There is much I wish to reply to in your message, but this thread is already old. Perhaps we could continue through email.
I think some people actually purchase cigarettes and sodas because _of_ the addictive ingredient. In other words, they genuinely _want_ whatever feeling that ingredient gives them. It isn't an invisible "power" which takes control over them.
It's not invisible at all. It's pretty well understood chemical reactions and interactions (and the results of the lack thereof, in the case of withdrawl.)
I don't really believe in wisdom. Or, rather, wisdom is relative. Most people smoking have this motto of "you're going to die sometime." I don't see anything wrong with living by this philosophy, or "wisdom." You would think adults would generally know better than youths, but they don't. There is a great quote from American Beauty that just escapes me at the moment (something to do with how adults are still the same insecure and confused people they were when they were young).
Out of everything in your response I think this is the issue with which I take exception to the most. There most certainly is such a thing "wisdom", for those who seek it. Is it intagible? Yes. But does it have a real effect? Absolutely. Whereas we may continue to make mistakes throughout life, wisdom shows patterns that should be repeated or avoided. Some things can only be taught through experience, and after the high-energy (and chemically rambunctious) years of the teens have passed. To a certain extent it seems almost unavoidable: as life dishes out its weird synchronicities knowledge increases over time, except for stupid people.
People smoke pot all the time because of the certain socially acceptable circles they get into. And there are no corporations out pandering pot to minors, either.
No, and I think that pot should be legal. But mainly because it does not have an addictive component. (That, and legalization is just the right thing to do.)
If I spent my life building a hugely successful business, I think I deserve to be rewarded for my hard work. If there's one thing I learned from college, it's that hard work isn't enough. You have to step on people and back stab just to stay afloat.
You have unknowingly touched on where I have a problem with tobacco from a capitalistic standpoint. Capitalism is based upon the consumer's ability to make informed decisions about where to spend their money. This in turn is based upon the principle that free will reigns supreme in the market: consumers and producers are free to decide how to best spend their money. Now, when addictive chemicals are introduced into the equation the model is no longer so pure, and the capitalist system is affected thereby. In the case of tobacco (and other substances with addictive chemicals as a key constituent) you are, to my mind, cheating insofar as capitalism is concerned.
Now, I understand that a certain degree of addiction can be said to take place when almost any substance is consumed. But I think you would agree that nicotine is in a class above other similar chemicals, due to its well known characteristic of being extrordinarily addictive. As such, the continued sale of tobacco causes me a degree of concern as a small-l libertarian. I believe in free market principles, but those principles must occasionally be protected from those who abuse the system. I am increasingly of the opinion that the tobacco companies, instead of merely being another successful player in the free market, are instead the incorporated version of the Cali cartel.
I understand that it is currently fasionable to believe that free will reigns supreme, and that in the case of smoking the initial decision to "spark up" is untainted by any addiction. But please keep in mind two things: First, that the initial decision is usually made in youth, when wisdom is not generally a core part of our character. Second, that the (wise) decision to cease smoking is made more difficult by the addictive nature of nicotine, and that this in and of itself is out of bounds for a successful and fair free market.
Stan Lee editorial in NYT
on
Review: Spiderman
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Stan Lee has an editorial in today's New York Times (free reg required blah blah blah), wherein he talks about Spidey's long-lasting appeal. Short on depth but fulla Stan Lee goodness, it's worth a read.
Would somebody please tell me what tangible benefits there are to a 3G network? I understand there is a higher transfer rate, but this is meaningless to me until there are services available that warrant it. Checking stock quotes through my cell phone only has limited appeal to me, same thing for email or instant messaging, and these functions are available on existing networks, anyway.
I guess my real question is: In areas where 3G has been rolled out, what services are available/are popular? 3G is touted as being the Next Big Thing in wireless, but I have yet to see anything that makes me get all that excited.
JDC: Is it possible to submit the Java [technology] bytecode specification to a standards body like ECMA [and the like]?
JG: Well, we actually tried to do that; to submit it to ECMA. And that exploded and turned into a rather bizarre episode. And actually, after that exploded, ECMA did an internal investigation and published a report, which is very interesting reading.
Does anyone know what he's talking about? I saw this interview a while ago and have looked around in vain for the report he mentions. This would certainly be interesting, especially if, as I somehow suspect, Microsoft did something to prevent Java from becoming a standard.
