This's Donald Knuth. The guy's no joking matter, even for/. IT-wise, he's the equivalent of Galileo or Copernicus. I'm glad he's still on the hunt. I'm going to love playing with his new invention.
For the uninitiated, TeX and its cousins are documentation programming languages. If you're a programmer, you'd probably love writing documentation in LaTeX, once you learned it, and it isn't tough sledding. This stuff makes you look beautiful. I suggest you try it before you joke about it.
The long term consequences are of the petroleum industry's own fault. BP (and others) should have weighed the risks of something really bad happening against cutting corners during drilling. Consequences include the swift reactive and punitive response of federal and local governments.
Where's the incentive for industries to regulate themselves (which they should do in addition to the government) if they are quickly relieved of the consequences?
I'm no corporate apologist, honest, but I think tarring an entire industry with BP's failure is unfair bystander collateral damage.
I think BP ignored its own professionals in favor of minimizing costs in favor of maximizing shareholder return.
Oh, and the regulators let them get away with this sort of behaviour for years.
Who's guilty? Everybody who asked for it and let them get away with doing it that way. Consumers' demand, shareholder greed, Wall St. amorality, regulator capture, lax oversight, collusion with lobbyists, and lack of campaign finance reform.
I am sure you are a troll, but *somebody* modded you up, so some more gems from Mr. Sherman :
"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
-- lets be right bastards!
"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast."
-- lets not anyone look at/criticize what we do!
Why is it that every third post on/. comments these days accuses someone of being a troll? I thought their comment was reasonably inciteful (though strident). Just because someone brings up a topic in the day's news, attempting to relate it to the thread's current discussion, that makes one a troll?
Think about that. Would that happen in a bar or coffee shop? Why's it happen here? Aren't these newfangled on-line communities capable of managing themselves, or do we need Soup Nazi's on every corner watching our every move?
Disclosure: I've recently been deemed Karma Bad. Do I go to hell now?
Gods and supreme beings, in the 21st Century? WTF for?
I'm continually astonished watching the grip that religion has on otherwise civilised parts of the world. Texas re-writes history, Islam incites Sunni vs. Shiite, everybody hates the Zionists. Not long ago, we were wondering why Christians were killing each other (along w defenceless civillians) in Ireland, Boznia-Herzegovenia,...
Why? What a huge waste of time, effort, and human beings.
No one needs spirituality, as long as they're not schitzophrenic.
That horse (spirituality) don't run. It's a psychopathic crutch. Lose it. The whole world'll be much better off without it.
Real money (value) isn't created (poof!) by the state.
Agreed. But in the current system, it isn't the state who creates money - it's banks, in the form of debt, via the mechanism of fractional reserve lending.
Thanks. That was an interesting post. That's what I look for here; stuff I've never heard of, mixed in with thought, and knowledge of history. Given your list, and an understanding of what Wall St.'s been up to lately, couldn't WS come up with a "financial instrument" which encapsulated your "Real wealth" factors? Tradeable shares in the most livable communities on the planet, for instance?
See http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/cdos-for-dummies/ for an interesting/damning view of how it's done now.
Sorry to others in this thread that deemed my comments "trolling". I consider it "aggressive discussion." Philosophy + knowledge of different spheres + divergent viewpoints == $truth?
Besides, this is/. It ought to be fun, else what's the point?
*sigh*
tgk,
I thought that it was possible to have an intelligent discussion with you. Now I see that you are just trolling.
Therefore, in keeping with the spirit of both your posts, I shall henceforth refer to you with the only term appropriate.
Asshole.
So, "No comment." Huh. Coward.
At this time, I'd like to propose a new law: "When confronted with facts they can't refute, the confronters will be met with accusations of trollism, epithets, and abusive insults (et al, ad infinitum)."
There's a whole fscking Universe out there filled with value, if we can get to it.
And as environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon show, there are large chunks of the Universe which remain filled with value only if we don't get to it and destroy it.
