I would be if I were you. It seems unlikely that the Christian authors of a Christian operating system named "Jesux" would insist that it be pronounced "HEY-zooks."
First, let's look at the public prayer issue. The restriction on prayer in schools is absurd.
As usual, people are making a bigger deal out of this than they ought to. There is no restriction on personal prayer in schools, and you know it. If you want to say a silent prayer to yourself during recess, study hall, or an exam, you have the right to do so -- and nobody can ever take that right away. The restriction is on organized prayer. Now while the Christians cry persecution, you know damn well that a Muslim principal who starts out a commencement address with the words "There is no God but Allah" would have the Christians in an uproar to end all uproars. Yes, I know that by pointing out that Christianity is not the only world religion I have made myself to be anti-Christian and an enemy of God. I simply feel that the fact needs to be pointed out every once in a while.
As for creationism: notice that it's called the "theory of natural selection", the "THEORY of evlotuion". Do I need to explain the difference between scientific theory and scientific law to you?
Inasmuch as it appears you are unqualified to do so, please don't.:-) Others have already commented about "theories" and "laws" and how "proof" is a useless non-concept with regards to natural sciences.
Yes, it's true that evolution is taught alongside of some other suspicious pseudoscientific claptrap, such as the theory of gravity, the atomic theory, the theory that germs cause disease, etc. After all, nobody has ever actually seen an atom with their own two eyes, and yet we teach our children about their existence with no qualms whatsoever. Time for some more warning stickers, apparently.. ?
You seem to be of the stripe that believes in total freedom to be anything but a Christian.
Well, I can't speak of the original poster, of course, but I am "of the stripe" that believes that a vocal religious minority has no right to force its beliefs down the throats of everybody and make its superstitions compulsary. If I was a raving lunatic that believed that the world was created by the Headless Horseman, you wouldn't want me teaching that to your children, would you? If you wouldn't, then perhaps you can understand why non-Biblical-literalists object to the teaching of Biblical creation in science classes (not to mention the fact that such teaching would be perhaps the penultimate violation of the First Amendment.)
Nobody's talking about limiting Christianity or religion in general. If you think you're being persecuted because people oppose legislating your religious beliefs.. well, you're wrong.
WINDOWS NT MUSEUM EXHIBIT DEBUT LESS THAN IMPRESSIVE Exhibit "Looks Pretty, But Offers Little Substance"
WASHINGTON, DC (AP) - A new exhibit unveiled this week in the famed Smithsonian paid tribute to the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) operating system originally known as "NT OS/2." Currently known as "Windows 32/64 2005+ SP8R12", the operating system has also been known as "Windows NT", "Windows 2000", "Windows Memphis Moscow Beauregard 2001 Plus", "Windows For E-Commerce And Other Buzzwords", "Windows 16/32/64 PlusPack 312 With FrontPage Extensions", and "Steve". Although expectations were high among Smithsonian officials, the exhibit's debut was not without its problems.
"It was a real mess," said museum curator Steven Fleischmann. "The exhibit had only been open to the public for about twenty minutes when one of the curtains came crashing down, landing on some tourists from Guam. "Oh, it was awful," recounted one of the tourists. "The curtains fell, and after we got out from underneath them, all we could see was the wall that was behind the curtains. The wall was this mesmerizing deep blue color." Also painted on the wall was a series of alphanumeric characters used by the Smithsonian to track exhibits.
Then, one of the legs on the table that was holding the specs broke, and it sent the plastic case sliding on down to the floor." Security guards swarmed onto the scene to repair the table and re-hang the curtain, to minimize the amount of time that the exhibit was unavailable to the general public. "I was having a picnic with my kids," complained security guard Jeff Fenner. "It would have been nice if I could have fixed the problem without actually having to come here, but it's awfully damn hard to repair a table remotely." Fenner spoke on condition of anonymity.
Museum exhibit construction experts are blaming the embarassing incident partly on the exhibit's design. "Look at this," pointed out expert Louise Smith. "They've designed the exhibit so that the curtains are attached to the table. Apparently, the only reason they did this is to increase the visual attractiveness of the exhibit. But this is a dangerous design, as we found out this morning. If the curtains go down, it takes the table with it. I'm not sure that this is a model that should be imitated by future exhibits."
For its part, Microsoft is downplaying the exhibit fiasco. "Look," said an annoyed Ed Muth, "it's not our fault that the Smithsonian was unable to properly configure its table and curtains. If they had set things up correctly, the exhibit never would have gone down. In short, it's their fault, not ours. Our recommendation is to upgrade to a newer table and more durable curtains." Muth, a Microsoft project manager, also added a recommendation that the Smithsonian purchase "a large support contract from Microsoft."
Although Fleischmann remains optimistic about the exhibit's future, he still has some reservations. "Look at it," he said, gesturing. "It's very pretty. I think that people will want to look at it. I just have some very real concerns about the whole foundation of the thing, and I don't want to have to maintain an army of custodial staff to rescue the exhibit every time it collapses."
Without church, of any kind, the afterlife is non existant or not worth striving for. Its just play now, who cares about later.
This is an awfully frightening statement. You seem to be suggesting that the only thing that keeps religious people from going on (for example) violent rampages is because they're afraid of what will happen to them in the afterlife if they do! In other words, they don't refrain from going on the violent rampage because they know what it will do to the victims and their families, because of the suffering that it will cause -- no, they refrain from it because of their belief that God has a metaphorical shotgun pressed against their head.
Don't you find this a little bit scary?
When fear is the primary motivation for living a good life, something is horribly, horribly wrong. We should be past all that by now. People should want to be good to each other by choice, because it's how they would like to be treated. When I hold the door at the grocery store open for an elderly woman, it's not because I think it's what God wants me to do.. it's because I think it's what the elderly woman wants me to do.:-) The Golden Rule is the foundation of all personal morals, regardless of whether your morals are rooted in religion or not. Religion does not have a monopoly on the morals market. It is the fundamental principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" that needs to be hammered into the minds of our kids.
The "only religious people have any motivation for being good to people" argument is complete bunk.
When you gunned down those 128 students and were brought in front of the judge, what did you give as a reason for your actions? I only gunned down 64 students, since I had a bit less (ha! ha!) ammunition than you did. I told the judge that Jon Katz made me do it.
Well, you list several characteristics of "sterotypical geeks" and point out that there are lots of geeks that fit this stereotype. You then point out that there are lots of geeks that do not fit this stereotype. The obvious conclusion that we should draw, then, is that the stereotype is simply wrong.
Lots of people have suggested ideas for a standardized definition of "geek." Since there is no ISO standard on what constitutes geekdom and what does not, one must conclude that the definition is mostly subjective, and open to personal interpretation. Well, let me try.
geek \Geek\ n. (Technological slang) 1. One who submits articles to slashdot.org on a Friday night. 2. One who is excited by technology news that the vast majority of the public is indifferent to.
