The common name for Coca Cola is: a) soft drink b) pop c) soda Of course the correct answer is B.
This question discriminates against us Quebecois (who are still part of Canada last time I checked). In Quebec, anglophones use the term "soft drink". Saying "pop" in Quebec instantly labels you as being from the ROC (rest of Canada).
Ah, and the old 0.999999999... thing. Most people don't realize that it is 1 until you tell them this:
What does it mean for one number to be equal to another number? Well, if x = y, then x - y = 0. In this case, what's 1 - 0.9999999999999...? The answer is 0.000000000000....(infinite number of 0's). Since 0.000000000.... = 0, they are indeed the same number.
The real question is not "what does it mean for one number to be equal to another", but "What does a repeating decimal mean?". Mathematicians like well-defined things. Saying 0.9999999999... isn't too well-defined. However, if you instead say
Lim n->infinity Sum from 1 to n 0.9/10^n
then you have a more mathematically well-defined beast, which we can evaluate properly (to 1).
However, strictly, all you can say is, "You can get as close to 1 as you like without going over by adding enough 9's". This fact alone is fairly obvious to most people.
I think anything else is hand-waving, which can often get you into mathematical trouble, like when you try to reorder with alternating series.
You throw around strong words like "stealing" and "theft" but what is theft? Is making a digital copy of something theft?
If I invite you to my home to listen to one of my CD's, are you a thief? Whose goods have been stolen? Who is now missing something they once had?
Come on, I think you're trivializing a bit. You also fail to distinguish the concept of "harmed" from "wronged", both of which are generally immoral and illegal.
In the case of distributing copyrighted music over Napster, nobody is directly harmed in the way that a store owner is harmed when you rob something from there store. However, you're still wronging the artist.
Here's an example of wronging without harming that should appeal to the slashdot crowd. Let's say I break into your house (without damanging anything), and install secret cameras in all the rooms, and I watch you. Assuming I do nothing with the data I'm collecting, you haven't been "harmed". What's the difference if I watch you or not?
Of course, there is a difference. I'm violating your right to privacy, even if you're not aware of that violation. In this sense, you are being "wronged", even though you aren't being "harmed".
Similarly, illegally distributing copyright materials (warez, copyright MP3's), is an example of "wronging", but not "harming". Get it?
I for one could sure use NetBEUI under Linux. Here's why:
I've got a 10Mb LAN set up at home with two computers, and the hub also hooks up to a cable modem. I am paying for two IP addresses from my cable company (don't ask me why I'm not using masquerading. Both machines are dual-boot, and it's too much a pain. Besides, technically I'm not allowed to do masquerading anyway).
The problem is that the two IP's always end up being on different subnets (I don't know why Videotron does this to me. It's DHCP, and they say that they can't do anything about it)! This means that for the two machines to talk to each other over TCP, packets have to actually leave my LAN, travel over the cable modem to the router, and then back through the cable modem to the other machine.
However, with NetBEUI my problem is solved, and I can transfer files from one machine to the other without having the packets routed out of my LAN and back in again.
So far, Einstein is still the winner and champion. Pretty good for a theory coming up on its eighties.
Technically, while Einstein's theory was right, Einstein was the loser. Einstein was convinced that quantum entanglement (aka "spooky action at a distance") wasn't possible, and had long arguments with Niels Bohr about it. As it turns out, Bohr was right. Although, as you mention, quantum entanglement doesn't violate Einstein's theory as it is impossible to use it to transfer information.
Still kinda spooky how one particle "knows" the other particle's quantum state has been collapsed.
For good old post-apocalypse fun, try Wasteland
on
Intel using FreeBSD
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· Score: 1
There's a classic post-apocalyptic computer RPG called Wasteland. In fact, I believe it was done by the same guys who did Fallout, so you can think of Fallout as being the spiritual successor to Wasteland. It was an awesome game, the first non-fantasy RPG I remember playing on my computer. I don't know where you'd find it these days.
Copy protection consisted of numbered paragraphs in an accompanying manual. So, at certain points in the game, it would say "See paragraph x", and you'd have to read paragraph x to see what has happening. Of course, they had to put fake, unused paragraphs in the book too, or else you could just read it and get valuable game hints. Gosh, that system was a bad idea! ---
Oh, and a "study" is always secondary to the real-world evidence of your eyes and ears. This is science we're talking about here.
