We have this in the UK. It's called the Data Protection Act.
But we don't have the US Constitution, so obviously we still suck. Sorry. You're still the most wonderful fucking country in the world. No, forget that, you *are* the entirety of the developed world.
Yes of course it plays on the actual hitch-hiker's guides. But the main character in the Adams books is Arthur Dent, and the title reads almost like a parody of this old text... it was too much to be just coincidence.
I posted this on USENET sometime in '97 and never followed it up persistently. Someone mod this up and get it through, please!
This is something I've been meaning to ask you for some time.
A couple of years ago, I discovered in a history book a mention of a book. It was published in twenty-five editions through the 17th century, and was titled:
"A plaine man's patheway to Heaven"
and was by none other than Arthur Dent.
Is this:
(a) somehow connected to the origins of the title & character naming of the Guide, or:
(b) a very good excuse for you to write a little sarcastic snippet on the nature of coincidence?:-)
"Vice President Al Gore is supportive of the Justice Department's case, but Republican presidential candidate George W Bush has said that he opposes breaking up the company and would use his power of appointment to create a Justice Department more sympathetic to Microsoft."
Basic set theory. Set C = Christians, set M = Muslims, etc. Sets are mutually exclusive. I have never joined any of these sets. The set {C' (union) M'} has been given the name 'Atheism'.
2. how much actual study have I done on the subject of atheism (and the proofs therein)?
None. How much research have you done into my theory that there is a whole other continent in the middle of the Pacific called Fooglewop? People who don't believe that theory are called Kwippiboppilans. Ask yourself...
1. why am I a Kwippiboppilan?
...etc.
3. how do I know there isn't a God?
I don't.
Even if there is, how do you extrapolate that you should worship 'him', and that 'he' expects {this particular set of values} from you?
4. how much of my belief system comes from my parents?
My parents have never made any statements either way about the existence or non-existence of a god, or the validity of any religion.
All time since September 1993. One of the seasonal rhythms of the Usenet used to be the annual September influx of clueless newbies who, lacking any sense of netiquette, made a general nuisance of themselves. This coincided with people starting college, getting their first internet accounts, and plunging in without bothering to learn what was acceptable. These relatively small drafts of newbies could be assimilated within a few months. But in September 1993, AOL users became able to post to Usenet, nearly overwhelming the old-timers' capacity to acculturate them; to those who nostalgically recall the period before hand, this triggered an inexorable decline in the quality of discussions on newsgroups. See also AOL!.
...but now, the new users are unaware of Usenet's existence. The only traffic increasing is binaries (porn, mp3 & warez, mainly).
So the influx has finally stopped! The newbies will be assimilated, as they always have. So it was, and so it shall remain...
Now if we can just sort out this spam, Usenet is back in business:)
Something I just emailed to Rob, but thought I'd put here for comments.
An attempt at logical follow-through...
Readable submissions queue - bad thing (FAQ & rant just now).
Story ratings by readers - bad thing (reasons given just now).
"More "News for Nerds" Please..." (item 12)
Okay, so you're posting 10-15 stories a day, which is a nice amount.
But what about allowing more through, just split by ratings?
You get what, 300 submissions a day - a lot are duplicates, a lot are noise, but I might just be interested in some of the rest that slips through. At the moment, I have no facility to say 'please, let me read it ALL! I want my Slashdot fix! I keep refreshing and nothing happens!' (I believe this is the real sentiment behind the desire to read the submissions queue - we're all obsessive about not missing anything:)
The sections have helped a lot with this, but aren't quite there in my opinion. I think there's an easier way.
Now, what if instead of Accept or Reject you had Accept (ratings 1-5) and Reject. The top rating posts could be kept to 10-15/day, and users could set a threshold.
Actually, ratings 1-5 is a little excessive. Just two would be sufficient (and cause less argument).
As I see it, it should be a relatively easy arrangement to implement. A possible additional feature would be to have a story promoted to the upper rating if it became particularly active, but that's not essential.
In fact, it's the same system paper media has had for years - a front page, and the rest of the paper.
Penny for your thoughts?
Martin
Look at the amazing bouncing post!
on
V2OS under GPL
·
· Score: 1
Jeez, I've seen this bounce up and down all morning.