Recipe for a fun-filled weekend of nihilistic fun:
Procure a few dried grams of mushrooms of psychedelic variety
Grab a buddy or two
Head out to the country on a clear night
Lay on your back and contemplate the vastness unfolding before your eyes and inside your brain
Achieve philosophical enlightment (optional)
Astromony and psychedelics go together like peantut butter & jelly, I tell you whut. I have done this a few times, and it's the only time in my life I've come close to having a religious experience.
The DLP website has some information. It is a big task and big expense for theaters to upgrade to it. You need special projectors, although (AFAIK) you use the same screen. The movie is actually stored digitally, which I assume means a big hard drive. The big advantage that I have seen to DLP is that the image brightness higher than film, the color clarity is similarly excellent.
Also the film quality doesn't degrade over time. Ever seen a movie after it's been in the theater for a while? You have probably noticed some aging of the film, such as scratches, fading, and so forth. There is no similar phenmomena with digital, so the 400th showing is just as clean as the 1st.
He did make a very good point. The only reason it bugged me is because I have seen "speech" misspelled frequently lately. Nothing major.
And "K" is a colloquialism, used frequently in informal discussions such as these. It might not be in the dictionary, and you certainly wouldn't use it in a formal communication, but it is acceptable in this context. K?
Good lord people. Do you REALLY expect anyone to take you seriously when you can't even properly spell a six letter word? Especially when that word is the central to the topic you are talking about?
Repeat after me: THERE IS NO "A" IN THE WORD "SPEECH". It's not that difficult, k?
I hate to be a spelling Nazi, but I've seen this mistake probably a dozen times over the past week, and it's just a dumb one to make.
I am sure that since I have taken it upon myself to point this out that there are at least five spelling mistakes in this very message. Always seems to happen that if you bitch about spelling and/or grammar, your message will magically transform into something that looks like it was written by George Bush.
Well, Christians don't try to subvert the legal process to their own ends, at least not in an organized way.
That's silly. Of course they do. There are many different shades of Christianity, but the evangelical crowd would be quite happy to see the United States become a Christian nation, and frequently espouse their wish for laws that would establish this. More frequently than not, their tactics are just as unethical as the Scientologists are. From stealth candidates to pushing for so-called "intelligent design" theories, they are well versed in using the political system to achieve religious ends.
Read up on the rise and fall of the Christian Coalition for more information on this.
It's fairly well known now that email is mostly ignored by Congresscritters. They can't tell for sure if the email is coming from one of their constituents, it's too easy to do, and they get too many of them. Faxes are better, stamped snail mail is best.
Actually cold hard cash is best, but we're talking above the table methods here.
Put it this way, if they were using ColdFusion, your HTML guys could have written it themselves, rather than relying on an admin (you) to provide them with a custom tag!
And who provides them with the ColdFusion tags? An administrator! Look you big dork, if you think that runninng a freaking web site without a web administrator is a desirable thing then you have much bigger problems to worry about. Somebody is going to have to install the software. Jesus!
Look man, I'm being serious: ColdFusion is dying. If you are basing your career upon it I would seriously advise you to at least look into learning other technologies. It's proprietary, doesn't scale well, and is only supported by a single vendor. And Macromedia's energies seem to be increasing steadily over to JRun. I have been involved with over a dozen web applications from design to launch utilizing several different technologies, of which ColdFusion was a part. Very few people in the industry like ColdFusion or even take it seriously, and they have good reasons for that. Trust me.
ColdFusion is certainly functional, but not very robust. Can it do most of the basic things that other server-side languages do? Sure. But with the advent of MVC models such as Struts this need is diminished. Or if Struts is too much, then you can build your own custom tags, or use existing JSP custom tag libraries. This allows for your non-CS HTML people to do things such as:
<table> <sql:statement id="stmt1" conn="conn1"> <sql:query> select id, name, description from test_books order by 1 </sql:query> <%-- loop through the rows of your query --%> <sql:resultSet id="rset2"> <tr> <td><sql:getColumn position="1"/></td> <td><sql:getColumn position="2"/></td> <td><sql:getColumn position="3"/> <sql:wasNull>[no description]</sql:wasNull></td> </tr> </sql:resultSet> </sql:statement> </table>
The last project I worked on used this, and the designers (HTML people, with some basic JavaScript experience) were able to pick up on it after a single half-day meeting. Very simple, very straightforward, very robust, and you don't have to drop several thousand bucks into a technology that even Macromedia is showing signs of moving away from.