So whaddya think?:-)
If we are to define "geek" by taking all of the things that Slashdot readers have in common, then what we end up with is a very diverse group of people with a common interest: technology and how it affects us. Geeks are excited by new data storage technologies. The general public is not. Geeks are excited by new, high-speed physical layers for computer networking. The general public could care less. Geeks are excited by revolutionary new algorithms. The general public: "What the fuck is an algorithm?"
Look, I know lots of people that get excited by things that the general public could care less about. These people constitute a dizzying range of ideologies. I know fundamentalist religious geeks and atheist geeks. I know Democratic geeks and Republican geeks. I know heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual geeks. I know conservative geeks and liberal geeks. And "geek" is the common thread here. Please.. let's not try to politicize the genuine enthusiasm we all have for technology. Our enthusiasm transcends all traditional borders of politics and ideologies, and there's enough room in the camp for everybody.
So here's the bottom line:
We've got too much in common to be torn apart by the things we disagree on.
Do you believe that if you stand on one side of your living room and take tiny steps, you will eventually end up on the other side? That established, do you believe that if you stand at the outskirts of Los Angeles and head east using those same tiny steps, you will eventually end up in New York, even if it takes you millions (if not billions) of steps?
"Microevolution" and "macroevolution" are really non-existent concepts. They both refer to the effects of the same processes.. the only difference is the amount of time they are given in which to act.
This is an utter falsehood. The entire "theory" of evolution is based on evidentialist findings and cannot be proven solely by deductive or logical methods.
An utter falsehood? All right, then how about this: If you state that such changes "do not happen", you are lying through the skin of your teeth. Of course the theory of "evolution" [sic] is based on evidence. Theories generally are. What is this "proof" you speak of? Natural sciences are not in the business of "proving" anything. If it's proof that you want, turn to mathematics, or perhaps the legal profession. Proof is a meaningless concept with regards to natural science. If I throw a ball up into the air, a scientist is not going to say "I shall prove that this ball will come back down." He or she will say "Based on theories and observations, I predict that this ball will come back down."
Hey! There's that word again.. predict, and we've come full-circle; creationism is not a scientific theory by any stretch of the imagination because it fails to predict anything.
The remark of cje is typical of the naturalist objection to creationism.
I don't object to creationism. As far as I'm concerned, it is nobody's business what you believe. If you want to believe that the Earth was formed by a gigantic space ogre named "Phil" who carries around a sack of rocks and dirt, then by all means, do. What I object to is the methods of the vociferous proponents who have an agenda to get a clearly religious myth taught in America's public schools. With that in mind, I will call "creation scientists" liars without hesitation (I note that you did not contest this portrayal.) And I will point out the inconsistencies in the stories that they want to force on my children. Which brings us to the next point..
There are common beliefs held among all of those who believe in creationism, and because cje has not bothered to do his homework and discover those beliefs, his arguments and challenges appear weak at best.
Oh, come on. Creationists do not agree on when the Earth and the universe were created. They do not agree on how long it took to create them. They don't agree on whether or not the original inhabitants of Earth were two people named Adam and Eve (most do, but some don't.) They haven't been able to decide if dinosaurs actually walked beside man, or if their fossils were buried by God to "test our faith", or if they are a mirage manufactured by Satan. They don't agree on how some sort of super-duper "hyperevolution" must have occurred to suddenly change carnivores into herbivores and then back to carnivores after Noah's Flood. They don't agree on an explanation as to how we can see the light of galaxies billions of light years distant (is the speed of light slowing down? did God create all that light in transit? is it a Satanic mirage?) And then there's the whole geocentrism thing.. and I think you may be underestimating the number of adherents that geocentrism actually has.
Stop me, please.:-) It's time to go home!
About all they do agree on is that at some point in the past, using some sort of procedure that took some unspecified amount of time, God created the universe. If you're suggesting that this is some sort of "unified creationist front".. well, you forgot the smiley.
Biological evolution is change, over time, in the gene pool of a population.
That's it.
If you state that such changes are "only a theory", you are lying through the skin of your teeth.
When most people speak of "evolution", they are typically talking about "common descent", which is the application of evolutionary biology to explain the biodiversity of life on Earth through slowly-developing twin-nested hierarchies descending from common ancestors.
This is what chaps the asses of fundies. It is in direct conflict with their literalist interpretation of the Bible. And since they learned long ago that they're not going to get creationism taught in public school, they shifted their focus to attacking the scientific bases for evolution, even though their attacks are ridiculous. They shout nonsense like "Evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!" And it plays pretty well to the pew because, by golly, it sure sounds "purty scientifical!" After all, what do Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in the third row know about thermodynamics?
See, here's the thing: "Creation scientists" are full of shit, and I'm willing to bet that almost all of them are fully aware that they're full of shit. But most of the masses that phone in large cash contributions to the Trinity Broadcasting Network don't know this. It doesn't mean that they're stupid, or that they're not good people, it just means that they are uneducated with regards to the issues at hands. "Creation science" is a despicable, deceptive field which relies on repeated lies and misrepresentation of science. It does fairly well today because its adherents either aren't aware that it's lies, or they don't care.
I certainly understand why fundamentalists don't like evolution and common descent. But that doesn't matter. Scientific theories and facts do not stand and fall on the basis of whether everybody likes them or not. There are lots of things that science teaches us that I don't particularly find comforting. I don't like the notion that the Earth could be, at any moment, struck by a large asteroid which would wreak global devastation. I don't lose any sleep over it, but it's not a comforting notion. However, it does me no good to stick my fingers in my ears and run around screaming "IS NOT!! IS NOT!!"
So evolution is no longer part of the standard curriculum in Kansas. Big deal. It doesn't mean that it can't still be taught. All it means is that children who graduate from a Kansas high school that decided to forego evolution education are going to be less well-rounded than those children that graduated from schools that have no qualms about teaching things that have been discovered since the Bronze Age.
Finally, to those who would like to see fundamentalist Christian creationism taught in public schools "as a theory", you might want to consider that creationism is a myth.. not a theory. Theories make testable predictions. The creation yarn of 1 Genesis does not. Depending on which creationist you listen to, the universe is anywhere from six thousand to fifteen billion years old. Some creationists insist that the Earth is not moving (after all, didn't Joshua command the sun to stand still?) However, these heretics are shunned by those creationists who believe that the Earth is flat. Creationists don't agree where all of the water for Noah's flood came from, nor do they agree upon how it disappeared in some unspecified manner. And it goes on and on. Creationists have come up with all sorts of ludicrous "scientific justifications" for events in Genesis, and.. here's the really funny part.. none of it is consistent with the rest.
If creationists would like to see creationism taught as a theory in our public schools, then they should present the Theory of Creationism. If they are unable to, then they have no right to teach my children that the universe, which looks as if it is billions of years old, was "poofed" into existence by God six thousand years ago.
When I was in college, I had a dream that my roommates and I were watching Speed in our living room (it had just come out on video.) We were really getting into the movie, when suddenly there was an abrupt knock on the door. One of my roommates answered the door, and lo and behold, it was Dennis Hopper, right there in our apartment.