Corporations are cheap. BP's been dragging its ass on this for years. All of them do. Corps should be illegal (have I mentioned I'm incorporated?). A half million bucks (the cost of two days drilling in Canada's north) would have prevented that, but that's too much to withhold from their shareholders, so Lousiana gets slapped again.
Corporations are cheap, yes, but fscking up eastern Gulf of Mexico is hardly comparable to humanity's potential footprint on the Universe. The latter is chutzpah, if anything. Earth's finite. Universe, not so.
What do you expect to happen when the economy grows faster than the supply of gold?
I suspect someone's jiggering with the money supply, or just gambling that the market is inherently "Bullish".
There's no such thing as an inherently bullish market, fools.
The taxing/spending policies since Reagan took office are responsible for 90% of the debt. Most of this debt was incurred during the Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr presidencies.
B1 & B2, yes. Their Defence Budgets were unconcionable. US taxpayers should be livid. Reagan, despite his onset of senility and subsequent micro-management by handlers, was right.
I was going to mod you, but decided that a proper reply would be more appropriate.
Really? I was tempted to ignore your "proper reply", but then your holier-than-thou attitude brought me back to the table.:-)
"Mod" me. Sheesh, what a toothless, empty, pointless "IntarTubes Generation" sort of threat [no offence intended,/.]. I'm Karma Neutral; bite me.
1 - The name of our country is the United States of America. The citizens of this country are properly referred to as "Americans"
"Properly", no you're not. You're citizens of the US. There are two continents and numerous islands in the Western Hemisphere, pretty much all of them (at least on the mainland) inhabited by Americans of one form or another; North, Central, and South Americans. However, as the US hasn't invaded any of them recently (besides Grenada), you can be forgiven your lack of awareness. Frankly, I prefer the term Yanqui to refer to citizens of the US. As demographics are going there just now, you'll all soon be speaking Spanish anyway (not that there's anything wrong with that; it's a beautiful language). Bonus: it really pees off the Southern states' Yanquis.
If you're on/., we should expect that you've done some geeky sh*t, possibly even programming! When you say the equivalent of "American" to a compiler/interpreter, it bails wondering which one. Concise, precise, fully described is what's needed. They don't do ambiguity, and neither should we. "Americans" isn't adequate to differentiate "citizens of the US" from other Americans.
Come November we will be using the Ballot box to remove those who support Big Government socialism, and if need be, we will make use of the Jury box. After all that the ammo box shouldn't be necessary.
Sigh. I'm curious who you'll be voting for; Demopublican, or Republicrat? How do you tell them apart? I just read a story about a Dem. congressman/senator from Oregon who survived the Nixon Whitehouse! How the hell does that happen?!? He's been voted the Democrat least likely to vote with his own party. Why isn't Oregon just voting Republican, if that's all there is there? Answer: because it's Oregon, and gahd help them if they'd voted GOP!
Isn't it also considered a useful notion that one quotes what one is replying to? Laziness is easier, I suppose. Damn, I miss Usenet.
No, because money was never limited by the supply of materials to produce it, but by the state (or in the US, the Federal Reserve). We decide that money is finite because otherwise it would be useless.
"Never" is incorrect. US-ians lost their right to own real money (gold) ca. 1932. Your Federal Reserve was forced down your throats at a time of widespread fiscal panic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard
Money (value) is NOT finite! There's a whole fscking Universe out there filled with value, if we can get to it.
Small wonder that now your financial wizards on Wall St. now consider "value" nothing more than Monopoly pieces that they move around the board. That's what fiat money is; markers. It's long since lost its connection to the value it purportedly represents.
When I was younger, the US was hounding a guy up here in Canada for holding gold in trust for US-ians. He eventually won as even the US thought it was a stupid thing for them to be doing.
When US-ians let those in power hijack the money supply, that's when US went Socialist/Emperialist, whether you choose to believe it or not. US back then was way ahead of us so-called socialist Canucks. They had an Empire to finance!
Real money (value) isn't created (poof!) by the state. You've just been convinced since that it is. They won, you lost.