I'm not going to say Sun should open source Java, but for heaven's sake, make a GUI toolkit that doesn't suck. You can't cite Java's 'newness' as an excuse anymore.
If you are interested, try Eclipse. It is IBM's open source Java IDE and it is very, very solid. It is much faster than Forte, and isn't bloatware, either.
Plus I love the fact that Ctrl-S not only saves but compiles. RaH.
Hell, where's the DoJ nailing this bastard for violation of civil liberties?
Bwahahahaha! It is to laugh. *This* Administration? Protect civil liberties? You GOTTA be joking! The day the Bush Administration does ANYTHING for civil liberties will be a cold one in Hades. Civil liberties are so far down on their list of priorities that they don't even register.
Money, power, and secrecy. Those are the driving factors of this administartion.
I dunno, Apr 1 seems to be morphing into a universal net holiday, of sorts. Nothing official, no time of, but everybody recognizes it and does something with it. Yes, the jokes could be better. But the surrounding phenomenon is interesting, to say the least.
I mean, why AFD? The fact that it's such a popular holiday on "geek" sites like/. could give some insight into the psychology of the culture.
I've gotten CDs from various ISPs over the years. The only one I've ever kept (or even used) was one that had every single RFC ever written burned onto it. Massively helpful, instructive, and educational from a historical standpoint.
Thanks for the info. If it wasn't 3 hours long I would have done it. But getting a 2 year old to sit still for that long is a chore, especially during a plot driven movie like that one.
Ack. I just... can't... justify it! I've already seen the damn thing three times, and I've got two kids! (A 2 year old and a 5 month old.. Too young to take to it.) I already feel like I've been a neglectful parent because I've spent 11 hours of my free time (movie times + commute) on the Movie. Any more and I couldn't live with myself.
That's exactly right. I long ago lost hope that technologically superior products would put a dent in Microsoft's marketshare. If that were true, we'd certainly be living in a different world.
Slashdot Mirror
There is much I wish to reply to in your message, but this thread is already old. Perhaps we could continue through email.
I think some people actually purchase cigarettes and sodas because _of_ the addictive ingredient. In other words, they genuinely _want_ whatever feeling that ingredient gives them. It isn't an invisible "power" which takes control over them.
It's not invisible at all. It's pretty well understood chemical reactions and interactions (and the results of the lack thereof, in the case of withdrawl.)
I don't really believe in wisdom. Or, rather, wisdom is relative. Most people smoking have this motto of "you're going to die sometime." I don't see anything wrong with living by this philosophy, or "wisdom." You would think adults would generally know better than youths, but they don't. There is a great quote from American Beauty that just escapes me at the moment (something to do with how adults are still the same insecure and confused people they were when they were young).
Out of everything in your response I think this is the issue with which I take exception to the most. There most certainly is such a thing "wisdom", for those who seek it. Is it intagible? Yes. But does it have a real effect? Absolutely. Whereas we may continue to make mistakes throughout life, wisdom shows patterns that should be repeated or avoided. Some things can only be taught through experience, and after the high-energy (and chemically rambunctious) years of the teens have passed. To a certain extent it seems almost unavoidable: as life dishes out its weird synchronicities knowledge increases over time, except for stupid people.
People smoke pot all the time because of the certain socially acceptable circles they get into. And there are no corporations out pandering pot to minors, either.
No, and I think that pot should be legal. But mainly because it does not have an addictive component. (That, and legalization is just the right thing to do.)
If I spent my life building a hugely successful business, I think I deserve to be rewarded for my hard work. If there's one thing I learned from college, it's that hard work isn't enough. You have to step on people and back stab just to stay afloat.
You have unknowingly touched on where I have a problem with tobacco from a capitalistic standpoint. Capitalism is based upon the consumer's ability to make informed decisions about where to spend their money. This in turn is based upon the principle that free will reigns supreme in the market: consumers and producers are free to decide how to best spend their money. Now, when addictive chemicals are introduced into the equation the model is no longer so pure, and the capitalist system is affected thereby. In the case of tobacco (and other substances with addictive chemicals as a key constituent) you are, to my mind, cheating insofar as capitalism is concerned.
