I think what SETI does is worthwhile, since there is a possibility of ET life. What you're doing, however --trying to intimidate people from holding a reasonable opinion by saying stuff like "it's a mathematical certainty" (which nothing non a priori can be, for that matter) --is intellectually dishonest and, quite frankly, amazingly stupid.
Oh no! You've discovered my plot to suppress free-thinking and opinion-holding through the violent and repeated use of slashdot postings!
I was merely disagreeing with the original poster who compared the search for ETI to the search for bigfoot. Life started here somehow, whether you believe it was by God, an accident, a directed set of events, etc. Why is it that far-fetched to think that something similiar may have happened elsewhere in this hooooge place we call the universe?
Also, you severely misquoted my post. I said "a mathematical and statistical near-certainty," whereas you quoted me as saying "it's a mathematical certainty." There's an infinite difference between the two. Anyone who uses choice phrases such as "a priori" and "intellectually dishonest" should be aware of this.
Intelligent life is not "something to believe in." It is a mathematical and statistical near-certainty, given what is known about the size and composition of the universe.
Searching for yeti is like searching for a needle in haystack when you have no reason to believe that there is even a needle in it.
Searching for ET is like searching for a needle in a haystack that lies directly under the flight plan of a leaky needle-carrying cargo plane.
Your post is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of Slashdot. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.
The only thing that pisses me off about NS is the fact that I was sketching out the exact same concepts on paper and fishing for some feedback in my newsgroups when I first heard about it. Dammit! A day late and dollar short, as they say.
Although my version was intended mainly to fill the large gap in the genre of 'games for multi-monitor systems.' I figure a commander could have a full-screen map on one and use the other(s) for nifty things like status monitoring and live feed from units and security cams. Also, my version was a UT mod, as HL is getting rather long in the tooth.
Oh well. Always gotta be on the look-out for the next opportunity.
No, I don't buy that. By that argument, almost 50% of the games out there are just mods. Is Jedi Knight II just a Quake 3 mod? It uses the same engine. Same for most of the Star Trek games, Heavy Metal, etc. I don't think that just because a game uses a licenced engine, it can be referred to as a mod.
Technically, yes, it is a 'modificaton' of an existing game, but I believe the term 'mod' means something a little more specific. Can't mods use the original games' content (sounds, models, textures)? If you licence a game engine, I'm pretty sure that's all you get. The game engine and maybe the net & scripting code. Also, mods *require* the original game in order to work. I don't think owning Q3A is a requirement for playing JKII.
I'm probably just arguing semantics, but in my mind there's a big distinction between a mod and a licenced-engine game.
Umm, I don't get that first link. Was it supposed to be funny? There was nothing said that should have been misinterpreted. If someone in a parking lot asked me "for a jump," I would know exactly what there were talking about. In fact, that's probably the exact phrase I would expect to hear from someone. Same thing if someone was to tell me they would "give me a ring tomorrow." What's hard about that? I've probably said that myself. And I live in 'the South' which is pretty notorious for is horrendous butchering of the English language (as evident by my post, perhaps.)
Also, I don't get the whole "two ten / tooting" reference. Why was she saying tooting when asked her address?
Why do you need dual accelerated LCDs? Few-to-no games actually support multi-monitor 3D. Granted, you can force some 3D shooters like Q3 to span two monitors, but why would you? You're focus/crosshair would be split down the center. (I guess 3 monitors would be ideal, but you'd need a heck of a card to drive a 3D display at 3840x1024 or higher.)
A better bet would be to get a nice 3D AGP card (ATI Radeon 9600/9700/9800) for gaming on one monitor, and a cheap PCI, DVI-out card for driving the second LCD in desktop mode. A $60 ATI 9000/9100/9200, a Gfx5200, or any old Matrox card would do fine. WinXP has pretty good multi-card/multi-monitor capabilities. So does Linux.
You'll probably spend less money AND get better performance if you go with two cards, instead of trying to find one that does it all.
Also, here's a nice link for multi-monitor tips/software.
Family Guy is an outrageously funny and fairly original show. It achieves a near-perfect blend of "stupid" humor, "intelligent" humor, and "wacky" humor. It's one of the few shows that is truly LOL funny. It is slightly "controversial" at times, but not so blatantly insulting as South Park. Also, it does incorporate a *lot* of pop/sub-culture and geek humor.