Shouldn't you all be taking up arms against your oppressors about now?
"Fiat Currency" means "spend like crazy, and let the grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, pick up the bill." Nice.
Doesn't this mean that SP didn't do anything to alter what they wanted to say, meaning they *learned nothing from the fatwa threat and are, therefore, still subject to it?!!!*
Guy's, I got your six. Someone wanna lend me an assault rifle? And teach me what to do with it? Please?
Don't forget to show all your cleavage on the 26th.
Gahd, what a nutbar Universe this's turned out to be.
Social networking sites....like say...forums? Like.. Slashdot?
Usenet, mailinglists,... Good point.
Then again, noticed that news report that British Sec. service MI-N is firing all its old farts who don't get this stuff? "When in Rome,..." Brave new world.
Have you heard of censorship?:-) Sorry, that's just a flippant way to answer, speaking to the situation. My, what a comment that was of yours. Not.
The funniest part of this battle is when you look at Baidu's "Business Overview." It strives to serve Chinese web pages. That's it. Google gave Chinese businesses, students, scientists,... access to foreign buyers, markets, and information.
To keep the former away from *one* of the latter (information), the PRC cuts them off from all three. How to shoot yourselves in the foot, PRC! Totalitarian idiots.
Good job on this one Google and Sergey. I'm liking you a lot more today. Thanks.
Or you could have ended up lie - OMG - Canada. Canada didn't fight to be free of Britain, and look a them - still a British colony - except they're NOT... and they're also a post-xian society, with universal health care.
And at the same time we Canadians have the following pre-amble for our Charter of Rights and Freedoms:
Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:
Canada was founded upon the principles of "Order, and Good Government", whatever those are.
We (they) fought to be free of France. We (they) Brits won; France lost.
Yes. We Canucks were eventually handed a "fait accomplis Constitution" by a French-Canadian Prime Minister. Catholicism and religion are very strong influences in that neighbourhood, so $DEITY's going to get in no matter what. We also have a national flag made up with a (Soviet style red) leaf that I've never seen growing around here (I don't live in "Upper Canada").
May PET spin in his grave faster and faster and faster, forever. Damn, I was happy to see the last of him. What a twit he was.
As for what we have in our "founding documents" vs. what actually happens, compare USA's FDs vs. recent history. None of that appears to mean squat anywhere these days.
Modded flamebait. It's a fair cop. My intent was humour (and yes, I'm a Canuck), and I was on scotch atm. Sue me.
Flamebait?!? You can't handle a little controversy? A pope killed or incarcerated a couple of my heroes over "controversy". Suck it up, thin skinned mostly bag of water!:-)
I'm just saying that "I, for one, welcome our new..." has had its day. It's cliche beyond belief. It has to be said.
Good for them, but I still don't see a noticeable reduction in my spam mail. Gotta keep working at it, guys.
You're doin' it wrong. procmail + bogofilter (on Debian Linux), and I see four spam a day (which land in spam folder). I see six spam a year in my inbox. Everything else is >/dev/null.
I've always had a theory that the Extra Gamma ray bursts are the creation of Universes
It's not testable, so it's not a theory. It's a hypothesis.
"String Theory" ring any bells (ignoring its controversy ftm)? This is English. We steal from everyone else, mangle to taste, appall those we it stole from, then carry on. What do Giovanni Caboto, Jean Cabot, and John Cabot have in common?
We also plow vast piles of cash at planck scale potentialities (string theory), but that's a human condition.
So when a real hack happens at the same time, we don't react?
You're not a genius, dude. You don't actually think of shit nobody else considered.
Pot, kettle, black. You're an insulting jerk.
Case in point, no computers participating in this simulated attack would have any confidential information, because the testers would be a vulnerability. This is essentially a drill, allowing people to learn what decisions to take in case of a serious attack. If somebody else takes this time to hack real systems, believe me, nobody is going to think it's part of the drill.