Well, needless to say, we were very excited to have one of the stars of Speed right there in our living room. We got him a beer, and we sat down and started watching the rest of the movie. Pretty soon we all got around to asking him for his autograph. He graciously said "Sure! Why don't you guys go back into your rooms and get something for me to sign?" And so we did. Then we came back..
The fucker had ripped us off.
Everything was gone. The TV, the VCR, the stereo, my PlayStation, all of our CDs.. nothing was left. Dennis Hopper had completely cleaned us out. The front door was still wide open.
NERDS UNLEASH HOLY TERROR IN SAN JOSE Atrocities "Too Graphic To List", States Police Chief
SAN JOSE, CA (UPI) - Dredging up painful memories of other recent riots in southern California, the city of San Jose was consumed by raucous, drunken nerds last evening, and officials estimate that it will be "quite some time" before the carnage can be cleaned up and life can return back to normal.
The events started off innocently enough. Several readers and contributors to the online nerd Mecca Slashdot were gathered together outside of a Linux convention. Linux is a type of computer that does not have windows and only runs hydroponics simulations software.
However, things got out of hand when the group's ringleader, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, began to start playing old The Who bootlegs. When the beer ran out, the party's crazed attendees ruthlessly invaded the liquor cabinet and had drained it completely dry in record time. They then took to the streets, leaving no target untarnished.
"I'm still trying to get those goddamn motorcycles out of my pool," sputtered Howard Johnson, who owns an area Holiday Inn. "I'm going to have to have to drain the whole thing." Johnson then pointed to a screaming toddler that had been hoisted all the way up a nearby flagpole. "That little bastard's mother is still trying to find somebody to get him down. I tell you, kids these days just have no respect for authority."
Edward Hoffman, the chief of police for San Jose, agreed.
"I have seen lots of unruliness in my tenure as police chief," related Hoffman. "But never anything like this. Why, there were literally hundreds of drunken imbeciles running around shouting 'MEEPT!' and inciting general violence." Hoffman said that while the death toll of two victims is relatively low, the emotional scars that this incident has left on witnesses will probably never heal. "There are some things that just stick with a person," he said. "This whole riot is going to be one of them."
"These people were completely insane," said Hoffman. "They were committing acts of depravity that are quite simply too graphic to list." Details are beginning to emerge. Sergeant Dale Smith recanted a gruesome tale involving a nerd, a prostitute named Tangerine, six feet of rubber tubing, a quart of motor oil, and a yak. Smith spoke under the condition of anonymity. Chief Hoffman later confirmed Smith's story.
"A yak," said Hoffman. "That's fucked."
Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, urged the international community to remain calm. "I would remind you," Mr. Torvalds said through a spokesman, "that under no conditions should these actions be taken as par-for-the-course for Linux users in general. Personally," he continued, "I would have used a gnu.. not a yak."
The San Jose Mercury News contributed to this article.
(like, is that a map on a blank piece of paper or what?)
Well, I think "unlabeled map" might have been a more appropriate and descriptive term.. what I meant was a map with no names on it. As far as the source of the statistic, I really don't remember. It doesn't really matter if it's true or not; it's funny either way (or sad, depending on your point of view.):-)
SAUDI ARABIA ANNEXES TITAN "Mine, Mine, All Mine," Vows Gleeful King
DHARAN, SAUDI ARABIA (AP) - In a bold and unprecedented move, an Earth-based nation has laid claim to an entire celestial body. When the BBC reported that astronomers had located a potential "ocean of oil" on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, the government of Saudi Arabia quickly mobilized and annexed the satellite using a highly questionable procedure. Saudi Arabia is an extremely oil-rich country, and most analysts believe that the move by the Saudis serves only to increase their oil reserves.
The United States' reaction to the annexation was swift and negative. "We would advise Saudi Arabia to carefully reconsider their decision," said State Department spokeman James Rubin. "The Chinese attempted to annex the Jovian satellite Europa in 2010: Odyssey Two, and you saw what happened to them. This move is reckless, and may have far-reaching unintended consequences." Similar statements were released by Russia, France, Tahiti, and Swaziland. As of yet, no country has indicated that they will officially recognize Titan as Saudi soil.
The reaction from Titan was equally fervent. "Under no circumstances," stated official satellite spokesbeing Gkklotrff Bdssuirghed, "will the citizens of Titan accept any intrusion by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have never done anything to you silly Earth-bound two-legged bastards; all we ask is that you pay us the reciprocal courtesy in return." The official Titan News Agency reported that the Titan military was in a state of "high alert."
The Saudi government, however, is downplaying the interplanetary outrage. "What we have done, we have done under the auspices of international law. If the United States, or Swaziland, or whatever, wished to annex Titan, it could have done so long ago," said a government spokeperson. "Waahh, waahh, waahh. You're just jealous because we did it first."
In the meantime, however, Saudi Arabia is preparing its massive space program for an expedition to the distant moon. While the government is closely protecting the identity of the five astronauts that will make the trip in the top-of-the-line Saudi Shazam al-Rocket spacecraft, the Associated Press was able to speak by telephone to one of them. "I'm very pleased to be going," said the astronaut, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I am confident that Allah will protect us and keep us safe on our way to Titan. Hopefully, when we get there, we'll find 'Allaht' of oil," the astronaut joked.
It seems that Americans no longer find this type of thing important, which is a pity.
Yes, it is. But when almost 40 percent of Americans are unable to identify the Atlantic Ocean on a blank map, it sort of stands to reason that they wouldn't be interested in an ocean on a faraway celestial body.
People seem to have the wrong impression about NASA. People seem to think that NASA missions typically consist of some multi-billion-dollar spacecraft gallivanting merrily out to Pluto for no reason whatsoever, burning hundred-dollar bills as fuel all the way.
One of the biggest programs that will be affected by these budget cuts is NASA's EOS (Earth Observing System.) This is Earth science (that's right.. Earth science.) When you look at spacecraft such as Landsat 7 and its Enhanced Thematic Mapper instrument, the uses are virtually limitless. Historically, remotely sensed satellite data has been used to
quantify and project climate change
assess the impact and assist in the cleanup of natural disasters (i.e., Mitch)
provide early warning for widespread famine
Data provided by the Landsat program has saved millions of lives. It has saved millions of lives. That tradition will continue (and improve) with other such Earth-observing spacecraft such as the upcoming Terra, with its MODIS and ASTER instruments. The positive results of NASA's Earth science programs alone more than justify the operating costs of the entire agency; ironically, it will be Earth science that is among the hardest hit by these budget cuts.
Beyond that, the space science is worthwhile to mankind as well, even if people don't realize it. Getting to know the inner workings of our sun is worth it. Exploration of the planets and their satellites is worth it. Gaining insight into the operation and origin of our vast universe is worth it (although this tends to chap the collective asses of fundies who feel we're going to burn in hell for having the audacity to be curious.) And doing work and performing experiments on board the shuttle in low-Earth orbit is worth it as well; people who complain about John Glenn's trip back as being a "PR stunt" or a "joyride" rarely forget to mention that that mission had more scientific experiments to perform than any previous shuttle mission.
