GNU make available the main elements of an OS for free (or some useful helper utilities, make whatever distinction you want, it doesn't really matter for the purpose of my argument) and they request that you include them in the name of the OS.
Now, you have several choices.
Ethically "pure" ones:
* Gratefully use the software they've provided for free and agree to their modest request
* Decide that they're on a power trip and decline to use their software
Ethically slightly grey:
* Use their software, call it what you want anyway (probably most, er, "Linux" users)
Ungrateful:
* Use their software (given away for free!), call it what you want, and flame them in public for having the audacity to ask for a name modification
Ungrateful and annoying:
* As above, but also berate others for agreeing to their request (this is you, presumably!)
There is one other option, that of troll: don't use their software and flame them anyway - in which case why would you care what other people call it?
Isn't the BBC some kind of socialist, government supported thing?
Taking your statement at face value for a minute...
It's not really very socialist. It's paid for by what amounts to a poll tax. If it was paid for out of the general taxation system it would be fairly socialist (and it would be a move I'd support). Currently, a billionaire living in a huge castle with 19 children and 40 tellies pays the same as a student in a shared house with a broken old b&w set.
As a bonus, you'd avoid all the bureaucracy associated with the license, the cost (and nastiness) of enforcing it, and all those bloody license adverts.
Jack London, Helen Keller, and Albert Einstein are good examples of people whose political opinions were successfully submerged in the popular consciousness by elevating the non-threatening aspects of their life and work.
And that's pretty sad. Helen Keller in particular: the part of her life where she first managed to overcome some part of her disabilities is remembered, but the campaigning work she did afterwards is forgotten. It's just about the most patronizing thing I can think of.
With respect to Einstein, I think that he earned the right to have his views heard (though not automatically agreed with of course!) In that spirit, here's Einstein on socialism.
I don't think it's bearable for most countries to have laws primarily influenced by the values of other countries.
Why is it any less bearable for countries to have their laws influenced by other countries than to have the laws of your own country influenced by other people?
In any case, countries' laws are already heavily influenced by other countries - it just tends to be that weaker countries acquiesce to the demands of stronger countries. For recent examples, look at laws regarding IP, pornography, drugs, etc. A 'UN with teeth' might even this out a bit. In fact, I think most countries would prefer this; I can almost guarantee from the tone of your post that you are an American.
Most *n?x apps seem to store all the per-user settings in a dot-file or dot-folder in the user's home directory.
And, dammit, this is as messy as hell. I don't like having hundreds of.files in ~. I like to keep it tidy. Why can't we have a standard that says all config files are kept in ~/settings/ with default files in/settings/? Or at least make it user configurable. I also don't like the . prefix to make files hidden; feels like a nasty hack. If you keep the files tidied away I don't think it's even needed.
The fact that a company has been caught out fabricating quotes by its own insecure document formats. Is this proof that they are evil incarnate? Maybe not. Is it embarassing for them? Yes. Is it amusing? Yes.
...an egg with boxing gloves and wellies for limbs, a talent for somersaulting and a predilection for kleptomania who lived in a vast treehouse complex? Yeah, they were certainly smoking some interesting stuff when they made that up.
Well I could point you to the Google cache, but it has a copy of the old page instead, and by the time I post this about a thousand karma whores will have mentioned it anyway.
More interesting is the wayback machine's caches of Google:
If you'd RTFA (unconventional idea I know) you'd have discovered that only Wright came up with the idea of the FPK, and it was basically a joke. Spector bottled it, and Koster came up with something somewhat original, kind of an open-ended acting game which actually sounded interesting. Wright won because of his amusing presentation.
Re:Standard response to the "why bother" crowd.
on
Ultimate Cooling System
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
The disease would have to act slowly enough to allow for it to be spread over the entire planet without killing the carriers too soon.
How about a virus that caused infertility? That could efficiently cause serious extinctions whilst still being spread for the full lifespan of the animals.
Not to mention, the virus would run into resistant dinosaurs due to species differences.
Not necessarily true. A new virus, with drastically different methods of attack to anything encountered previously could kill large numbers of species without encountering any that have evolved appropriate defence mechanisms (though interestingly crocodiles which did survive through the mass extinction have superb immune systems). It might not seem likely for such a super-virus (or other pathogen) to evolve but there have been many millennia of trial and error.
I don't think that it's very plausible, but it seems remotely possible.