I hope that was sarcasm. Otherwise, I'm living on a flat Earth, and relativity and quantum theory are completely wrong.
The whole purpose of these studies is to isolate out the other variables. Everyday observations aren't "science". They're a part of science, in that you use them to form a hypothesis. And then, you do an actual, controlled "study" to see if you're right or not. Admittedly, studies are tougher to analyze than old-fashioned physics experiments, but they're definitely more scientific than "the real-world evidence of my eyes and ears".
I dunno, there are certain things that I wouldn't want my five-year old child to see (assuming I had a five year old child).
Let's face it, censhorship is a Bad Thing(tm), but exposing children to snuff movies is also a Bad Thing(tm). I think parents have a right to restrict kids from seeing certain things until the kids reach a certain age. Children don't automatically have a right to all information that's out there, for the same reason they don't have a right to vote, run for office, drive a car, own a gun, etc. Until they reach a certain level of maturity, they just aren't responsible enough to handle these things. ---
I've lived in Montreal for all 23 years of my life, and I've never heard anyone from Montreal refered to as "un montrealais". Granted, I've been living in anglo-land my entire life, but still. Quebecois, sure. Montrealais? Sorry, I'm a Montrealer... ---
Dumbest Quebec law: colour of margarine
on
Dumb Laws
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· Score: 1
Of all the dumb laws in Quebec, the dumbest is the one that regulates the colour of margarine. In Quebec, it is *illegal* for margarine to be the same colour as butter. This law was enacted because the dariy farmers were afraid people would confuse butter with margarine.
This law is still around in 1999, and it is still enforced. Our margarine in Quebec is almost white, although I believe you can get margarine that is yellower than butter also. It costs the margarine companies quite a bit to manufacture two kinds of margarine, one for Quebec and one for everybody else. It's completely idiotic, but the dairy farmers continue to insist on it. ---
Re:Quebecers have the right to be served in french
on
Dumb Laws
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· Score: 1
Yes, but the fact that the Quebec government pays the "Language Police" to go out and measure signs to ensure that the French part of the sign is more prominent than the English is absolutely *ludicruous* in the extreme.
Nope, the inverse square law of gravity is not a theory, is an observable fact. It's just as much of a fact as gravity itself (as is the acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2).
The *theory* of gravity is Einstein's theory of general relativity, which relates gravity to massive bodies curving space-time. This is what can be disupted.
I'm probably splitting hairs here, but I have to disagree with your tstatement that "Scientists do not believe ANYTHING to be fact." In fact, facts are vital to science. They are, however, completely different beasts from theories. Facts are gathered from observations and experiments. For example, gravity, or "stuff tends to fall down" is an observable fact. The whole point of science is to come up with theories that are consistent with the "facts".
I was pleasantly surprised to notice that Dr. Douglas Schmidt has been nominated. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Schmidt, he's a software engineering professor at the university of Washington. He's the head of the ACE project, which is an open-source cross-platform C++ toolkit for network applications.
His group has also developped TAO, which is an open-source real-time CORBA orb that was built using ACE. It's really cool stuff. Check it out here.
Not a physics majour, but I didn't think the ether theory existed to explain why light always travels at the same speed. IIRC, the ether theory was discarded for the precise reason that light always travels at the same speed.
This was the famous Michelson-Morey intraferometer experiment. The ether theory suggested that the ether was an absolute reference frame, and they were trying to measure the speed of the Earth's movement through the ether by comparing the time it took two light beams to travel the same distance in different directions. Of course, no matter which way they did it, those two light beams always traveled the same distance in the same time. So, either Earth moves immeasurably slowly through the ether (kinda strange since we're spinning round the sun rather quickly), or light goes the same speed no matter which way you look at it.
I thought the ether theory existed because physicists felt that all waves required a medium to travel in. The ether was the medium that EM wave traveled in. But, ether would have been an absolute reference frame, which contradicted Newton (no absolute reference frames). Anyway, no need for ether anymore... ---
IIRC, the study found a correlation between the size of the hypothalamus gland and the sexuality of the patients.
I believe the study was done on people who had died of AIDS. The doctor who did the study was himself a homosexual. He did the study "blind", measuring the sizes of the glands first, and *then* checking the sexuality of the patients.
I *think* he hit on it because he noticed the hypothalamus was smaller in certain of the AIDS victims, but not in all of them, and the ones it was smaller in happen to be homosexuals, so he did the blind study.
