Yes the English language had diverse roots but came to a standardised form MANY moons ago...
Hogwash! As recently as Churchill ("... up with which, I will not put!"), it's been a lively language. Hell, all you need to do is put an Englishman in a room with a Scot, an Irish, an Aussie/Zealander, a Canuck, and a North and a South US-ian, and you'll be hard pressed to understand what anyone's saying. Extra points if the Englishman is Cockney.
The French have been trying to set their language in stone for quite a while by law, and look how that's turned out.
Sounds a lot more sensational when you compare the title's "comet plunges into sun and survives" event vs the actual "comet flew through hot atmosphere of the sun".
Isn't the Sun's atmosphere supposed to be holy freakin' hell hotter than the Sun itself? Me, I'll just say "Way to go, Lovejoy!" (as in "Hunt for Red October").
When's the last time you tossed a molotov cocktail? Are you volunteering? If not, then this:
It seems modern man is much more obedient than medieval peasant.
is just you blowing smoke, and accurately describing yourself.
Note, I'm not advocating anything here. I'm just pointing out that you're just a cheerleader on the sidelines, and not really in the game as you think you are.
the issue with the BAF is not that it protects the copyright, but in the way it does it - by threatening and bullying ISPs there is no legal ban of the TPB site, but BAF is trying to enforce it by going around the legal procedures.
There is a legal ban of the TPB site (see below), but it only affects two ISPs atm. BAF is not "going around the legal procedures". They're using tort law to enforce their business model. What I'd like to know is, why are the ISPs not banding together to fight this? Pretty much every other industry has an umbrella organization. Don't ISPs?
As for why TPB stories so often show up on/., it's because orgs like BAF in their "Bull in a China Shop" ways threaten to destroy the net in their myopic attempts to enforce their business model. Whether you're a pirate or a boycotter, destruction of the net is a huge over-reaction on the part of BAF and the legal system.
As for why nitwits have to ask/. why TPB stories end up on/., it's because even now some people can't think clearly enough to plug "baf tpb" into a search engine. A court has forced two ISPs to break DNS, and BAF is attempting to extort other ISPs into doing the same.
... there ARE benefits to having these surveillance systems around.
Condolences on your Dad.:-P
I agree. Tech. can be useful and used for good. That's why we do it in the first place.
On the other hand, once the politicos pass laws mandating all CCTV feeds are patched into LEOs and LEOs store everything and troll it at leisure, hello Stasi! They've already abused to the max National Security Letters in collusion with AT&T et al, and Congress gave the latter retroactive immunity for it. You've still got TSA agents sexually assaulting innocent travellers. Your DoJ is still dragging its feet on putting the Banksters in jail,...
IFF you !@#$heads can fix your gov't to the point that they once again must get a subpoena to get at this stuff and must delete it soon after if nothing's found, ubiquitous CCTV wouldn't threaten anyone but bad guys. However, with the PATRIOT Act still in force more than a decade after 9/11, that's not the trend I'm seeing. I fully expect SOPA/PIPA (The Great USA Firewall(tm), aka Internet censorship) to pass eventually in one form or another. I expect you'll wind up with mandatory GPS embedded in all vehicles. I expect present USA citizens to cheer on the coming surveillance society.
I'm also expecting a fairly messy revolution/civil war soon too. Condolences on that as well. I'm a little surprised it hasn't started yet.
Why spend all that money? Why will taxpayers want to put their cash towards a grossly mismanaged and costly project that will erroneously fuck over tons of people with no benefit whatsoever?
what you just said earns you, from me, instantaneous disrespect and disgust
Back at ya. A choice between the frying pan and the fire is not a choice. The one's offering that "choice" should be grateful they don't next feel a dagger sliding between their ribs.
So although you might argue that religion itself is not the problem (extremists are), I disagree. Religion itself is like a loaded handgun left lying around. It's a danger in and of itself because it will inevitably be used for evil.
i) You're foolish to disagree. ii) Nutjobs can use anything to further their aims. iii) A loaded handgun left lying around is just a loaded handgun left lying around. It's no more deadly than a book until its trigger is pulled, and that takes a someone to pull it.
I'm an atheist, but I don't ascribe inherent malevolence to inanimate objects (including religion), regardless of how little I appreciate them. "An idea is not responsible for those who hold it."
I would guess that the Iranian PR is slightly more trustworthy, because they have a bit less practice at lying.