Chyaa, right. You have full and complete confidence in the abilities and inclinations of everyone involved in this exercise? Really? Really?!? You're a neophyte, DOOD!
I've a lot of respect for the competent people out there, but how often are knowlegable, competent people put in charge of things like this, especially when a government and civil servants are in charge? And how often does the left hand know or care what the right hand's doing?
Has the history of Enron, EDS, and Wall Street so far escaped your attention? How?
Slashdot Mirror
> This would be funny if only you wouldn't have misused the subject line.
It wasn't funny at all. That stuff is shrapnel moving at ca. 37k mph, aimed at anything in orbit or passing through the debris cloud (aka, us).
Thanks China. You !@#$%^&*()_! You used to come up with such great stuff like gunpowder and Go. WTF is wrong with you lately?!?
This's Donald Knuth. The guy's no joking matter, even for /. IT-wise, he's the equivalent of Galileo or Copernicus. I'm glad he's still on the hunt. I'm going to love playing with his new invention.
For the uninitiated, TeX and its cousins are documentation programming languages. If you're a programmer, you'd probably love writing documentation in LaTeX, once you learned it, and it isn't tough sledding. This stuff makes you look beautiful. I suggest you try it before you joke about it.
I'm no corporate apologist, honest, but I think tarring an entire industry with BP's failure is unfair bystander collateral damage.
I think BP ignored its own professionals in favor of minimizing costs in favor of maximizing shareholder return.
Oh, and the regulators let them get away with this sort of behaviour for years.
Who's guilty? Everybody who asked for it and let them get away with doing it that way. Consumers' demand, shareholder greed, Wall St. amorality, regulator capture, lax oversight, collusion with lobbyists, and lack of campaign finance reform.
Weren't you told? It's an old MS-DOS .BAT script run by cron on weekends that screen scrapes Daily Mail (or is it AOL?)...
Agree. However, it's doubtful we'll ever get over nationalism. The best we've come up with so far to replace it are MLB, NFL, FIFA, ...
Go Uruguay.
Why is it that every third post on /. comments these days accuses someone of being a troll? I thought their comment was reasonably inciteful (though strident). Just because someone brings up a topic in the day's news, attempting to relate it to the thread's current discussion, that makes one a troll?
Think about that. Would that happen in a bar or coffee shop? Why's it happen here? Aren't these newfangled on-line communities capable of managing themselves, or do we need Soup Nazi's on every corner watching our every move?
Disclosure: I've recently been deemed Karma Bad. Do I go to hell now?
Thanks for the Sherman quotes.
Cf. Facebook. At least typical /.ers have heard of it and don't rear back away from it (like my grade school teacher sister).
Why is this question even interesting to you?
Gods and supreme beings, in the 21st Century? WTF for?
I'm continually astonished watching the grip that religion has on otherwise civilised parts of the world. Texas re-writes history, Islam incites Sunni vs. Shiite, everybody hates the Zionists. Not long ago, we were wondering why Christians were killing each other (along w defenceless civillians) in Ireland, Boznia-Herzegovenia, ...
Why? What a huge waste of time, effort, and human beings.
No one needs spirituality, as long as they're not schitzophrenic.
That horse (spirituality) don't run. It's a psychopathic crutch. Lose it. The whole world'll be much better off without it.
Thanks. That was an interesting post. That's what I look for here; stuff I've never heard of, mixed in with thought, and knowledge of history. Given your list, and an understanding of what Wall St.'s been up to lately, couldn't WS come up with a "financial instrument" which encapsulated your "Real wealth" factors? Tradeable shares in the most livable communities on the planet, for instance? See http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/cdos-for-dummies/ for an interesting/damning view of how it's done now.
Sorry to others in this thread that deemed my comments "trolling". I consider it "aggressive discussion." Philosophy + knowledge of different spheres + divergent viewpoints == $truth?
Besides, this is /. It ought to be fun, else what's the point?
So, "No comment." Huh. Coward.
At this time, I'd like to propose a new law: "When confronted with facts they can't refute, the confronters will be met with accusations of trollism, epithets, and abusive insults (et al, ad infinitum)."