Disclaimer: This is just from memory, I don't have any sources, the study was a few years ago. Anybody else remember? ---
Actually, if you want to do the job of MS Word, the best Open Source choice would probably be LaTeX. You don't hear too many people talk about LaTeX anymore these days, which is a shame. I guess Open Source word processors like AbiWord are probably stealing its thunder. LyX exists, but since LaTeX doesn't use XML, I guess it isn't as sexy.
Is anybody out there still using LaTeX on a regular basis? How about LyX? ----
The comparison is completely valid. Not all of us are running Linux as a server. Personally, I use it as a development platform. Just because I'm not running Apache doesn't make my Linux box useless (gcc runs just fine).
It's annoying to me that the default Redhat installation is to have all services running, so that it's relatively easy to hack into my system. When you install NT out of the box, it doesn't automatically install a web server, an FTP server, a telnet server (not that NT has telnet servers...)
The point is, for newbies, Linux is insecure. You have to know *something* about network administration to protect your box, even if it means editing your startup scripts or your hosts.deny file. And, as more and more people use ADSL and cable modems (like me), there are more and more insecure Linux boxes out there.
It's Redhat's fault, not Linux's. But it's still a "Linux" distribution issue. ---
It seems that one of the things that all Slashdot readers agree on is that software patents are not evaluated properly before they're given out, leading to frivolous lawsuits that cost innocent organizations gobs of money. How do we wake the patent office up?
How about this: why don't all of the organizations that have been hit by frivolous lawsuits file a class-action suit against the patent office for damages? The only ones that could file for damages are those where the court ruled in their favour and effectively nullified the patent.
Nothing motivates an organization to change its ways like being slapped with a lawsuit to avoid such things in the future! ---
I was under the impression that OpenBSD was based in Canada so it could avoid the draconian American encryption laws, which would imply that Canadian encryption export law is different from American.
Although I'm a Canadian, I don't really know the details of the law. However, I don't think we have any export restrictions.
I'll take my nice sane, bovine-growth-hormone burgers over those mad cow burgers over in Europe...:)
Seriously though, in Canada, you can't donate blood if you've spent a certain amount of time in England for the past while. They're especially paranoid about that here in Quebec.
Slashdot Mirror
The common name for Coca Cola is:
a) soft drink
b) pop
c) soda
Of course the correct answer is B.
This question discriminates against us Quebecois (who are still part of Canada last time I checked). In Quebec, anglophones use the term "soft drink". Saying "pop" in Quebec instantly labels you as being from the ROC (rest of Canada).
Ah, and the old 0.999999999... thing. Most people don't realize that it is 1 until you tell them this:
What does it mean for one number to be equal to another number? Well, if x = y, then x - y = 0. In this case, what's 1 - 0.9999999999999...? The answer is 0.000000000000....(infinite number of 0's). Since 0.000000000.... = 0, they are indeed the same number.
The real question is not "what does it mean for one number to be equal to another", but "What does a repeating decimal mean?". Mathematicians like well-defined things. Saying 0.9999999999... isn't too well-defined. However, if you instead say
Lim n->infinity Sum from 1 to n 0.9/10^n
then you have a more mathematically well-defined beast, which we can evaluate properly (to 1).
However, strictly, all you can say is, "You can get as close to 1 as you like without going over by adding enough 9's". This fact alone is fairly obvious to most people.
I think anything else is hand-waving, which can often get you into mathematical trouble, like when you try to reorder with alternating series.
Of course, I'm not a mathematician...
You throw around strong words like "stealing" and "theft" but what is theft? Is making a digital copy of something theft?
If I invite you to my home to listen to one of my CD's, are you a thief? Whose goods have been stolen? Who is now missing something they once had?
Come on, I think you're trivializing a bit. You also fail to distinguish the concept of "harmed" from "wronged", both of which are generally immoral and illegal.
In the case of distributing copyrighted music over Napster, nobody is directly harmed in the way that a store owner is harmed when you rob something from there store. However, you're still wronging the artist.
Here's an example of wronging without harming that should appeal to the slashdot crowd. Let's say I break into your house (without damanging anything), and install secret cameras in all the rooms, and I watch you. Assuming I do nothing with the data I'm collecting, you haven't been "harmed". What's the difference if I watch you or not?
Of course, there is a difference. I'm violating your right to privacy, even if you're not aware of that violation. In this sense, you are being "wronged", even though you aren't being "harmed".