I was with you up to that point, but this's naive. Iran/Persia's got a few thousand years more experience in just about everything than the USA has. Xerxes was a master of PR.
Whatever lunatic thought up the program needs their head examined because this is the kind of absolute failure of intelligence (and wits) plus absolute failure of strategy that has led to the US spending $1tn on achieving bugger all in the Middle East this past decade... Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity...
Unless that was their plan all along.
Think about it. You've right now got this massive military buildup that's about to be recalled, cashiered, and wound down. You won't have all of that a decade from now, and who knows who's going to be in the White House then? What's the CIA to do?
Accelerate hostilities so you can use the assets you have now, now.
Makes perfect sense to a warmonger. In other news, the first war in Iraq (to free Kuwait, chyaa, right) was a pretense to test out a lot of recently developed tech.; Patriot missiles, Abrams tanks, Stealth,...
I always thought it would be rather easy to build the electronic components necessary to trigger a detonator once it's a certain distance from the vehicle...
Please, do this. I'll be happy to deliver cookies to you on Death Row. More points (cake and candy?) if the perp happens to walk by a schoolyard or playground when your anti-theft IED goes off.
550 Amp Truck Battery connected to metal briefcase...
I suspect that would earn you multiple broken windows, taillights, headlights, slashed tires, and key scratches everywhere from the attempt. Or maybe they'd just torch it.
My issue w the contractor pay is that doesn't it come out of taxpayer dollars?
Consider all the other ways it can be spent, and don't kid yourself - it will be spent on something. It's not like passing it up would be getting some taxpayer a refund.
My city's considering selling namespace on rapid transit stations next year.
They've had ads on the busses here since before I moved here in 1986.
Note the progression: they had ads inside buses here since I was a kid. Then they bolted placards onto the outside of them too. Now they have full ad exterior paintjobs, even covering the windows.
Our sports arena was called the Saddledome. Now it's the $megacorp Saddledome. Ditto $othermegacorp Science Centre. The city saw that happening, and now want to sell namespace on transit stations, not just on buses and trains.
This contractor/consultant negotiates a contract with clients. Clients can specify whatever they damned well please to be in the contract. Speaking only for myself, pretty much anything I do while contracted to a client is owned by the client, and I'm happy to sign NDAs as well. You pay my hourly rate, and I'm yours for the duration of the contract.
Often, going into an assignment, details are murky and I may end up working on anything; fine by me. Anything the client wants done after the contract ends is covered by a new contract.
I don't get benefits, vacations are taken on my own time (unpaid), and I can work remotely using my own hardware/software, cellphone,... Clients only pay my hourly rate + sales tax.
I'm not a business consultant; I only work with tech. If I'm not getting the work done, clients can terminate the contract on no notice. I'm expected to give them two weeks to thirty days notice to terminate from my side. Neither's ever happened in my experience (early termination).
I often wonder why employers suffer employees at all. I often wonder why employees can suffer being employees.
I've never seen as much advertising in my whole life as I have in the last ten years.
It's (the money) just spread more thinly. *Everything* has ads slapped on it these days, meaning each ad goes for less cash, meaning you can afford to slap ads (and more of them) on damned near anything.
My city's considering selling namespace on rapid transit stations next year. I wonder when they'll start naming streets after them.
If people would, you know, just stop buying the damn stuff then the cartel's main income would dry up within a month,...
People (including me) have long been suggesting the same thing wrt the RIAA/MPAA related products too. Huh.
Don't worry, as soon as SOPA/PIPA are passed into law and law enforcement has a new bogeyman to go after, they'll legalize illicit drugs and just go after IP pirates instead. Think about it; armed Latino drug cartels, or kids ripping DVDs in their Mom's basement? Which would you rather deal with if you were a cop?
What particular reason is there to think that the US or Israel did it?
Because they have a very obvious motive for doing so?
All the more reason to suspect someone else of doing it as it would be obvious who'd have wanted it done. All the more reason to not suspect the US or Israel of doing it as it would be obvious who'd have wanted it done.
For all anyone knows, it could've been a joint operation including the US, Israel, Russia, the Saudis, and even Iran! That last one could even include both pro- and con- Iranian regime sympathisers.
Fortran's long been known to perform math calculations better than most other languages (though that may not still be true).