Erm... I just love the way this guy managed to post at a really l337 time... in GMT, anyway, most of you won't appreciate this.
V2 is a _demo coder's OS_.
on
V2OS under GPL
·
· Score: 3
Excuse me, but I come along here, see this being slagged off, and feel I need to apply the cluebat. This isn't trolling or flamebait, it's just me trying to clarify what the point of this is and what it isn't.
For one thing, it's been out less than a month. I've never seen development pick up so quickly on anything. Linux 0.01 was released in 1991, that was eight years ago. And there are people trying to compare.
Contrary to what most Linux advocates would seem to tell you, different OS's are good for different things.
V2 is not designed to be desperately stable, and certainly not portable. 100% assembler = 100% CPU power. This is a demo coder's OS, and damn cool it's going to be too. A lot of the old demoscene is waking up to this, and I've no doubt some very good stuff is going to show up soon.
But let's not take it for what it isn't. Yes, maybe this is a toy OS. Don't you guys have a sense of fun?:)
Anyway, why bother in the first place? VR is always going to be virtual, and that means that there will have to be some restrictions. Besides, vehicles are more fun anyway; you get to go faster.
Walking doesn't have to mean non-vehicluar... can you say 'Mech':)
Now that'll be fun.
PS - What's wrong with the real thing? And what were you doing on Slashdot at 6:42 in the morning? I was sleeping
Hate to break it to you, but there's a world outside the US...;-P - I'm in GMT (real time!:)
There is one core problem here: how to maintain walking motion in a restricted space.
A simple treadmill cannot suffice, as it can only work in one direction.
but perhaps the user could rotate their torso to turn? - have a sensor which picks up torso rotations (not head, mind you - that's for looking) and translates them to turning. Note that this would be a matter of turning right while the torso was twisted right and stopping when centered again.
...but a giant trackball could work. Has to be relatively easy to turn by walking motion, and not have too much carry-on spin (perhaps this could be handled by some intelligent braking system). Note that an important addition to this system would be a sensor to pick up the position of the torso. There's a reason for this - it means the user can walk backwards, diagonally, sidestep, etc. It's easy to not realise exactly how important such issues are to aid realism and navigability. We do not just walk forward, turn, walk again. All good Quake players use the sidestep keys continually, and all good Mechwarrior players understand the implications of not having them (and often use jumpjets for the purpose:)
Fake walking allows the maximum freedom, but is after all fake. However, consider the following:
User is suspended in a harness, legs dangling, arms free. This can be comfy if done properly. Manipulation controls, gloves etc can be used for arms. On each foot is a position sensor. A certain line just above the maximum reach of the users feet is designated as 'ground'. He moves his feet in normal walking motions, and the positions of the feet in relation to the ground plane are interpreted:
Feet move one by one under the ground and backwards = walking/running (speed determinable).
One foot faster than other or backwards = turning.
User rapidly pushes both feet below ground = jump.
User pulls both feet above ground = crouch.
Anyway - just some ideas. I'm very interested in such issues, so go ahead and email me.
I live in the UK (Harrow, London, anyone interested nearby get in touch), and have a room stuffed full of computers and bits going all the way back from present day to the ZX81 (no further, sorry all you old farts, I'm only 17!). I pick up lots of surplus stuff, and pass it on freely or sell it reasonably. A good few 486 systems have made their way out, monitors, printers and all.
You'd really be surprised how much I can pick up from the dump! I sometimes go there on a Monday morning, after all the weekend dumping, and before it starts to get taken away.
Unfortunately, I have to walk with it, so a lot goes down the drain. I always fancied having a bunch of people and a van...
Drive up, jump out, start up a generator, plug everything in and test it, throw everything that works in the back, strip everything that doesn't for parts, jump in, drive off, head for another dump:)
Anyway, just my two pennies. I'd like to believe there's a lot of people who do this kind of thing on a small scale.
Addition of voice recognition and feedback systems. Hmmm... maybe it'd be too much to ask, but saying "Unit 1, move to coordinates 40, 25!"... would be incredibly cool.