The bottom line is this: NASA is an island oasis floating in a sea of pork. Sure, some people don't like "the space program." Some people are ideologically opposed to it. Some people just don't understand what NASA really does. But cutting NASA's budget is a Bad Thing (TM). Trust me.
Social conservatives like Tom DeLay and Bob Barr have come right out and suggested that if the Ten Commandments had been posted in Columbine High School, then the tragic shootings that took place there would not have happened. Is there any evidence for this?
(The following is a summarization of a column that I read some time back; unfortunately, I can't remember the author or the source, but the numbers do stick out in my mind.)
The United States is, by far, the most religious of all the world's industrialized nations. Over forty percent of US citizens attend church on a weekly basis. Compare that with 27 percent in Britain, 21 percent in France, 16 percent in Australia, and 4 percent in Sweden. The United States also has, by far, the highest murder rate of these same industrialized countries; it is six times higher than the murder rate in Britain, seven times that of France, five times that of Australia, and five times that of Sweden. Japan, where you would be hard-pressed to find anybody who's even heard of the Ten Commandments, has less crime than almost anywhere else on Earth.
Back here at home, the state of Louisiana has the highest churchgoing rate of the entire nation; it also sports a murder rate that is over twice the national average. Washington state, the state with the lowest churchgoing rate boasts a murder rate that is 38 percent below the national average.
Please note that I'm not attempting to suggest that churchgoing is the cause of this violence; I'm merely pointing out that it does not appear to be serving as any kind of a deterrent. If lack of religion is indeed the cause for school violence, why have we not seen rampant shootings at such heretical liberal Meccas such as Berkeley and MIT? Why have all of these school shootings taken place in picturesque towns such as Pearl, Mississippi? Paducah, Kentucky? Jonesboro, Arkansas? Littleton, Colorado? These are places that Norman Rockwell would have been proud to call home; they are all a far cry from the hotbeds of secular humanism that you'd find in, say, New York City.
The religious conservatives have claimed to find a solution without showing any evidence whatsoever for its validity; in reality, the evidence is very much slanted in the other direction.
The bottom line is that people like Barr and DeLay have their own right-wing agenda, and it has nothing to do with school shootings. I believe it is the responsiblility of all Americans, regardless of their individual faiths, to combat efforts to turn Christianity into a state-sanctioned religion. It's in everybody's best interests -- including Christians -- to see that this doesn't happen.
And I really don't think that it will; I imagine that the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools will be challenged and the law will be struck down. What would the champions of this bill think of an Islamic teacher hanging up a sign reading THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH? This is, after all, just the Islamic version of the First Commandment. And if you'd object to such a sign being displayed, then you understand why the law must (and will) be found unconstitutional.
Huh? The 6502 had multiplication & division instructions.. they were just multiplication & division by two. (ASL & ASR)
Well, I'm specifically thinking of instructions like MUL and DIV on "modern" processors that "fully implement" the operations. I won't argue that bit-shifting operations can, at the basic level, be considered basic vehicles for multiplication and division (obviously, they're what you had to use!) But they're certainly not general-purpose multiplication and division instructions.
You know as well as I do that assembly language programmers who are only familiar with "modern" assembly languages would be completely lost.:-)
Yeah. What I did was scrap the whole DOS 3.3/ProDOS idea of using 16-sector tracks and just wrote everything on a track in just one long "swoop." Of course, this meant that if you had a tiny file that was only a few bytes long, you'd waste an entire track by writing it. But for my application, each of the "files" I was storing fit pretty conveniently on a track.
I also used 4 & 4 encoding, instead of the 6 & 2 encoding used by DOS 3.3/ProDOS/Pascal and the 5 & 3 encoding used by DOS 3.2. For those not familiar with the encoding required by the Disk II, there were only certain bit patterns that could be reliably read back by the hardware, so all data had to be "encoded" before the raw bits could be written to the media. "6 & 2" encoding meant that each "byte" written on the media contained six actual "data bits" and two "filler bits" that guaranteed that the bit pattern could be reliably read. The 4 & 4 encoding that I used was (again) a waste of disk space, but it was faster and much simpler to decode.
I know how you feel, dude. My Apple IIe is still my favorite computer, too.
Home computers were just more fun to use back in their infancy. Today they've become so common and mundane that there's no element of exhilaration when you flip the power switch. Back then, the technology was new and so was the experience. Back then, home computer users and hackers were digital conquistadors, exploring a brave new world. Today, we're all suburban commuters, plodding forlornly from one destination to the next.
The Apple II series was a helluva lot of fun to hack around on. I remember writing raw machine language code (bare hex bytes) in the early 80's because I had no assembler; manually calculating the number of bytes for the destination of a relative branch was a pain in the ass, though. I suppose for that period of time, writing raw machine language was the technological equivalent of punch cards. Every Apple II hacker worth his/her salt will remember what 20 ED FD did (just as every respectable hacker will remember that CALL -151 got you into the machine language monitor.:-))
Virtually no Apple II hackers thought much of Wozniak's memory-mapping "scheme" for the text/low-resolution and high-resolution screen memory (the old "venetian blinds" effect.) At one time, I had memorized the sequence of hex bytes that implemented the lookup table generator so that you could translate screen lines into memory addresses. This didn't slow things down too much, if you were careful about it, but it was still a bitch.
I can't be the only one who wistfully misses the days of doing long division and multiplication on an 8-bit processor with no division or multiplication instructions. Oh, and remember all of the undocumented 6502 opcodes? What a great way to make it a bitch for people to disassemble your code and get at the guts.:-)
Then there was the Disk II. I was once writing a game where fast disk access was absolutely required, and I ended up implementing what amounted to my own operating system (though this was not exactly new; some games like Broderbund's Karateka did exactly this, using spiral tracks to make the disk almost impossible to copy.) Direct access to the Disk II was maddening, painful fun. You had to litter your code with NOP instructions to get the timings on the write exactly right; a microsecond off in either direction and your data is corrupt.
Show of hands: Who's still got the old Beagle Brothers' "PEEKS and POKES Chart" handy?
A lot of folks who are new to the whole computing scene don't understand people like us when we so fondly reminisce about the days when computers were slower, bulkier, and harder to use. But it's because they don't understand a very basic concept that so many Slashdotters do:
Just because it's easier doesn't mean it's more fun.
This is pretty much an extension of your comparison of the Linux community to a bunch of excited kids. Linus is a charismatic guy. He's funny, likeable, and direct. When it comes to PR, technical talent takes a back seat to some of the more interpersonal aspects. My sister, who is in nursing, doesn't even own a computer.. but she's heard of Linus Torvalds. The people who make the biggest splashes are the people that get the most press.
Of course, this is not to say that the BSD community doesn't have its own important and colorful characters. But if you were to compare the number of Slashdotters who know who Linus Torvalds is against the number who know who, say, Theo DeRaadt is, you'd find a pretty evident bias.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish other movies did this.
Some do.
Blade and Pleasantville come to mind.
It's a Linux distribution put together by L. Ron Hubbard.
