vote then they sure as hell can go to the other side of the library and pull some levers.
I don't want lazy voters, I want people who care enough to take 15 minutes from their "busy" day to participate in democracy.
--
Aaron Gaudio
"The fool finds ignorance all around him.