The company's case against you is pretty straighforward: "We're in the business of making and selling software. Your invention is software. Hand it over."
Not only that, but the guy was "selling" the program. That sounds like a pretty direct conflict of interest to me.
But then again, it does suck that a software employee can't make any outside $$ writing software. I would hate to think that if someone offered me $10K to develop a 100-line VB app over the weekend, that I would have to turn them down because I write C code at work. I might better go read my contract again...
This is very analogous to the current MPAA issue. Insiders can't be controlled/trusted and kept from releasing information early, so instead, the 'victim' just stretches the hell out of existing laws and lets their lawyers clean up the mess. Laziness, plain and simple.
I still have my response emails from Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy from last November/December when the same thing went down. They basically said, "Our prices are designed to help our customers save money and these 'hackers' are violating your rights as a consumer as well as ours. We shall defend ourselves by any means neccesary"
"Piracy for too long has been high-reward and low-risk," Taylor said. "Legislation such as that being introduced tomorrow will go a long way toward changing that equation."
What exactly is this "high-reward" we get for sharing movies? Am I missing out on all the fame and fortune by not having broadband and sharing screeners? Or do they actually believe that being able to watch a screener 1 week before the movie is in theaters counts as some sort of "reward?" Are they that arrogant to think that there is such great value is being able to watch their latest multi-million dollar dreg on a 17" monitor a few days early?
Such is the glamourous life these pirates live! I bet they cruise the strip in their caddies, picking up babes left and right by waving their Matrix Revolutions screener out the window and flashing their platinum teeth. Bling, bling!
Who actually buys CD singles? Talk about a complete waste of money. Even when there was no P2P alternative to a 1-hit fix, it was a dumb idea. $4-6 for 1 song and some poorly-produced remix?
Instead of PDA + GBA, why has not anyone tried GBA + PDA? I mean, you could just add a touchscreen, stylus holder, flip-down KB, and a small CPU/mem to an ordinary GB Advance. I think that would be more akin to what a "gamer" would want. Perhaps that's what the N-Gage was going for? But why the high prices?
I think $1000 is about the perfect price for a gaming machine. After that, you start to lose in the price/performance ratio.
I just built my niece a new machine for $950 (sans OS). Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton), 512MB DDR 3200, ATI 9600, Samsung 19" CRT, Logitech 5.1 Speakers, etc. Newegg is your friend. =P
"If a voting system precludes any notion of a meaningful recount, is cloaked in secrecy and controlled by individuals with conflicts of interest, why would anyone buy it?," Quinn said. "At the very least give citizens the right to choose whether they want to use paper ballots... thus allowing each elector to be personally satisfied as to the integrity of the process in which they are participating."
That just makes... sense.
Re:How does bias factor in?
on
Jess in Action
·
· Score: 1
The bias of the author is as irrelavent as the bias of a Ford engineer writing the product repair manual for a F-150.
Not necessarily. For example, if a critic of Jess were the author, you might see passges like, "Although Jess *technically* has support for X, the current implementation is some-what of a cludge, and may cause problems with Y, etc...", whereas a proponent of the language may say "Jess was designed from the start with support for X and blah, blah.."
You will almost *always* have bias in any writings, whether intentional or not. These biases will filter though and modify or enhance the opinions of the reader. Sometimes that can be used for advantage. I know that if someone who is a die-hard 'C' programmer and loves to talk trash about C++ needs a book to learn some C++ for a project, it's best to get a book that aligns with and plays off of his/her opinions. If you get them a book that says "So you have to learn some C++ even though we all know C is superior? Well, here's some C++ code that behaves just like you would expect C to, etc...", they will be more comfortable and willing to use it versus, say, a book that start off with "We all know that C is dead! Long live C++! It's about time you dumped that ancient language and stepped into the new paradigm, etc..."
Like they say, opinions are like a**holes, we all have them and everyone's but yours stinks!
Slashdot Mirror
I think what SETI does is worthwhile, since there is a possibility of ET life. What you're doing, however --trying to intimidate people from holding a reasonable opinion by saying stuff like "it's a mathematical certainty" (which nothing non a priori can be, for that matter) --is intellectually dishonest and, quite frankly, amazingly stupid.