Looks and works like any other distro, but first you have to give it all of your money.
I wish I could be sure this is a hoax.
I would be if I were you. It seems unlikely that the Christian authors of a Christian operating system named "Jesux" would insist that it be pronounced "HEY-zooks."
[ massive snip ]
Heh. :-)
Have you seen Warren Beatty's movie Bulworth?
His suggestion: "We all gotta keep fuckin' each other until we're the same color."
First, let's look at the public prayer issue. The restriction on prayer in schools is absurd.
:-) Others have already commented about "theories" and "laws" and how "proof" is a useless non-concept with regards to natural sciences.
.. ?
.. well, you're wrong.
As usual, people are making a bigger deal out of this than they ought to. There is no restriction on personal prayer in schools, and you know it. If you want to say a silent prayer to yourself during recess, study hall, or an exam, you have the right to do so -- and nobody can ever take that right away. The restriction is on organized prayer. Now while the Christians cry persecution, you know damn well that a Muslim principal who starts out a commencement address with the words "There is no God but Allah" would have the Christians in an uproar to end all uproars. Yes, I know that by pointing out that Christianity is not the only world religion I have made myself to be anti-Christian and an enemy of God. I simply feel that the fact needs to be pointed out every once in a while.
As for creationism: notice that it's called the "theory of natural selection", the "THEORY of evlotuion". Do I need to explain the difference between scientific theory and scientific law to you?
Inasmuch as it appears you are unqualified to do so, please don't.
Yes, it's true that evolution is taught alongside of some other suspicious pseudoscientific claptrap, such as the theory of gravity, the atomic theory, the theory that germs cause disease, etc. After all, nobody has ever actually seen an atom with their own two eyes, and yet we teach our children about their existence with no qualms whatsoever. Time for some more warning stickers, apparently
You seem to be of the stripe that believes in total freedom to be anything but a Christian.
Well, I can't speak of the original poster, of course, but I am "of the stripe" that believes that a vocal religious minority has no right to force its beliefs down the throats of everybody and make its superstitions compulsary. If I was a raving lunatic that believed that the world was created by the Headless Horseman, you wouldn't want me teaching that to your children, would you? If you wouldn't, then perhaps you can understand why non-Biblical-literalists object to the teaching of Biblical creation in science classes (not to mention the fact that such teaching would be perhaps the penultimate violation of the First Amendment.)
Nobody's talking about limiting Christianity or religion in general. If you think you're being persecuted because people oppose legislating your religious beliefs
WINDOWS NT MUSEUM EXHIBIT DEBUT LESS THAN IMPRESSIVE
Exhibit "Looks Pretty, But Offers Little Substance"
WASHINGTON, DC (AP) - A new exhibit unveiled this week in the famed Smithsonian paid tribute to the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) operating system originally known as "NT OS/2." Currently known as "Windows 32/64 2005+ SP8R12", the operating system has also been known as "Windows NT", "Windows 2000", "Windows Memphis Moscow Beauregard 2001 Plus", "Windows For E-Commerce And Other Buzzwords", "Windows 16/32/64 PlusPack 312 With FrontPage Extensions", and "Steve". Although expectations were high among Smithsonian officials, the exhibit's debut was not without its problems.
"It was a real mess," said museum curator Steven Fleischmann. "The exhibit had only been open to the public for about twenty minutes when one of the curtains came crashing down, landing on some tourists from Guam. "Oh, it was awful," recounted one of the tourists. "The curtains fell, and after we got out from underneath them, all we could see was the wall that was behind the curtains. The wall was this mesmerizing deep blue color." Also painted on the wall was a series of alphanumeric characters used by the Smithsonian to track exhibits.
Then, one of the legs on the table that was holding the specs broke, and it sent the plastic case sliding on down to the floor." Security guards swarmed onto the scene to repair the table and re-hang the curtain, to minimize the amount of time that the exhibit was unavailable to the general public. "I was having a picnic with my kids," complained security guard Jeff Fenner. "It would have been nice if I could have fixed the problem without actually having to come here, but it's awfully damn hard to repair a table remotely." Fenner spoke on condition of anonymity.
Museum exhibit construction experts are blaming the embarassing incident partly on the exhibit's design. "Look at this," pointed out expert Louise Smith. "They've designed the exhibit so that the curtains are attached to the table. Apparently, the only reason they did this is to increase the visual attractiveness of the exhibit. But this is a dangerous design, as we found out this morning. If the curtains go down, it takes the table with it. I'm not sure that this is a model that should be imitated by future exhibits."
For its part, Microsoft is downplaying the exhibit fiasco. "Look," said an annoyed Ed Muth, "it's not our fault that the Smithsonian was unable to properly configure its table and curtains. If they had set things up correctly, the exhibit never would have gone down. In short, it's their fault, not ours. Our recommendation is to upgrade to a newer table and more durable curtains." Muth, a Microsoft project manager, also added a recommendation that the Smithsonian purchase "a large support contract from Microsoft."
Although Fleischmann remains optimistic about the exhibit's future, he still has some reservations. "Look at it," he said, gesturing. "It's very pretty. I think that people will want to look at it. I just have some very real concerns about the whole foundation of the thing, and I don't want to have to maintain an army of custodial staff to rescue the exhibit every time it collapses."
Nicholas Petreley contributed to this story.
Congratulations! You now own the only Linux box in the world that can be used to build Bison, and then cook it!
Viva la buffalo burgers!
Without church, of any kind, the afterlife is non existant or not worth striving for. Its just play now, who cares about later.
.. it's because I think it's what the elderly woman wants me to do. :-) The Golden Rule is the foundation of all personal morals, regardless of whether your morals are rooted in religion or not. Religion does not have a monopoly on the morals market. It is the fundamental principle of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" that needs to be hammered into the minds of our kids.
This is an awfully frightening statement. You seem to be suggesting that the only thing that keeps religious people from going on (for example) violent rampages is because they're afraid of what will happen to them in the afterlife if they do! In other words, they don't refrain from going on the violent rampage because they know what it will do to the victims and their families, because of the suffering that it will cause -- no, they refrain from it because of their belief that God has a metaphorical shotgun pressed against their head.
Don't you find this a little bit scary?
When fear is the primary motivation for living a good life, something is horribly, horribly wrong. We should be past all that by now. People should want to be good to each other by choice, because it's how they would like to be treated. When I hold the door at the grocery store open for an elderly woman, it's not because I think it's what God wants me to do
The "only religious people have any motivation for being good to people" argument is complete bunk.
When you gunned down those 128 students and were brought in front of the judge, what did you give as a reason for your actions? I only gunned down 64 students, since I had a bit less (ha! ha!) ammunition than you did. I told the judge that Jon Katz made me do it.
The result? Four hours of community service.
Lots of people have suggested ideas for a standardized definition of "geek." Since there is no ISO standard on what constitutes geekdom and what does not, one must conclude that the definition is mostly subjective, and open to personal interpretation. Well, let me try.
So whaddya think?