(Advice on porting)
If there was just a backdoor way to provide commands, and get map and positions of units, we could write amazing macros to get planes to attack from all angles, make ground units break into perfect pincer attacks, and set up our own voice control systems...
You have to understand, you see, that Linux is not just an OS, it's a philosophy. It's about not having pointless limitations.
If you could bear that in mind and make more than just a bare port, you would be greatly respected.
The main reason for Quake's popularity over other similar games was just how much it could be fiddled with and modified.
Slashdot Mirror
But we don't have the US Constitution, so obviously we still suck. Sorry. You're still the most wonderful fucking country in the world. No, forget that, you *are* the entirety of the developed world.
HHOS
Martin
I posted this on USENET sometime in '97 and never followed it up persistently. Someone mod this up and get it through, please!
Martin
A couple of years ago, I discovered in a history book a mention of a book. It was published in twenty-five editions through the 17th century, and was titled:
"A plaine man's patheway to Heaven"
and was by none other than Arthur Dent.
Is this:
(a) somehow connected to the origins of the title & character naming of the Guide, or:
(b) a very good excuse for you to write a little sarcastic snippet on the nature of coincidence? :-)
Regards,
Martin Ling
Nah, it's obvioulsy because M-1-5 is the m4d l33tsp33k spelling :)
More on mine than yours! :)
"Vice President Al Gore is supportive of the Justice Department's case, but Republican presidential candidate George W Bush has said that he opposes breaking up the company and would use his power of appointment to create a Justice Department more sympathetic to Microsoft."
We usually slag off Al Gore around here, but...
For fscks sake... WHY???
Ooh, NT is unstable. Let's run a more stable OS, add a VM layer, and *then* run NT on top of it!
Someone is missing the point here... (sigh)
Martin
http://www.nodezero.org.uk/iridium/
http://www.nodezero.org.uk/iridium/
http://www.nodezero.org.uk/iridium/
TREMOR? Surely 'wobble' would be more appropriate. (myself & friends have already reserved Tremor as a name for Quake running on low spec 486's etc :)
Yeah, guess so. The infowar is older than it seems, when you think about it. (first post :)
1. why am I an atheist?
Basic set theory. Set C = Christians, set M = Muslims, etc. Sets are mutually exclusive. I have never joined any of these sets. The set {C' (union) M'} has been given the name 'Atheism'.
2. how much actual study have I done on the subject of atheism (and the proofs therein)?
None. How much research have you done into my theory that there is a whole other continent in the middle of the Pacific called Fooglewop? People who don't believe that theory are called Kwippiboppilans. Ask yourself...
1. why am I a Kwippiboppilan?
...etc.
3. how do I know there isn't a God?
I don't.
Even if there is, how do you extrapolate that you should worship 'him', and that 'he' expects {this particular set of values} from you?
4. how much of my belief system comes from my parents?
My parents have never made any statements either way about the existence or non-existence of a god, or the validity of any religion.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Ling
September that never ended
All time since September 1993. One of the seasonal rhythms of the Usenet used to be the annual September influx of clueless newbies who, lacking any sense of netiquette, made a general nuisance of themselves. This coincided with people starting college, getting their first internet accounts, and plunging in without bothering to learn what was acceptable. These relatively small drafts of newbies could be assimilated within a few months. But in September 1993, AOL users became able to post to Usenet, nearly overwhelming the old-timers' capacity to acculturate them; to those who nostalgically recall the period before hand, this triggered an inexorable decline in the quality of discussions on newsgroups. See also AOL!.
...but now, the new users are unaware of Usenet's existence. The only traffic increasing is binaries (porn, mp3 & warez, mainly).
So the influx has finally stopped! The newbies will be assimilated, as they always have. So it was, and so it shall remain...
Now if we can just sort out this spam, Usenet is back in business :)
Yours optimistically,
Martin Ling
...may I suggest irc.slashnet.org, #slashdot. See you there,
An attempt at logical follow-through...
Readable submissions queue - bad thing (FAQ & rant just now).
Story ratings by readers - bad thing (reasons given just now).
"More "News for Nerds" Please..." (item 12)
Okay, so you're posting 10-15 stories a day, which is a nice amount.
But what about allowing more through, just split by ratings?