I could just about buy the idea of some kind of super-virus that infected many dinosaur species using some communal hole in the lizard defence systems. One small piece of evidence that might support the theory is that crocs (and related species) which are some of the few surviving dinosaur-like creatures from the time have incredible immune systems. I still don't think it's at all likely though and of course you still have the problem of the other species that went extinct at the same time.
Michael Moore is not smart, or clever, or insightful. He's a troll with a 16mm camera. You can rely on the fact that anything he says is a) inflammatory
Well yes, he's an activist. What, you think you get political changes by making sure you don't hurt anyone's feelings?
Such costs can be artificial (e.g., e-postage) or fundamental (e.g., slowing down SMTP connections, perhaps by adding authentication overhead).
I don't particularly like the concept, but if you agree with it wouldn't it be better to require email senders to do worthwile computations (such as process a few seti@home or anti-cancer blocks) than requiring senders to grind through worthless cycles?
The political compass is an interesting site that classifies political viewpoints based on economic and social axes. It offers a test that attempts to define your views.
Re:minimum mass of Krypton!
on
Comic Book Physics
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The earths radius represents a fraction of this total surface area. The earths radius is 6.3781 x 10^3km. multiply by pi to get the area (the area is 2-d -ie not squared- because the surface of a sphere is 2-d). The next step is comparing this 2-d surface area to the surface area of the imaginary sphere we got above. The result: the earth represents a TINY 4.110086 x 10^-18% of the surface area of our Krypton-explosion sphere. If we multiply the amount of kryptonite on earth by the inverse of this number, we get the amount of Krypton that is scattered around the entire surface area of the sphere.
Slashdot Mirror
So...
GNU make available the main elements of an OS for free (or some useful helper utilities, make whatever distinction you want, it doesn't really matter for the purpose of my argument) and they request that you include them in the name of the OS.
Now, you have several choices.
Ethically "pure" ones:
* Gratefully use the software they've provided for free and agree to their modest request
* Decide that they're on a power trip and decline to use their software
Ethically slightly grey:
* Use their software, call it what you want anyway (probably most, er, "Linux" users)
Ungrateful:
* Use their software (given away for free!), call it what you want, and flame them in public for having the audacity to ask for a name modification
Ungrateful and annoying:
* As above, but also berate others for agreeing to their request (this is you, presumably!)
There is one other option, that of troll: don't use their software and flame them anyway - in which case why would you care what other people call it?
Isn't the BBC some kind of socialist, government supported thing?
Taking your statement at face value for a minute...
It's not really very socialist. It's paid for by what amounts to a poll tax. If it was paid for out of the general taxation system it would be fairly socialist (and it would be a move I'd support). Currently, a billionaire living in a huge castle with 19 children and 40 tellies pays the same as a student in a shared house with a broken old b&w set.
As a bonus, you'd avoid all the bureaucracy associated with the license, the cost (and nastiness) of enforcing it, and all those bloody license adverts.
Jack London, Helen Keller, and Albert Einstein are good examples of people whose political opinions were successfully submerged in the popular consciousness by elevating the non-threatening aspects of their life and work.
And that's pretty sad. Helen Keller in particular: the part of her life where she first managed to overcome some part of her disabilities is remembered, but the campaigning work she did afterwards is forgotten. It's just about the most patronizing thing I can think of.
With respect to Einstein, I think that he earned the right to have his views heard (though not automatically agreed with of course!) In that spirit, here's Einstein on socialism.
I don't think it's bearable for most countries to have laws primarily influenced by the values of other countries.
Why is it any less bearable for countries to have their laws influenced by other countries than to have the laws of your own country influenced by other people?
In any case, countries' laws are already heavily influenced by other countries - it just tends to be that weaker countries acquiesce to the demands of stronger countries. For recent examples, look at laws regarding IP, pornography, drugs, etc. A 'UN with teeth' might even this out a bit. In fact, I think most countries would prefer this; I can almost guarantee from the tone of your post that you are an American.
Most *n?x apps seem to store all the per-user settings in a dot-file or dot-folder in the user's home directory.
.files in ~. I like to keep it tidy. Why can't we have a standard that says all config files are kept in ~/settings/ with default files in /settings/? Or at least make it user configurable. I also don't like the . prefix to make files hidden; feels like a nasty hack. If you keep the files tidied away I don't think it's even needed.