If we are to define "geek" by taking all of the things that Slashdot readers have in common, then what we end up with is a very diverse group of people with a common interest: technology and how it affects us. Geeks are excited by new data storage technologies. The general public is not. Geeks are excited by new, high-speed physical layers for computer networking. The general public could care less. Geeks are excited by revolutionary new algorithms. The general public: "What the fuck is an algorithm?"
Look, I know lots of people that get excited by things that the general public could care less about. These people constitute a dizzying range of ideologies. I know fundamentalist religious geeks and atheist geeks. I know Democratic geeks and Republican geeks. I know heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual geeks. I know conservative geeks and liberal geeks. And "geek" is the common thread here. Please
So here's the bottom line:
We've got too much in common to be torn apart by the things we disagree on.
Do you believe that if you stand on one side of your living room and take tiny steps, you will eventually end up on the other side? That established, do you believe that if you stand at the outskirts of Los Angeles and head east using those same tiny steps, you will eventually end up in New York, even if it takes you millions (if not billions) of steps?
.. the only difference is the amount of time they are given in which to act.
"Microevolution" and "macroevolution" are really non-existent concepts. They both refer to the effects of the same processes
This is an utter falsehood. The entire "theory" of evolution is based on evidentialist findings and cannot be proven solely by deductive or logical methods.
.. predict, and we've come full-circle; creationism is not a scientific theory by any stretch of the imagination because it fails to predict anything.
..
.. and I think you may be underestimating the number of adherents that geocentrism actually has.
:-) It's time to go home!
.. well, you forgot the smiley.
An utter falsehood? All right, then how about this: If you state that such changes "do not happen", you are lying through the skin of your teeth. Of course the theory of "evolution" [sic] is based on evidence. Theories generally are. What is this "proof" you speak of? Natural sciences are not in the business of "proving" anything. If it's proof that you want, turn to mathematics, or perhaps the legal profession. Proof is a meaningless concept with regards to natural science. If I throw a ball up into the air, a scientist is not going to say "I shall prove that this ball will come back down." He or she will say "Based on theories and observations, I predict that this ball will come back down."
Hey! There's that word again
The remark of cje is typical of the naturalist objection to creationism.
I don't object to creationism. As far as I'm concerned, it is nobody's business what you believe. If you want to believe that the Earth was formed by a gigantic space ogre named "Phil" who carries around a sack of rocks and dirt, then by all means, do. What I object to is the methods of the vociferous proponents who have an agenda to get a clearly religious myth taught in America's public schools. With that in mind, I will call "creation scientists" liars without hesitation (I note that you did not contest this portrayal.) And I will point out the inconsistencies in the stories that they want to force on my children. Which brings us to the next point
There are common beliefs held among all of those who believe in creationism, and because cje has not bothered to do his homework and discover those beliefs, his arguments and challenges appear weak at best.
Oh, come on. Creationists do not agree on when the Earth and the universe were created. They do not agree on how long it took to create them. They don't agree on whether or not the original inhabitants of Earth were two people named Adam and Eve (most do, but some don't.) They haven't been able to decide if dinosaurs actually walked beside man, or if their fossils were buried by God to "test our faith", or if they are a mirage manufactured by Satan. They don't agree on how some sort of super-duper "hyperevolution" must have occurred to suddenly change carnivores into herbivores and then back to carnivores after Noah's Flood. They don't agree on an explanation as to how we can see the light of galaxies billions of light years distant (is the speed of light slowing down? did God create all that light in transit? is it a Satanic mirage?) And then there's the whole geocentrism thing
Stop me, please.
About all they do agree on is that at some point in the past, using some sort of procedure that took some unspecified amount of time, God created the universe. If you're suggesting that this is some sort of "unified creationist front"
Biological evolution is change, over time, in the gene pool of a population.
.. not a theory. Theories make testable predictions. The creation yarn of 1 Genesis does not. Depending on which creationist you listen to, the universe is anywhere from six thousand to fifteen billion years old. Some creationists insist that the Earth is not moving (after all, didn't Joshua command the sun to stand still?) However, these heretics are shunned by those creationists who believe that the Earth is flat. Creationists don't agree where all of the water for Noah's flood came from, nor do they agree upon how it disappeared in some unspecified manner. And it goes on and on. Creationists have come up with all sorts of ludicrous "scientific justifications" for events in Genesis, and .. here's the really funny part .. none of it is consistent with the rest.
That's it.
If you state that such changes are "only a theory", you are lying through the skin of your teeth.
When most people speak of "evolution", they are typically talking about "common descent", which is the application of evolutionary biology to explain the biodiversity of life on Earth through slowly-developing twin-nested hierarchies descending from common ancestors.
This is what chaps the asses of fundies. It is in direct conflict with their literalist interpretation of the Bible. And since they learned long ago that they're not going to get creationism taught in public school, they shifted their focus to attacking the scientific bases for evolution, even though their attacks are ridiculous. They shout nonsense like "Evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!" And it plays pretty well to the pew because, by golly, it sure sounds "purty scientifical!" After all, what do Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in the third row know about thermodynamics?
See, here's the thing: "Creation scientists" are full of shit, and I'm willing to bet that almost all of them are fully aware that they're full of shit. But most of the masses that phone in large cash contributions to the Trinity Broadcasting Network don't know this. It doesn't mean that they're stupid, or that they're not good people, it just means that they are uneducated with regards to the issues at hands. "Creation science" is a despicable, deceptive field which relies on repeated lies and misrepresentation of science. It does fairly well today because its adherents either aren't aware that it's lies, or they don't care.
I certainly understand why fundamentalists don't like evolution and common descent. But that doesn't matter. Scientific theories and facts do not stand and fall on the basis of whether everybody likes them or not. There are lots of things that science teaches us that I don't particularly find comforting. I don't like the notion that the Earth could be, at any moment, struck by a large asteroid which would wreak global devastation. I don't lose any sleep over it, but it's not a comforting notion. However, it does me no good to stick my fingers in my ears and run around screaming "IS NOT!! IS NOT!!"
So evolution is no longer part of the standard curriculum in Kansas. Big deal. It doesn't mean that it can't still be taught. All it means is that children who graduate from a Kansas high school that decided to forego evolution education are going to be less well-rounded than those children that graduated from schools that have no qualms about teaching things that have been discovered since the Bronze Age.
Finally, to those who would like to see fundamentalist Christian creationism taught in public schools "as a theory", you might want to consider that creationism is a myth
If creationists would like to see creationism taught as a theory in our public schools, then they should present the Theory of Creationism. If they are unable to, then they have no right to teach my children that the universe, which looks as if it is billions of years old, was "poofed" into existence by God six thousand years ago.
Okay, so this is really off-topic, but ..
..
.. nothing was left. Dennis Hopper had completely cleaned us out. The front door was still wide open.
When I was in college, I had a dream that my roommates and I were watching Speed in our living room (it had just come out on video.) We were really getting into the movie, when suddenly there was an abrupt knock on the door. One of my roommates answered the door, and lo and behold, it was Dennis Hopper, right there in our apartment.