Similarly, illegally distributing copyright materials (warez, copyright MP3's), is an example of "wronging", but not "harming". Get it?
I for one could sure use NetBEUI under Linux. Here's why:
I've got a 10Mb LAN set up at home with two computers, and the hub also hooks up to a cable modem. I am paying for two IP addresses from my cable company (don't ask me why I'm not using masquerading. Both machines are dual-boot, and it's too much a pain. Besides, technically I'm not allowed to do masquerading anyway).
The problem is that the two IP's always end up being on different subnets (I don't know why Videotron does this to me. It's DHCP, and they say that they can't do anything about it)! This means that for the two machines to talk to each other over TCP, packets have to actually leave my LAN, travel over the cable modem to the router, and then back through the cable modem to the other machine.
However, with NetBEUI my problem is solved, and I can transfer files from one machine to the other without having the packets routed out of my LAN and back in again.
Technically, while Einstein's theory was right, Einstein was the loser. Einstein was convinced that quantum entanglement (aka "spooky action at a distance") wasn't possible, and had long arguments with Niels Bohr about it. As it turns out, Bohr was right. Although, as you mention, quantum entanglement doesn't violate Einstein's theory as it is impossible to use it to transfer information.
Still kinda spooky how one particle "knows" the other particle's quantum state has been collapsed.
There's a classic post-apocalyptic computer RPG called Wasteland. In fact, I believe it was done by the same guys who did Fallout, so you can think of Fallout as being the spiritual successor to Wasteland. It was an awesome game, the first non-fantasy RPG I remember playing on my computer. I don't know where you'd find it these days.
Copy protection consisted of numbered paragraphs in an accompanying manual. So, at certain points in the game, it would say "See paragraph x", and you'd have to read paragraph x to see what has happening. Of course, they had to put fake, unused paragraphs in the book too, or else you could just read it and get valuable game hints. Gosh, that system was a bad idea!
---
I hope that was sarcasm. Otherwise, I'm living on a flat Earth, and relativity and quantum theory are completely wrong.
The whole purpose of these studies is to isolate out the other variables. Everyday observations aren't "science". They're a part of science, in that you use them to form a hypothesis. And then, you do an actual, controlled "study" to see if you're right or not. Admittedly, studies are tougher to analyze than old-fashioned physics experiments, but they're definitely more scientific than "the real-world evidence of my eyes and ears".
I dunno, there are certain things that I wouldn't want my five-year old child to see (assuming I had a five year old child).
Let's face it, censhorship is a Bad Thing(tm), but exposing children to snuff movies is also a Bad Thing(tm). I think parents have a right to restrict kids from seeing certain things until the kids reach a certain age. Children don't automatically have a right to all information that's out there, for the same reason they don't have a right to vote, run for office, drive a car, own a gun, etc. Until they reach a certain level of maturity, they just aren't responsible enough to handle these things.
---
I've lived in Montreal for all 23 years of my life, and I've never heard anyone from Montreal refered to as "un montrealais". Granted, I've been living in anglo-land my entire life, but still. Quebecois, sure. Montrealais? Sorry, I'm a Montrealer...
---
Of all the dumb laws in Quebec, the dumbest is the one that regulates the colour of margarine. In Quebec, it is *illegal* for margarine to be the same colour as butter. This law was enacted because the dariy farmers were afraid people would confuse butter with margarine.
This law is still around in 1999, and it is still enforced. Our margarine in Quebec is almost white, although I believe you can get margarine that is yellower than butter also. It costs the margarine companies quite a bit to manufacture two kinds of margarine, one for Quebec and one for everybody else. It's completely idiotic, but the dairy farmers continue to insist on it.
---
Yes, but the fact that the Quebec government pays the "Language Police" to go out and measure signs to ensure that the French part of the sign is more prominent than the English is absolutely *ludicruous* in the extreme.
Nope, the inverse square law of gravity is not a theory, is an observable fact. It's just as much of a fact as gravity itself (as is the acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2).
The *theory* of gravity is Einstein's theory of general relativity, which relates gravity to massive bodies curving space-time. This is what can be disupted.
I'm probably splitting hairs here, but I have to disagree with your tstatement that "Scientists do not believe ANYTHING to be fact." In fact, facts are vital to science. They are, however, completely different beasts from theories. Facts are gathered from observations and experiments. For example, gravity, or "stuff tends to fall down" is an observable fact. The whole point of science is to come up with theories that are consistent with the "facts".