Oh no! You've discovered my plot to suppress free-thinking and opinion-holding through the violent and repeated use of slashdot postings!
I was merely disagreeing with the original poster who compared the search for ETI to the search for bigfoot. Life started here somehow, whether you believe it was by God, an accident, a directed set of events, etc. Why is it that far-fetched to think that something similiar may have happened elsewhere in this hooooge place we call the universe?
Also, you severely misquoted my post. I said "a mathematical and statistical near-certainty," whereas you quoted me as saying "it's a mathematical certainty." There's an infinite difference between the two. Anyone who uses choice phrases such as "a priori" and "intellectually dishonest" should be aware of this.
Intelligent life is not "something to believe in." It is a mathematical and statistical near-certainty, given what is known about the size and composition of the universe.
Searching for yeti is like searching for a needle in haystack when you have no reason to believe that there is even a needle in it.
Searching for ET is like searching for a needle in a haystack that lies directly under the flight plan of a leaky needle-carrying cargo plane.
One of these has slightly better odds...
Your post is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of Slashdot. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden to sedulously avoid it, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you, inexorably, here.
Ha! =P
The only thing that pisses me off about NS is the fact that I was sketching out the exact same concepts on paper and fishing for some feedback in my newsgroups when I first heard about it. Dammit! A day late and dollar short, as they say.
Although my version was intended mainly to fill the large gap in the genre of 'games for multi-monitor systems.' I figure a commander could have a full-screen map on one and use the other(s) for nifty things like status monitoring and live feed from units and security cams. Also, my version was a UT mod, as HL is getting rather long in the tooth.
Oh well. Always gotta be on the look-out for the next opportunity.
No, I don't buy that. By that argument, almost 50% of the games out there are just mods. Is Jedi Knight II just a Quake 3 mod? It uses the same engine. Same for most of the Star Trek games, Heavy Metal, etc. I don't think that just because a game uses a licenced engine, it can be referred to as a mod.
Technically, yes, it is a 'modificaton' of an existing game, but I believe the term 'mod' means something a little more specific. Can't mods use the original games' content (sounds, models, textures)? If you licence a game engine, I'm pretty sure that's all you get. The game engine and maybe the net & scripting code. Also, mods *require* the original game in order to work. I don't think owning Q3A is a requirement for playing JKII.
I'm probably just arguing semantics, but in my mind there's a big distinction between a mod and a licenced-engine game.
That is good. Because if the 'A' stood for 'World,' a lot of people would probably be confused.
Umm, I don't get that first link. Was it supposed to be funny? There was nothing said that should have been misinterpreted. If someone in a parking lot asked me "for a jump," I would know exactly what there were talking about. In fact, that's probably the exact phrase I would expect to hear from someone. Same thing if someone was to tell me they would "give me a ring tomorrow." What's hard about that? I've probably said that myself. And I live in 'the South' which is pretty notorious for is horrendous butchering of the English language (as evident by my post, perhaps.)
Also, I don't get the whole "two ten / tooting" reference. Why was she saying tooting when asked her address?
Fact is, everybody knows ati has the worst drivers in the industry.
Hi. 1999 called. They want thier information back.
Why do you need dual accelerated LCDs? Few-to-no games actually support multi-monitor 3D. Granted, you can force some 3D shooters like Q3 to span two monitors, but why would you? You're focus/crosshair would be split down the center. (I guess 3 monitors would be ideal, but you'd need a heck of a card to drive a 3D display at 3840x1024 or higher.)
A better bet would be to get a nice 3D AGP card (ATI Radeon 9600/9700/9800) for gaming on one monitor, and a cheap PCI, DVI-out card for driving the second LCD in desktop mode. A $60 ATI 9000/9100/9200, a Gfx5200, or any old Matrox card would do fine. WinXP has pretty good multi-card/multi-monitor capabilities. So does Linux.
You'll probably spend less money AND get better performance if you go with two cards, instead of trying to find one that does it all.
Also, here's a nice link for multi-monitor tips/software.
Relevant Journal Entry (mine):
HERE
The company's case against you is pretty straighforward: "We're in the business of making and selling software. Your invention is software. Hand it over."