You get what, 300 submissions a day - a lot are duplicates, a lot are noise, but I might just be interested in some of the rest that slips through. At the moment, I have no facility to say 'please, let me read it ALL! I want my Slashdot fix! I keep refreshing and nothing happens!' (I believe this is the real sentiment behind the desire to read the submissions queue - we're all obsessive about not missing anything :)
The sections have helped a lot with this, but aren't quite there in my opinion. I think there's an easier way.
Now, what if instead of Accept or Reject you had Accept (ratings 1-5) and Reject. The top rating posts could be kept to 10-15/day, and users could set a threshold.
Actually, ratings 1-5 is a little excessive. Just two would be sufficient (and cause less argument).
As I see it, it should be a relatively easy arrangement to implement. A possible additional feature would be to have a story promoted to the upper rating if it became particularly active, but that's not essential.
In fact, it's the same system paper media has had for years - a front page, and the rest of the paper.
Penny for your thoughts?
Martin
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=3, Insightful=1, Funny=4, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=10.
Can someone please just flatten it to -1, it's a friggin' random beowulf post after all.
Check out my 31337 k4rm4 t3kniq...
"I'll probably get moderated down for this, but anyway..."
Always marks you up! It's k-rad!!! :P
(for those lacking a clue)
Erm... I just love the way this guy managed to post at a really l337 time... in GMT, anyway, most of you won't appreciate this.
For one thing, it's been out less than a month. I've never seen development pick up so quickly on anything. Linux 0.01 was released in 1991, that was eight years ago. And there are people trying to compare.
Contrary to what most Linux advocates would seem to tell you, different OS's are good for different things.
V2 is not designed to be desperately stable, and certainly not portable. 100% assembler = 100% CPU power. This is a demo coder's OS, and damn cool it's going to be too. A lot of the old demoscene is waking up to this, and I've no doubt some very good stuff is going to show up soon.
But let's not take it for what it isn't. Yes, maybe this is a toy OS. Don't you guys have a sense of fun? :)
Martin J. Ling
Anyway, why bother in the first place? VR is always going to be virtual, and that means that there will have to be some restrictions. Besides, vehicles are more fun anyway; you get to go faster.
Walking doesn't have to mean non-vehicluar... can you say 'Mech' :)
Now that'll be fun.
PS - What's wrong with the real thing? And what were you doing on Slashdot at 6:42 in the morning? I was sleeping
Hate to break it to you, but there's a world outside the US... ;-P - I'm in GMT (real time! :)
Martin
There is one core problem here: how to maintain walking motion in a restricted space.
User is suspended in a harness, legs dangling, arms free. This can be comfy if done properly. Manipulation controls, gloves etc can be used for arms. On each foot is a position sensor. A certain line just above the maximum reach of the users feet is designated as 'ground'. He moves his feet in normal walking motions, and the positions of the feet in relation to the ground plane are interpreted:
Anyway - just some ideas. I'm very interested in such issues, so go ahead and email me.
Someone else please do so.
You'd really be surprised how much I can pick up from the dump! I sometimes go there on a Monday morning, after all the weekend dumping, and before it starts to get taken away.
Unfortunately, I have to walk with it, so a lot goes down the drain. I always fancied having a bunch of people and a van...
Drive up, jump out, start up a generator, plug everything in and test it, throw everything that works in the back, strip everything that doesn't for parts, jump in, drive off, head for another dump :)
Anyway, just my two pennies. I'd like to believe there's a lot of people who do this kind of thing on a small scale.
This is what I wrote.
(Modifications to distribution...)
Addition of voice recognition and feedback systems. Hmmm... maybe it'd be too much to ask, but saying "Unit 1, move to coordinates 40, 25!"... would be incredibly cool.
(Advice on porting)
If there was just a backdoor way to provide commands, and get map and positions of units, we could write amazing macros to get planes to attack from all angles, make ground units break into perfect pincer attacks, and set up our own voice control systems...
You have to understand, you see, that Linux is not just an OS, it's a philosophy. It's about not having pointless limitations.
If you could bear that in mind and make more than just a bare port, you would be greatly respected.
The main reason for Quake's popularity over other similar games was just how much it could be fiddled with and modified.