Now, I understand that a certain degree of addiction can be said to take place when almost any substance is consumed. But I think you would agree that nicotine is in a class above other similar chemicals, due to its well known characteristic of being extrordinarily addictive. As such, the continued sale of tobacco causes me a degree of concern as a small-l libertarian. I believe in free market principles, but those principles must occasionally be protected from those who abuse the system. I am increasingly of the opinion that the tobacco companies, instead of merely being another successful player in the free market, are instead the incorporated version of the Cali cartel.
I understand that it is currently fasionable to believe that free will reigns supreme, and that in the case of smoking the initial decision to "spark up" is untainted by any addiction. But please keep in mind two things: First, that the initial decision is usually made in youth, when wisdom is not generally a core part of our character. Second, that the (wise) decision to cease smoking is made more difficult by the addictive nature of nicotine, and that this in and of itself is out of bounds for a successful and fair free market.
Stan Lee has an editorial in today's New York Times (free reg required blah blah blah), wherein he talks about Spidey's long-lasting appeal. Short on depth but fulla Stan Lee goodness, it's worth a read.
Would somebody please tell me what tangible benefits there are to a 3G network? I understand there is a higher transfer rate, but this is meaningless to me until there are services available that warrant it. Checking stock quotes through my cell phone only has limited appeal to me, same thing for email or instant messaging, and these functions are available on existing networks, anyway.
I guess my real question is: In areas where 3G has been rolled out, what services are available/are popular? 3G is touted as being the Next Big Thing in wireless, but I have yet to see anything that makes me get all that excited.
From the article:
JDC: Is it possible to submit the Java [technology] bytecode specification to a standards body like ECMA [and the like]?
JG: Well, we actually tried to do that; to submit it to ECMA. And that exploded and turned into a rather bizarre episode. And actually, after that exploded, ECMA did an internal investigation and published a report, which is very interesting reading.
Does anyone know what he's talking about? I saw this interview a while ago and have looked around in vain for the report he mentions. This would certainly be interesting, especially if, as I somehow suspect, Microsoft did something to prevent Java from becoming a standard.
Recipe for a fun-filled weekend of nihilistic fun:
Astromony and psychedelics go together like peantut butter & jelly, I tell you whut. I have done this a few times, and it's the only time in my life I've come close to having a religious experience.
The DLP website has some information. It is a big task and big expense for theaters to upgrade to it. You need special projectors, although (AFAIK) you use the same screen. The movie is actually stored digitally, which I assume means a big hard drive. The big advantage that I have seen to DLP is that the image brightness higher than film, the color clarity is similarly excellent.
Also the film quality doesn't degrade over time. Ever seen a movie after it's been in the theater for a while? You have probably noticed some aging of the film, such as scratches, fading, and so forth. There is no similar phenmomena with digital, so the 400th showing is just as clean as the 1st.
He did make a very good point. The only reason it bugged me is because I have seen "speech" misspelled frequently lately. Nothing major.
And "K" is a colloquialism, used frequently in informal discussions such as these. It might not be in the dictionary, and you certainly wouldn't use it in a formal communication, but it is acceptable in this context. K?
Good lord people. Do you REALLY expect anyone to take you seriously when you can't even properly spell a six letter word? Especially when that word is the central to the topic you are talking about?
Repeat after me: THERE IS NO "A" IN THE WORD "SPEECH". It's not that difficult, k?
I hate to be a spelling Nazi, but I've seen this mistake probably a dozen times over the past week, and it's just a dumb one to make.
I am sure that since I have taken it upon myself to point this out that there are at least five spelling mistakes in this very message. Always seems to happen that if you bitch about spelling and/or grammar, your message will magically transform into something that looks like it was written by George Bush.
Well, Christians don't try to subvert the legal process to their own ends, at least not in an organized way.
That's silly. Of course they do. There are many different shades of Christianity, but the evangelical crowd would be quite happy to see the United States become a Christian nation, and frequently espouse their wish for laws that would establish this. More frequently than not, their tactics are just as unethical as the Scientologists are. From stealth candidates to pushing for so-called "intelligent design" theories, they are well versed in using the political system to achieve religious ends.