No need to respond. I know you're busy ...
Corporations are cheap. BP's been dragging its ass on this for years. All of them do. Corps should be illegal (have I mentioned I'm incorporated?). A half million bucks (the cost of two days drilling in Canada's north) would have prevented that, but that's too much to withhold from their shareholders, so Lousiana gets slapped again.
Corporations are cheap, yes, but fscking up eastern Gulf of Mexico is hardly comparable to humanity's potential footprint on the Universe. The latter is chutzpah, if anything. Earth's finite. Universe, not so.
I suspect someone's jiggering with the money supply, or just gambling that the market is inherently "Bullish".
There's no such thing as an inherently bullish market, fools.
B1 & B2, yes. Their Defence Budgets were unconcionable. US taxpayers should be livid. Reagan, despite his onset of senility and subsequent micro-management by handlers, was right.
Reagan took down the USSR! Suck it up!
Really? I was tempted to ignore your "proper reply", but then your holier-than-thou attitude brought me back to the table. :-)
"Mod" me. Sheesh, what a toothless, empty, pointless "IntarTubes Generation" sort of threat [no offence intended, /.]. I'm Karma Neutral; bite me.
"Properly", no you're not. You're citizens of the US. There are two continents and numerous islands in the Western Hemisphere, pretty much all of them (at least on the mainland) inhabited by Americans of one form or another; North, Central, and South Americans. However, as the US hasn't invaded any of them recently (besides Grenada), you can be forgiven your lack of awareness. Frankly, I prefer the term Yanqui to refer to citizens of the US. As demographics are going there just now, you'll all soon be speaking Spanish anyway (not that there's anything wrong with that; it's a beautiful language). Bonus: it really pees off the Southern states' Yanquis.
If you're on /., we should expect that you've done some geeky sh*t, possibly even programming! When you say the equivalent of "American" to a compiler/interpreter, it bails wondering which one. Concise, precise, fully described is what's needed. They don't do ambiguity, and neither should we. "Americans" isn't adequate to differentiate "citizens of the US" from other Americans.
Sigh. I'm curious who you'll be voting for; Demopublican, or Republicrat? How do you tell them apart? I just read a story about a Dem. congressman/senator from Oregon who survived the Nixon Whitehouse! How the hell does that happen?!? He's been voted the Democrat least likely to vote with his own party. Why isn't Oregon just voting Republican, if that's all there is there? Answer: because it's Oregon, and gahd help them if they'd voted GOP!
Isn't it also considered a useful notion that one quotes what one is replying to? Laziness is easier, I suppose. Damn, I miss Usenet.
No, because money was never limited by the supply of materials to produce it, but by the state (or in the US, the Federal Reserve). We decide that money is finite because otherwise it would be useless.
"Never" is incorrect. US-ians lost their right to own real money (gold) ca. 1932. Your Federal Reserve was forced down your throats at a time of widespread fiscal panic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard
Money (value) is NOT finite! There's a whole fscking Universe out there filled with value, if we can get to it.
Small wonder that now your financial wizards on Wall St. now consider "value" nothing more than Monopoly pieces that they move around the board. That's what fiat money is; markers. It's long since lost its connection to the value it purportedly represents.
Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fiat_currency
When I was younger, the US was hounding a guy up here in Canada for holding gold in trust for US-ians. He eventually won as even the US thought it was a stupid thing for them to be doing.
When US-ians let those in power hijack the money supply, that's when US went Socialist/Emperialist, whether you choose to believe it or not. US back then was way ahead of us so-called socialist Canucks. They had an Empire to finance!
Real money (value) isn't created (poof!) by the state. You've just been convinced since that it is. They won, you lost.
Shouldn't you all be taking up arms against your oppressors about now?
"Fiat Currency" means "spend like crazy, and let the grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, pick up the bill." Nice.