And, dammit, this is as messy as hell. I don't like having hundreds of
</rant>
I'm rather enjoying these. They're actually more interesting than the usual 'what's the best app for foo' or 'how do I use toilet paper' or something.
These actually provoke creative responses rather than 'use Google!' or 'hire a lawyer!'
Where's the story here?
The fact that a company has been caught out fabricating quotes by its own insecure document formats. Is this proof that they are evil incarnate? Maybe not. Is it embarassing for them? Yes. Is it amusing? Yes.
The UK government was famously caught out by Word document history.
...an egg with boxing gloves and wellies for limbs, a talent for somersaulting and a predilection for kleptomania who lived in a vast treehouse complex? Yeah, they were certainly smoking some interesting stuff when they made that up.
It must be time for a 3D sequel by now.
More interesting is the wayback machine's caches of Google:
I quite like the idea of Froogle but unfortunately I can't use it because it can only return results in US $ - ho hum :-/
If you'd RTFA (unconventional idea I know) you'd have discovered that only Wright came up with the idea of the FPK, and it was basically a joke. Spector bottled it, and Koster came up with something somewhat original, kind of an open-ended acting game which actually sounded interesting. Wright won because of his amusing presentation.
Must... resist... adding...
n + 1 ???
n + 2 Profit!!!
to end of numbered list...
I googled for the followup story on kuro5hin.org with the details about the secret service visit. It's here in case anyone else is interested.
Gaaaaaa! MUST... CONTROL... FIST OF DEATH!
/.
England != United Kingdom
And may I say that this is one of the sillier stories posted on
this will not be any article of greatly described facts
Indeed.
We are going to postpone our suing of two companies but tomorrow we are going to sue THREE!
The disease would have to act slowly enough to allow for it to be spread over the entire planet without killing the carriers too soon.
How about a virus that caused infertility? That could efficiently cause serious extinctions whilst still being spread for the full lifespan of the animals.
Not to mention, the virus would run into resistant dinosaurs due to species differences.
Not necessarily true. A new virus, with drastically different methods of attack to anything encountered previously could kill large numbers of species without encountering any that have evolved appropriate defence mechanisms (though interestingly crocodiles which did survive through the mass extinction have superb immune systems). It might not seem likely for such a super-virus (or other pathogen) to evolve but there have been many millennia of trial and error.
I don't think that it's very plausible, but it seems remotely possible.
I could just about buy the idea of some kind of super-virus that infected many dinosaur species using some communal hole in the lizard defence systems. One small piece of evidence that might support the theory is that crocs (and related species) which are some of the few surviving dinosaur-like creatures from the time have incredible immune systems. I still don't think it's at all likely though and of course you still have the problem of the other species that went extinct at the same time.
yet Faramir wouldn't touch it if he found it lying in the road [...] Name one character flaw that Tolkien gave to Faramir
Arrogance
Also, he loses in battle if that counts.
Michael Moore is not smart, or clever, or insightful. He's a troll with a 16mm camera. You can rely on the fact that anything he says is a) inflammatory
Well yes, he's an activist. What, you think you get political changes by making sure you don't hurt anyone's feelings?
and b) wrong.
Care to mention some of these factual errors?
I think he was saying that he works in Redmond and was writing some code for Longhorn.
Such costs can be artificial (e.g., e-postage) or fundamental (e.g., slowing down SMTP connections, perhaps by adding authentication overhead).
I don't particularly like the concept, but if you agree with it wouldn't it be better to require email senders to do worthwile computations (such as process a few seti@home or anti-cancer blocks) than requiring senders to grind through worthless cycles?
The political compass is an interesting site that classifies political viewpoints based on economic and social axes. It offers a test that attempts to define your views.
The earths radius represents a fraction of this total surface area. The earths radius is 6.3781 x 10^3km. multiply by pi to get the area (the area is 2-d -ie not squared- because the surface of a sphere is 2-d). The next step is comparing this 2-d surface area to the surface area of the imaginary sphere we got above. The result: the earth represents a TINY 4.110086 x 10^-18% of the surface area of our Krypton-explosion sphere. If we multiply the amount of kryptonite on earth by the inverse of this number, we get the amount of Krypton that is scattered around the entire surface area of the sphere.
What about the effect of the Earth's gravity?
Hey, it's on /. - what more could you want? ;)