I suspect that has to do with how it lays out matrices (and other higher-dimensioned arrays) in memory, as a single contiguous memory block. Doing so in C or C++ requires doing the index arithmetic yourself, as their native higher-dimensioned arrays are implemented in a different way (more pointers, more flexibility, more cost).
Which leads me back to my original point. Eg., why bother handling matrices in C/C++ if FNN does it better/simpler? This doesn't even need to involve the compiler writers. Any programmer ought to be able to call an object to handle an entity passed to it, assuming they understand how that object needs to be called.
make(1) can stitch it all together. Once you know that some_function() works for what you want to do, just effin' use it and ignore how it was implemented.
Bad-mouthing previous employers isn't generally a good idea; if you did it before you'll do it again.
I don't bad mouth people. I do call out bad practice.
tqk? Yeah, we got rid of him. He's insubordinate, not a team player.
It's a small minded employer/manager who sees insubordination when he should be seeing a potential leader. If all you need is for your drones to "fit in", go to China or Japan and stop bothering those who want to get stuff done.
Insubordination?!? Hell, that's a compliment! It means non-suck-up, tells-it-like-it-is, honest,... "You don't need to hunt for hidden meanings with tqk. If he says it, he means it. If he didn't mean it, he wouldn't say it."
Yes the English language had diverse roots but came to a standardised form MANY moons ago ...
Hogwash! As recently as Churchill ("... up with which, I will not put!"), it's been a lively language. Hell, all you need to do is put an Englishman in a room with a Scot, an Irish, an Aussie/Zealander, a Canuck, and a North and a South US-ian, and you'll be hard pressed to understand what anyone's saying. Extra points if the Englishman is Cockney.
The French have been trying to set their language in stone for quite a while by law, and look how that's turned out.
It adds more to the conversation that using buzzwords like "hacktivist".
I happen to like that word. What's wrong with it?
English is a bastard language, stealing from wherever and then mangling what it stole into whatever form it pleases. What's your problem?
Would you two a-holes just go get a room, please?
Sounds a lot more sensational when you compare the title's "comet plunges into sun and survives" event vs the actual "comet flew through hot atmosphere of the sun".
Isn't the Sun's atmosphere supposed to be holy freakin' hell hotter than the Sun itself? Me, I'll just say "Way to go, Lovejoy!" (as in "Hunt for Red October").
Cool stuff.
When's the last time you tossed a molotov cocktail? Are you volunteering? If not, then this:
It seems modern man is much more obedient than medieval peasant.
is just you blowing smoke, and accurately describing yourself.
Note, I'm not advocating anything here. I'm just pointing out that you're just a cheerleader on the sidelines, and not really in the game as you think you are.
the issue with the BAF is not that it protects the copyright, but in the way it does it - by threatening and bullying ISPs
there is no legal ban of the TPB site, but BAF is trying to enforce it by going around the legal procedures.
There is a legal ban of the TPB site (see below), but it only affects two ISPs atm. BAF is not "going around the legal procedures". They're using tort law to enforce their business model. What I'd like to know is, why are the ISPs not banding together to fight this? Pretty much every other industry has an umbrella organization. Don't ISPs?
As for why TPB stories so often show up on /., it's because orgs like BAF in their "Bull in a China Shop" ways threaten to destroy the net in their myopic attempts to enforce their business model. Whether you're a pirate or a boycotter, destruction of the net is a huge over-reaction on the part of BAF and the legal system.
As for why nitwits have to ask /. why TPB stories end up on /., it's because even now some people can't think clearly enough to plug "baf tpb" into a search engine. A court has forced two ISPs to break DNS, and BAF is attempting to extort other ISPs into doing the same.
Funny thing is, DNS isn't necessary:
(0) infidel /home/blah_ nslookup depiraatbaai.be
Server: 10.0.1.1
Address: 10.0.1.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: depiraatbaai.be
Address: 194.71.107.15
(0) infidel /home/blah_ nslookup malaysiabay.org
Server: 10.0.1.1
Address: 10.0.1.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: malaysiabay.org
Address: 184.173.151.99
... there ARE benefits to having these surveillance systems around.
Condolences on your Dad. :-P
I agree. Tech. can be useful and used for good. That's why we do it in the first place.