Doesn't this mean that SP didn't do anything to alter what they wanted to say, meaning they *learned nothing from the fatwa threat and are, therefore, still subject to it?!!!*
Guy's, I got your six. Someone wanna lend me an assault rifle? And teach me what to do with it? Please?
Don't forget to show all your cleavage on the 26th.
Gahd, what a nutbar Universe this's turned out to be.
Usenet, mailinglists, ... Good point.
Then again, noticed that news report that British Sec. service MI-N is firing all its old farts who don't get this stuff? "When in Rome, ..." Brave new world.
Have you heard of censorship? :-) Sorry, that's just a flippant way to answer, speaking to the situation. My, what a comment that was of yours. Not.
The funniest part of this battle is when you look at Baidu's "Business Overview." It strives to serve Chinese web pages. That's it. Google gave Chinese businesses, students, scientists, ... access to foreign buyers, markets, and information.
To keep the former away from *one* of the latter (information), the PRC cuts them off from all three. How to shoot yourselves in the foot, PRC! Totalitarian idiots.
Good job on this one Google and Sergey. I'm liking you a lot more today. Thanks.
Canada was founded upon the principles of "Order, and Good Government", whatever those are.
We (they) fought to be free of France. We (they) Brits won; France lost.
Yes. We Canucks were eventually handed a "fait accomplis Constitution" by a French-Canadian Prime Minister. Catholicism and religion are very strong influences in that neighbourhood, so $DEITY's going to get in no matter what. We also have a national flag made up with a (Soviet style red) leaf that I've never seen growing around here (I don't live in "Upper Canada").
May PET spin in his grave faster and faster and faster, forever. Damn, I was happy to see the last of him. What a twit he was.
As for what we have in our "founding documents" vs. what actually happens, compare USA's FDs vs. recent history. None of that appears to mean squat anywhere these days.
Modded flamebait. It's a fair cop. My intent was humour (and yes, I'm a Canuck), and I was on scotch atm. Sue me.
Flamebait?!? You can't handle a little controversy? A pope killed or incarcerated a couple of my heroes over "controversy". Suck it up, thin skinned mostly bag of water! :-)
I'm just saying that "I, for one, welcome our new ..." has had its day. It's cliche beyond belief. It has to be said.
Damn, if that (so to speak) joke wasn't old last century, it sure is now. Please shoot yourself. Thanks.
Ya know, gun controls limit fools from their most effective path to a Darwin Award. Why'd anyone want to do that?!?
NRA, I'll licence the idea to you for a cut.
Sometimes on a /. post, you never know where you'll end up. I'll go replay Gladiator now, bye.
You're doin' it wrong. procmail + bogofilter (on Debian Linux), and I see four spam a day (which land in spam folder). I see six spam a year in my inbox. Everything else is > /dev/null.
The silly thing is, the worst hit by google pulling out of PRC would be present Chinese businesses attempting to market to the world.
Does China really believe it would be a good thing to point that gun at its own foot?
"Commie/Fascist Bastards" && "stupid" too?
Make my day.
"String Theory" ring any bells (ignoring its controversy ftm)? This is English. We steal from everyone else, mangle to taste, appall those we it stole from, then carry on. What do Giovanni Caboto, Jean Cabot, and John Cabot have in common?
We also plow vast piles of cash at planck scale potentialities (string theory), but that's a human condition.
... prototype phase of its Legged Squad Support System (LS3) program. ... LC3 is conceived ...
LC3? Where'd that come from?!? Why do so few of you submitters ever bother to re-read your own submissions? Assuming you can read.
Pot, kettle, black. You're an insulting jerk.
Chyaa, right. You have full and complete confidence in the abilities and inclinations of everyone involved in this exercise? Really? Really?!? You're a neophyte, DOOD!
I've a lot of respect for the competent people out there, but how often are knowlegable, competent people put in charge of things like this, especially when a government and civil servants are in charge? And how often does the left hand know or care what the right hand's doing?
Has the history of Enron, EDS, and Wall Street so far escaped your attention? How?
Lose the attitude. It makes you look dumb.