Well, needless to say, we were very excited to have one of the stars of Speed right there in our living room. We got him a beer, and we sat down and started watching the rest of the movie. Pretty soon we all got around to asking him for his autograph. He graciously said "Sure! Why don't you guys go back into your rooms and get something for me to sign?" And so we did. Then we came back
The fucker had ripped us off.
Everything was gone. The TV, the VCR, the stereo, my PlayStation, all of our CDs
To this day I have no idea what that dream meant.
But I want my fucking TV back, Dennis.
Fortunately, Gee-Whiz, son of Gosh, will save you.
Gee-Whiz? You heretic. Everybody knows the true Son of Gosh is Jeepers.
You must be one of those Southern Baptists.
NERDS UNLEASH HOLY TERROR IN SAN JOSE
.. not a yak."
Atrocities "Too Graphic To List", States Police Chief
SAN JOSE, CA (UPI) - Dredging up painful memories of other recent riots in southern California, the city of San Jose was consumed by raucous, drunken nerds last evening, and officials estimate that it will be "quite some time" before the carnage can be cleaned up and life can return back to normal.
The events started off innocently enough. Several readers and contributors to the online nerd Mecca Slashdot were gathered together outside of a Linux convention. Linux is a type of computer that does not have windows and only runs hydroponics simulations software.
However, things got out of hand when the group's ringleader, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, began to start playing old The Who bootlegs. When the beer ran out, the party's crazed attendees ruthlessly invaded the liquor cabinet and had drained it completely dry in record time. They then took to the streets, leaving no target untarnished.
"I'm still trying to get those goddamn motorcycles out of my pool," sputtered Howard Johnson, who owns an area Holiday Inn. "I'm going to have to have to drain the whole thing." Johnson then pointed to a screaming toddler that had been hoisted all the way up a nearby flagpole. "That little bastard's mother is still trying to find somebody to get him down. I tell you, kids these days just have no respect for authority."
Edward Hoffman, the chief of police for San Jose, agreed.
"I have seen lots of unruliness in my tenure as police chief," related Hoffman. "But never anything like this. Why, there were literally hundreds of drunken imbeciles running around shouting 'MEEPT!' and inciting general violence." Hoffman said that while the death toll of two victims is relatively low, the emotional scars that this incident has left on witnesses will probably never heal. "There are some things that just stick with a person," he said. "This whole riot is going to be one of them."
"These people were completely insane," said Hoffman. "They were committing acts of depravity that are quite simply too graphic to list." Details are beginning to emerge. Sergeant Dale Smith recanted a gruesome tale involving a nerd, a prostitute named Tangerine, six feet of rubber tubing, a quart of motor oil, and a yak. Smith spoke under the condition of anonymity. Chief Hoffman later confirmed Smith's story.
"A yak," said Hoffman. "That's fucked."
Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, urged the international community to remain calm. "I would remind you," Mr. Torvalds said through a spokesman, "that under no conditions should these actions be taken as par-for-the-course for Linux users in general. Personally," he continued, "I would have used a gnu
The San Jose Mercury News contributed to this article.
(like, is that a map on a blank piece of paper or what?)
.. what I meant was a map with no names on it. As far as the source of the statistic, I really don't remember. It doesn't really matter if it's true or not; it's funny either way (or sad, depending on your point of view.) :-)
Well, I think "unlabeled map" might have been a more appropriate and descriptive term
SAUDI ARABIA ANNEXES TITAN
"Mine, Mine, All Mine," Vows Gleeful King
DHARAN, SAUDI ARABIA (AP) - In a bold and unprecedented move, an Earth-based nation has laid claim to an entire celestial body. When the BBC reported that astronomers had located a potential "ocean of oil" on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, the government of Saudi Arabia quickly mobilized and annexed the satellite using a highly questionable procedure. Saudi Arabia is an extremely oil-rich country, and most analysts believe that the move by the Saudis serves only to increase their oil reserves.
The United States' reaction to the annexation was swift and negative. "We would advise Saudi Arabia to carefully reconsider their decision," said State Department spokeman James Rubin. "The Chinese attempted to annex the Jovian satellite Europa in 2010: Odyssey Two, and you saw what happened to them. This move is reckless, and may have far-reaching unintended consequences." Similar statements were released by Russia, France, Tahiti, and Swaziland. As of yet, no country has indicated that they will officially recognize Titan as Saudi soil.
The reaction from Titan was equally fervent. "Under no circumstances," stated official satellite spokesbeing Gkklotrff Bdssuirghed, "will the citizens of Titan accept any intrusion by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We have never done anything to you silly Earth-bound two-legged bastards; all we ask is that you pay us the reciprocal courtesy in return." The official Titan News Agency reported that the Titan military was in a state of "high alert."
The Saudi government, however, is downplaying the interplanetary outrage. "What we have done, we have done under the auspices of international law. If the United States, or Swaziland, or whatever, wished to annex Titan, it could have done so long ago," said a government spokeperson. "Waahh, waahh, waahh. You're just jealous because we did it first."
In the meantime, however, Saudi Arabia is preparing its massive space program for an expedition to the distant moon. While the government is closely protecting the identity of the five astronauts that will make the trip in the top-of-the-line Saudi Shazam al-Rocket spacecraft, the Associated Press was able to speak by telephone to one of them. "I'm very pleased to be going," said the astronaut, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I am confident that Allah will protect us and keep us safe on our way to Titan. Hopefully, when we get there, we'll find 'Allaht' of oil," the astronaut joked.
It seems that Americans no longer find this type of thing important, which is a pity.
Yes, it is. But when almost 40 percent of Americans are unable to identify the Atlantic Ocean on a blank map, it sort of stands to reason that they wouldn't be interested in an ocean on a faraway celestial body.
People seem to have the wrong impression about NASA. People seem to think that NASA missions typically consist of some multi-billion-dollar spacecraft gallivanting merrily out to Pluto for no reason whatsoever, burning hundred-dollar bills as fuel all the way.
One of the biggest programs that will be affected by these budget cuts is NASA's EOS (Earth Observing System.) This is Earth science (that's right
Data provided by the Landsat program has saved millions of lives. It has saved millions of lives. That tradition will continue (and improve) with other such Earth-observing spacecraft such as the upcoming Terra, with its MODIS and ASTER instruments. The positive results of NASA's Earth science programs alone more than justify the operating costs of the entire agency; ironically, it will be Earth science that is among the hardest hit by these budget cuts.
Beyond that, the space science is worthwhile to mankind as well, even if people don't realize it. Getting to know the inner workings of our sun is worth it. Exploration of the planets and their satellites is worth it. Gaining insight into the operation and origin of our vast universe is worth it (although this tends to chap the collective asses of fundies who feel we're going to burn in hell for having the audacity to be curious.) And doing work and performing experiments on board the shuttle in low-Earth orbit is worth it as well; people who complain about John Glenn's trip back as being a "PR stunt" or a "joyride" rarely forget to mention that that mission had more scientific experiments to perform than any previous shuttle mission.