On the other hand, once the politicos pass laws mandating all CCTV feeds are patched into LEOs and LEOs store everything and troll it at leisure, hello Stasi! They've already abused to the max National Security Letters in collusion with AT&T et al, and Congress gave the latter retroactive immunity for it. You've still got TSA agents sexually assaulting innocent travellers. Your DoJ is still dragging its feet on putting the Banksters in jail, ...
IFF you !@#$heads can fix your gov't to the point that they once again must get a subpoena to get at this stuff and must delete it soon after if nothing's found, ubiquitous CCTV wouldn't threaten anyone but bad guys. However, with the PATRIOT Act still in force more than a decade after 9/11, that's not the trend I'm seeing. I fully expect SOPA/PIPA (The Great USA Firewall(tm), aka Internet censorship) to pass eventually in one form or another. I expect you'll wind up with mandatory GPS embedded in all vehicles. I expect present USA citizens to cheer on the coming surveillance society.
I'm also expecting a fairly messy revolution/civil war soon too. Condolences on that as well. I'm a little surprised it hasn't started yet.
Why spend all that money? Why will taxpayers want to put their cash towards a grossly mismanaged and costly project that will erroneously fuck over tons of people with no benefit whatsoever?
i) TSA ...
ii) PIPA/SOPA
iii) (R. Regan's) Star Wars
iv) Desert Storm
what you just said earns you, from me, instantaneous disrespect and disgust
Back at ya. A choice between the frying pan and the fire is not a choice. The one's offering that "choice" should be grateful they don't next feel a dagger sliding between their ribs.
Religion is not inherently bad or evil, but it can lead to bad/evil behaviour.
FTFY. So can greed, envy, lust, ...
Religion's just an idea. Blame the bad actor who uses it in bad ways, not the idea.
So although you might argue that religion itself is not the problem (extremists are), I disagree. Religion itself is like a loaded handgun left lying around. It's a danger in and of itself because it will inevitably be used for evil.
i) You're foolish to disagree.
ii) Nutjobs can use anything to further their aims.
iii) A loaded handgun left lying around is just a loaded handgun left lying around. It's no more deadly than a book until its trigger is pulled, and that takes a someone to pull it.
I'm an atheist, but I don't ascribe inherent malevolence to inanimate objects (including religion), regardless of how little I appreciate them. "An idea is not responsible for those who hold it."
Our relationship with Pakistan is complicated.
Understatement.
I don't think anyone calls them "good" friends, but they are friendly ...
Their intelligence service harboured your Enemy No. One, for years!
... and that has a lot of huge upsides.
Really? How so? Cutting off supply routes to your troops in Afghanistan? Attacking your other allies (India).
Also your signature is sort of offensive.
I don't see how. Politicians have been making a pretty good case lately that they're all psychopathic, or perhaps just schizo.
I would guess that the Iranian PR is slightly more trustworthy, because they have a bit less practice at lying.
I was with you up to that point, but this's naive. Iran/Persia's got a few thousand years more experience in just about everything than the USA has. Xerxes was a master of PR.
Whatever lunatic thought up the program needs their head examined because this is the kind of absolute failure of intelligence (and wits) plus absolute failure of strategy that has led to the US spending $1tn on achieving bugger all in the Middle East this past decade ... Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity ...
Unless that was their plan all along.
Think about it. You've right now got this massive military buildup that's about to be recalled, cashiered, and wound down. You won't have all of that a decade from now, and who knows who's going to be in the White House then? What's the CIA to do?
Accelerate hostilities so you can use the assets you have now, now.
Makes perfect sense to a warmonger. In other news, the first war in Iraq (to free Kuwait, chyaa, right) was a pretense to test out a lot of recently developed tech.; Patriot missiles, Abrams tanks, Stealth, ...
I always thought it would be rather easy to build the electronic components necessary to trigger a detonator once it's a certain distance from the vehicle ...
Please, do this. I'll be happy to deliver cookies to you on Death Row. More points (cake and candy?) if the perp happens to walk by a schoolyard or playground when your anti-theft IED goes off.
Rot in hell. Bombs are not defensive weapons.
550 Amp Truck Battery connected to metal briefcase ...
I suspect that would earn you multiple broken windows, taillights, headlights, slashed tires, and key scratches everywhere from the attempt. Or maybe they'd just torch it.
... pretend to be from Canada, they might not kidnap you quite as readily.
IUDs do not respect nationalities. That's how one of our Canadian guys got it recently.