Not only that, but the guy was "selling" the program. That sounds like a pretty direct conflict of interest to me.
But then again, it does suck that a software employee can't make any outside $$ writing software. I would hate to think that if someone offered me $10K to develop a 100-line VB app over the weekend, that I would have to turn them down because I write C code at work. I might better go read my contract again...
This is very analogous to the current MPAA issue. Insiders can't be controlled/trusted and kept from releasing information early, so instead, the 'victim' just stretches the hell out of existing laws and lets their lawyers clean up the mess. Laziness, plain and simple.
I still have my response emails from Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy from last November/December when the same thing went down. They basically said, "Our prices are designed to help our customers save money and these 'hackers' are violating your rights as a consumer as well as ours. We shall defend ourselves by any means neccesary"
What a joke.
Penny Arcade
eBay it and get a walkman. =P
I don't get this part:
"Piracy for too long has been high-reward and low-risk," Taylor said. "Legislation such as that being introduced tomorrow will go a long way toward changing that equation."
What exactly is this "high-reward" we get for sharing movies? Am I missing out on all the fame and fortune by not having broadband and sharing screeners? Or do they actually believe that being able to watch a screener 1 week before the movie is in theaters counts as some sort of "reward?" Are they that arrogant to think that there is such great value is being able to watch their latest multi-million dollar dreg on a 17" monitor a few days early?
Such is the glamourous life these pirates live! I bet they cruise the strip in their caddies, picking up babes left and right by waving their Matrix Revolutions screener out the window and flashing their platinum teeth. Bling, bling!
Who actually buys CD singles? Talk about a complete waste of money. Even when there was no P2P alternative to a 1-hit fix, it was a dumb idea. $4-6 for 1 song and some poorly-produced remix?
Instead of PDA + GBA, why has not anyone tried GBA + PDA? I mean, you could just add a touchscreen, stylus holder, flip-down KB, and a small CPU/mem to an ordinary GB Advance. I think that would be more akin to what a "gamer" would want. Perhaps that's what the N-Gage was going for? But why the high prices?
I think $1000 is about the perfect price for a gaming machine. After that, you start to lose in the price/performance ratio.
I just built my niece a new machine for $950 (sans OS). Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton), 512MB DDR 3200, ATI 9600, Samsung 19" CRT, Logitech 5.1 Speakers, etc. Newegg is your friend. =P
Do you expect your grandma to open her box and install a new graphics card?
No more than I would expect my grandma to update her X Windows library to incorporate new buffering extensions.
Apparently going to Best Buy and buying a hard drive is now "piracy".
Yes, but only because 80% of these people return home via ship and swing on a rope into their homes. Arrrrgh!
Perhaps MS's recent purchase of emulation software (Virtual PC) plays into this?
Link
"If a voting system precludes any notion of a meaningful recount, is cloaked in secrecy and controlled by individuals with conflicts of interest, why would anyone buy it?," Quinn said. "At the very least give citizens the right to choose whether they want to use paper ballots ... thus allowing each elector to be personally satisfied as to the integrity of the process in which they are participating."
That just makes... sense.
The bias of the author is as irrelavent as the bias of a Ford engineer writing the product repair manual for a F-150.
Not necessarily. For example, if a critic of Jess were the author, you might see passges like, "Although Jess *technically* has support for X, the current implementation is some-what of a cludge, and may cause problems with Y, etc...", whereas a proponent of the language may say "Jess was designed from the start with support for X and blah, blah.."
You will almost *always* have bias in any writings, whether intentional or not. These biases will filter though and modify or enhance the opinions of the reader. Sometimes that can be used for advantage. I know that if someone who is a die-hard 'C' programmer and loves to talk trash about C++ needs a book to learn some C++ for a project, it's best to get a book that aligns with and plays off of his/her opinions. If you get them a book that says "So you have to learn some C++ even though we all know C is superior? Well, here's some C++ code that behaves just like you would expect C to, etc...", they will be more comfortable and willing to use it versus, say, a book that start off with "We all know that C is dead! Long live C++! It's about time you dumped that ancient language and stepped into the new paradigm, etc..."
Like they say, opinions are like a**holes, we all have them and everyone's but yours stinks!