The bottom line is this: NASA is an island oasis floating in a sea of pork. Sure, some people don't like "the space program." Some people are ideologically opposed to it. Some people just don't understand what NASA really does. But cutting NASA's budget is a Bad Thing (TM). Trust me.
Can somebody please explain this to me?
Social conservatives like Tom DeLay and Bob Barr have come right out and suggested that if the Ten Commandments had been posted in Columbine High School, then the tragic shootings that took place there would not have happened. Is there any evidence for this?
(The following is a summarization of a column that I read some time back; unfortunately, I can't remember the author or the source, but the numbers do stick out in my mind.)
The United States is, by far, the most religious of all the world's industrialized nations. Over forty percent of US citizens attend church on a weekly basis. Compare that with 27 percent in Britain, 21 percent in France, 16 percent in Australia, and 4 percent in Sweden. The United States also has, by far, the highest murder rate of these same industrialized countries; it is six times higher than the murder rate in Britain, seven times that of France, five times that of Australia, and five times that of Sweden. Japan, where you would be hard-pressed to find anybody who's even heard of the Ten Commandments, has less crime than almost anywhere else on Earth.
Back here at home, the state of Louisiana has the highest churchgoing rate of the entire nation; it also sports a murder rate that is over twice the national average. Washington state, the state with the lowest churchgoing rate boasts a murder rate that is 38 percent below the national average.
Please note that I'm not attempting to suggest that churchgoing is the cause of this violence; I'm merely pointing out that it does not appear to be serving as any kind of a deterrent. If lack of religion is indeed the cause for school violence, why have we not seen rampant shootings at such heretical liberal Meccas such as Berkeley and MIT? Why have all of these school shootings taken place in picturesque towns such as Pearl, Mississippi? Paducah, Kentucky? Jonesboro, Arkansas? Littleton, Colorado? These are places that Norman Rockwell would have been proud to call home; they are all a far cry from the hotbeds of secular humanism that you'd find in, say, New York City.
The religious conservatives have claimed to find a solution without showing any evidence whatsoever for its validity; in reality, the evidence is very much slanted in the other direction.
The bottom line is that people like Barr and DeLay have their own right-wing agenda, and it has nothing to do with school shootings. I believe it is the responsiblility of all Americans, regardless of their individual faiths, to combat efforts to turn Christianity into a state-sanctioned religion. It's in everybody's best interests -- including Christians -- to see that this doesn't happen.
And I really don't think that it will; I imagine that the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools will be challenged and the law will be struck down. What would the champions of this bill think of an Islamic teacher hanging up a sign reading THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH? This is, after all, just the Islamic version of the First Commandment. And if you'd object to such a sign being displayed, then you understand why the law must (and will) be found unconstitutional.
Huh? The 6502 had multiplication & division instructions.. they were just multiplication & division by two. (ASL & ASR)
:-)
Well, I'm specifically thinking of instructions like MUL and DIV on "modern" processors that "fully implement" the operations. I won't argue that bit-shifting operations can, at the basic level, be considered basic vehicles for multiplication and division (obviously, they're what you had to use!) But they're certainly not general-purpose multiplication and division instructions.
You know as well as I do that assembly language programmers who are only familiar with "modern" assembly languages would be completely lost.
You sped up your disk, eh?
:-)
Yeah. What I did was scrap the whole DOS 3.3/ProDOS idea of using 16-sector tracks and just wrote everything on a track in just one long "swoop." Of course, this meant that if you had a tiny file that was only a few bytes long, you'd waste an entire track by writing it. But for my application, each of the "files" I was storing fit pretty conveniently on a track.
I also used 4 & 4 encoding, instead of the 6 & 2 encoding used by DOS 3.3/ProDOS/Pascal and the 5 & 3 encoding used by DOS 3.2. For those not familiar with the encoding required by the Disk II, there were only certain bit patterns that could be reliably read back by the hardware, so all data had to be "encoded" before the raw bits could be written to the media. "6 & 2" encoding meant that each "byte" written on the media contained six actual "data bits" and two "filler bits" that guaranteed that the bit pattern could be reliably read. The 4 & 4 encoding that I used was (again) a waste of disk space, but it was faster and much simpler to decode.
Whatta fun time to be a geek.
I know how you feel, dude. My Apple IIe is still my favorite computer, too.
:-))
:-)
Home computers were just more fun to use back in their infancy. Today they've become so common and mundane that there's no element of exhilaration when you flip the power switch. Back then, the technology was new and so was the experience. Back then, home computer users and hackers were digital conquistadors, exploring a brave new world. Today, we're all suburban commuters, plodding forlornly from one destination to the next.
The Apple II series was a helluva lot of fun to hack around on. I remember writing raw machine language code (bare hex bytes) in the early 80's because I had no assembler; manually calculating the number of bytes for the destination of a relative branch was a pain in the ass, though. I suppose for that period of time, writing raw machine language was the technological equivalent of punch cards. Every Apple II hacker worth his/her salt will remember what 20 ED FD did (just as every respectable hacker will remember that CALL -151 got you into the machine language monitor.
Virtually no Apple II hackers thought much of Wozniak's memory-mapping "scheme" for the text/low-resolution and high-resolution screen memory (the old "venetian blinds" effect.) At one time, I had memorized the sequence of hex bytes that implemented the lookup table generator so that you could translate screen lines into memory addresses. This didn't slow things down too much, if you were careful about it, but it was still a bitch.
I can't be the only one who wistfully misses the days of doing long division and multiplication on an 8-bit processor with no division or multiplication instructions. Oh, and remember all of the undocumented 6502 opcodes? What a great way to make it a bitch for people to disassemble your code and get at the guts.
Then there was the Disk II. I was once writing a game where fast disk access was absolutely required, and I ended up implementing what amounted to my own operating system (though this was not exactly new; some games like Broderbund's Karateka did exactly this, using spiral tracks to make the disk almost impossible to copy.) Direct access to the Disk II was maddening, painful fun. You had to litter your code with NOP instructions to get the timings on the write exactly right; a microsecond off in either direction and your data is corrupt.
Show of hands: Who's still got the old Beagle Brothers' "PEEKS and POKES Chart" handy?
A lot of folks who are new to the whole computing scene don't understand people like us when we so fondly reminisce about the days when computers were slower, bulkier, and harder to use. But it's because they don't understand a very basic concept that so many Slashdotters do:
Just because it's easier doesn't mean it's more fun.
Thanks for the memories, Apple.
.. Linux has a celebrity.
.. but she's heard of Linus Torvalds. The people who make the biggest splashes are the people that get the most press.
This is pretty much an extension of your comparison of the Linux community to a bunch of excited kids. Linus is a charismatic guy. He's funny, likeable, and direct. When it comes to PR, technical talent takes a back seat to some of the more interpersonal aspects. My sister, who is in nursing, doesn't even own a computer
Of course, this is not to say that the BSD community doesn't have its own important and colorful characters. But if you were to compare the number of Slashdotters who know who Linus Torvalds is against the number who know who, say, Theo DeRaadt is, you'd find a pretty evident bias.