You also might not want to wear that crucifix...those peace loving muslims don't care much for other religious stuff in their towns.
So he'll be seen to be an atheist. Check out the meaning of the word "infidel."
My issue w the contractor pay is that doesn't it come out of taxpayer dollars?
Consider all the other ways it can be spent, and don't kid yourself - it will be spent on something. It's not like passing it up would be getting some taxpayer a refund.
My city's considering selling namespace on rapid transit stations next year.
They've had ads on the busses here since before I moved here in 1986.
Note the progression: they had ads inside buses here since I was a kid. Then they bolted placards onto the outside of them too. Now they have full ad exterior paintjobs, even covering the windows.
Our sports arena was called the Saddledome. Now it's the $megacorp Saddledome. Ditto $othermegacorp Science Centre. The city saw that happening, and now want to sell namespace on transit stations, not just on buses and trains.
This contractor/consultant negotiates a contract with clients. Clients can specify whatever they damned well please to be in the contract. Speaking only for myself, pretty much anything I do while contracted to a client is owned by the client, and I'm happy to sign NDAs as well. You pay my hourly rate, and I'm yours for the duration of the contract.
Often, going into an assignment, details are murky and I may end up working on anything; fine by me. Anything the client wants done after the contract ends is covered by a new contract.
I don't get benefits, vacations are taken on my own time (unpaid), and I can work remotely using my own hardware/software, cellphone, ... Clients only pay my hourly rate + sales tax.
I'm not a business consultant; I only work with tech. If I'm not getting the work done, clients can terminate the contract on no notice. I'm expected to give them two weeks to thirty days notice to terminate from my side. Neither's ever happened in my experience (early termination).
I often wonder why employers suffer employees at all. I often wonder why employees can suffer being employees.
I've never seen as much advertising in my whole life as I have in the last ten years.
It's (the money) just spread more thinly. *Everything* has ads slapped on it these days, meaning each ad goes for less cash, meaning you can afford to slap ads (and more of them) on damned near anything.
My city's considering selling namespace on rapid transit stations next year. I wonder when they'll start naming streets after them.
If people would, you know, just stop buying the damn stuff then the cartel's main income would dry up within a month, ...
People (including me) have long been suggesting the same thing wrt the RIAA/MPAA related products too. Huh.
Don't worry, as soon as SOPA/PIPA are passed into law and law enforcement has a new bogeyman to go after, they'll legalize illicit drugs and just go after IP pirates instead. Think about it; armed Latino drug cartels, or kids ripping DVDs in their Mom's basement? Which would you rather deal with if you were a cop?
What particular reason is there to think that the US or Israel did it?
Because they have a very obvious motive for doing so?
All the more reason to suspect someone else of doing it as it would be obvious who'd have wanted it done. All the more reason to not suspect the US or Israel of doing it as it would be obvious who'd have wanted it done.
For all anyone knows, it could've been a joint operation including the US, Israel, Russia, the Saudis, and even Iran! That last one could even include both pro- and con- Iranian regime sympathisers.
Re-read Machiavelli.
Fortran's long been known to perform math calculations better than most other languages (though that may not still be true).
I suspect that has to do with how it lays out matrices (and other higher-dimensioned arrays) in memory, as a single contiguous memory block. Doing so in C or C++ requires doing the index arithmetic yourself, as their native higher-dimensioned arrays are implemented in a different way (more pointers, more flexibility, more cost).
Which leads me back to my original point. Eg., why bother handling matrices in C/C++ if FNN does it better/simpler? This doesn't even need to involve the compiler writers. Any programmer ought to be able to call an object to handle an entity passed to it, assuming they understand how that object needs to be called.
make(1) can stitch it all together. Once you know that some_function() works for what you want to do, just effin' use it and ignore how it was implemented.
Bad-mouthing previous employers isn't generally a good idea; if you did it before you'll do it again.
I don't bad mouth people. I do call out bad practice.
tqk? Yeah, we got rid of him. He's insubordinate, not a team player.
It's a small minded employer/manager who sees insubordination when he should be seeing a potential leader. If all you need is for your drones to "fit in", go to China or Japan and stop bothering those who want to get stuff done.
Insubordination?!? Hell, that's a compliment! It means non-suck-up, tells-it-like-it-is, honest, ... "You don't need to hunt for hidden meanings with tqk. If he says it, he means it. If he didn't mean it, he wouldn't say it."