You know, the Debian logo looks an awful lot like the Dreamcast logo
I was pleasantly surprised to notice that Dr. Douglas Schmidt has been nominated. For those unfamiliar with Dr. Schmidt, he's a software engineering professor at the university of Washington. He's the head of the ACE project, which is an open-source cross-platform C++ toolkit for network applications.
His group has also developped TAO, which is an open-source real-time CORBA orb that was built using ACE. It's really cool stuff. Check it out here.
What a minute.... Instant mashed potatoes were invented by a Canadian. This research was done at the University of Toronto. Coincidence?
Not a physics majour, but I didn't think the ether theory existed to explain why light always travels at the same speed. IIRC, the ether theory was discarded for the precise reason that light always travels at the same speed.
This was the famous Michelson-Morey intraferometer experiment. The ether theory suggested that the ether was an absolute reference frame, and they were trying to measure the speed of the Earth's movement through the ether by comparing the time it took two light beams to travel the same distance in different directions. Of course, no matter which way they did it, those two light beams always traveled the same distance in the same time. So, either Earth moves immeasurably slowly through the ether (kinda strange since we're spinning round the sun rather quickly), or light goes the same speed no matter which way you look at it.
I thought the ether theory existed because physicists felt that all waves required a medium to travel in. The ether was the medium that EM wave traveled in. But, ether would have been an absolute reference frame, which contradicted Newton (no absolute reference frames). Anyway, no need for ether anymore...
---
IIRC, the study found a correlation between the size of the hypothalamus gland and the sexuality of the patients.
I believe the study was done on people who had died of AIDS. The doctor who did the study was himself a homosexual. He did the study "blind", measuring the sizes of the glands first, and *then* checking the sexuality of the patients.
I *think* he hit on it because he noticed the hypothalamus was smaller in certain of the AIDS victims, but not in all of them, and the ones it was smaller in happen to be homosexuals, so he did the blind study.
Disclaimer: This is just from memory, I don't have any sources, the study was a few years ago. Anybody else remember?
---
Actually, if you want to do the job of MS Word, the best Open Source choice would probably be LaTeX. You don't hear too many people talk about LaTeX anymore these days, which is a shame. I guess Open Source word processors like AbiWord are probably stealing its thunder. LyX exists, but since LaTeX doesn't use XML, I guess it isn't as sexy.
Is anybody out there still using LaTeX on a regular basis? How about LyX?
----
The comparison is completely valid. Not all of us are running Linux as a server. Personally, I use it as a development platform. Just because I'm not running Apache doesn't make my Linux box useless (gcc runs just fine).
It's annoying to me that the default Redhat installation is to have all services running, so that it's relatively easy to hack into my system. When you install NT out of the box, it doesn't automatically install a web server, an FTP server, a telnet server (not that NT has telnet servers...)
The point is, for newbies, Linux is insecure. You have to know *something* about network administration to protect your box, even if it means editing your startup scripts or your hosts.deny file. And, as more and more people use ADSL and cable modems (like me), there are more and more insecure Linux boxes out there.
It's Redhat's fault, not Linux's. But it's still a "Linux" distribution issue.
---
It seems that one of the things that all Slashdot readers agree on is that software patents are not evaluated properly before they're given out, leading to frivolous lawsuits that cost innocent organizations gobs of money. How do we wake the patent office up?
How about this: why don't all of the organizations that have been hit by frivolous lawsuits file a class-action suit against the patent office for damages? The only ones that could file for damages are those where the court ruled in their favour and effectively nullified the patent.
Nothing motivates an organization to change its ways like being slapped with a lawsuit to avoid such things in the future!
---
Are you sure you aren't mixing up Spielberg and Lucas? I believe Lucas's first move was called THX-1178, or something along those lines.
I was under the impression that OpenBSD was based in Canada so it could avoid the draconian American encryption laws, which would imply that Canadian encryption export law is different from American.
Although I'm a Canadian, I don't really know the details of the law. However, I don't think we have any export restrictions.
I'll take my nice sane, bovine-growth-hormone burgers over those mad cow burgers over in Europe... :)
Seriously though, in Canada, you can't donate blood if you've spent a certain amount of time in England for the past while. They're especially paranoid about that here in Quebec.