Read up on the rise and fall of the Christian Coalition for more information on this.
It's fairly well known now that email is mostly ignored by Congresscritters. They can't tell for sure if the email is coming from one of their constituents, it's too easy to do, and they get too many of them. Faxes are better, stamped snail mail is best.
Actually cold hard cash is best, but we're talking above the table methods here.
Java is insecure
No, JavaScript implementations can be insecure, or VBScript can be insecure, but Java is very, very secure.*
Methinks you are confusing JavaScript with Java. They're only related tangentially at best.
* This being /. this point is, of course, infinitely debatable.
Put it this way, if they were using ColdFusion, your HTML guys could have written it themselves, rather than relying on an admin (you) to provide them with a custom tag!
And who provides them with the ColdFusion tags? An administrator! Look you big dork, if you think that runninng a freaking web site without a web administrator is a desirable thing then you have much bigger problems to worry about. Somebody is going to have to install the software. Jesus!
Look man, I'm being serious: ColdFusion is dying. If you are basing your career upon it I would seriously advise you to at least look into learning other technologies. It's proprietary, doesn't scale well, and is only supported by a single vendor. And Macromedia's energies seem to be increasing steadily over to JRun. I have been involved with over a dozen web applications from design to launch utilizing several different technologies, of which ColdFusion was a part. Very few people in the industry like ColdFusion or even take it seriously, and they have good reasons for that. Trust me.
ColdFusion is certainly functional, but not very robust. Can it do most of the basic things that other server-side languages do? Sure. But with the advent of MVC models such as Struts this need is diminished. Or if Struts is too much, then you can build your own custom tags, or use existing JSP custom tag libraries. This allows for your non-CS HTML people to do things such as:
The last project I worked on used this, and the designers (HTML people, with some basic JavaScript experience) were able to pick up on it after a single half-day meeting. Very simple, very straightforward, very robust, and you don't have to drop several thousand bucks into a technology that even Macromedia is showing signs of moving away from.
I'm not going to say Sun should open source Java, but for heaven's sake, make a GUI toolkit that doesn't suck. You can't cite Java's 'newness' as an excuse anymore.
If you are interested, try Eclipse. It is IBM's open source Java IDE and it is very, very solid. It is much faster than Forte, and isn't bloatware, either.
Plus I love the fact that Ctrl-S not only saves but compiles. RaH.
SLUUUURP. And away it goes... I barely miss frist psot and the site is already down.
Cached link, anyone?
Hell, where's the DoJ nailing this bastard for violation of civil liberties?
Bwahahahaha! It is to laugh. *This* Administration? Protect civil liberties? You GOTTA be joking! The day the Bush Administration does ANYTHING for civil liberties will be a cold one in Hades. Civil liberties are so far down on their list of priorities that they don't even register.
Money, power, and secrecy. Those are the driving factors of this administartion.
I would just like to say that you have moved into my personal pantheon of gods. That was the funniest fucking thing I have read in weeks. Kudos.
If I have to pick an "invasive" level for the toilet, then it is, ipso facto, too invasive.
I dunno, Apr 1 seems to be morphing into a universal net holiday, of sorts. Nothing official, no time of, but everybody recognizes it and does something with it. Yes, the jokes could be better. But the surrounding phenomenon is interesting, to say the least.
I mean, why AFD? The fact that it's such a popular holiday on "geek" sites like /. could give some insight into the psychology of the culture.
Or maybe I'm thinking about it too much.
I've gotten CDs from various ISPs over the years. The only one I've ever kept (or even used) was one that had every single RFC ever written burned onto it. Massively helpful, instructive, and educational from a historical standpoint.
Thanks for the info. If it wasn't 3 hours long I would have done it. But getting a 2 year old to sit still for that long is a chore, especially during a plot driven movie like that one.
Here, try this.
Ack. I just... can't... justify it! I've already seen the damn thing three times, and I've got two kids! (A 2 year old and a 5 month old.. Too young to take to it.) I already feel like I've been a neglectful parent because I've spent 11 hours of my free time (movie times + commute) on the Movie. Any more and I couldn't live with myself.
At least until Two Towers comes out, of course.
That's exactly right. I long ago lost hope that technologically superior products would put a dent in Microsoft's marketshare. If that were true, we'd certainly be living in a different world.