This invetion will go the way of the Sinclair horizontal bike.
It is awkward, expensive, makes you look like a dork, and isn't really more useful than something you already had.
Mind you, I'm never wrong about these things. When the CD-ROM was invented, I accurately predicted we would never hear from such a useless invention again. After all, it was more expensive than the PC you plug it in, and all of that for half a GB of read only data, while no one could have any conceivable use for read only data.
I also accurately predicted that Java would be just a fad. After all, who would need a slow interpreted platform independant language while only one platform would exist a few years on.
Evolution makes attempts at U-turns all the time...
Flightless birds dont get their hands back, marine mammals don't get their gills back, we stand up straight, but our spine can't take it, our yes attempt to focus by bending/stretching the lens rather than moving the lens back and forth, etc etc.
Evolution as a method works because it achieves results without requiring a plan or a design.
However if you do have a specific goal set, such as 'we want an application that solves this problem', then a 'try 1000 different angles to throw 999 away isn't very efficient... A proper design might allow you to throw away the 999 redundant ones before work has even begun...
: And don't EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That's giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit.
and on the other hand, a horse cannot evolve wheels, because the intermediate steps between a legged horse and a wheeled horse would not be able to move. pity because a wheeled horse could be faster...
just look at biological species to see that a process of evolution rarely results in the optimal design, and is unable to take U-turns or back out of dead ends...
Frogs and salamanders and other small amphibians like these are very delicate fragile creatures which are very easily affected by even small changes in their habitats. They breathe and drink through their skin, and so absorb pretty much anything thats in the air and water. They are also very sensitive to light & heat conditions. If a massive environmental disaster occured that was so devastating that it wiped out thousands of species, including very large robust reptiles like dinosaurs, why did it not wipe out the many frog & reptile populations that have continued pretty much unchanged since that time.
You cant take amphibians alone as counter evidence. There are for example several species of toads and frogs that live in the desert, and lie buried under ground, sometimes for many years, waiting for the conditions to become just right to come to the surface and reproduce.
When food is suddenly very scarce, a huge dinosaur suddenly loses its robustness and starves, while small creatures, or species that can lie dormant for some time (seed bearing plants for instance) gain in robustness...
Thing with craters on the earth's surface is that they weather. Water, wind, ice, chemicals and life erode the features.
As a result, a crater on earth doesn't look like one on for example Mars: a hole, with a ring around it and an elevation in the middle. The crater on Yukatan for instance, is completely covered with sediment, and can only be recognised with detailed geological research.
But it seems to break from the "known" Star Trek history, as described by the other shows and movies
I believe it was on saturday night live, after being confronted by a trekkie with apparent historical inconsistensies between different episodes, that William Shatner immortalised the phrase: It's just a show, 'Get a life'
I'd use an obscure MP3 sharing site, not jpegs. Something that does not arouse suspicion if you try to do it covertly.
Nothing as suspicious as trying to hide something seemingly innocent, but if they take it too far (pr0n jpegs or warez for instance) it would attract attention again.
This product will fail, and they will go broke.
(some other far superior products that failed because they were too different:
- sinclair's horizontal bicycle that was safer and made more efficient use of your muscle power, but made you look like a martian
- omo power laundry detergent that cleaned your clothers efficiently at room temperature, but turned out to dissolve clothes, because people insisted on washing at 60 degrees C like they always had)
because Iran couldn't invade Iraq in 8 years of fighting.
That is a travesty. Iraq invaded Iran, not the other way around. Iraq failed there, despite immense support both from the USA and from the soviets, and immense losses on the Irani side, because of the fanatical determination of Iran.
Gain territory. Then make the territory safe. Then give the people within that territory everything their hearts desire. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Jewelry. Television. McDonald's.
Unfortunately exactly these things are what make the USA so hated by the general population in most parts of the world. The fact that the entire world is slowly turning into a poor copy of the USA.
McDonalds, Hollywood, Coca Cola, Nike are seen as a much bigger threat than america's armed forces. McDonalds et al. hold no elections, have no embassy, and have an ecomic power that local products cannot compete with.
It is not just the parents who blame the 'moral decay' of their youth on the USA (I'm sure all older generations in the history of mankind has complained about 'moral decay' of the youth), but also a very difficult to understand double standard of youths wearing nikes and drinking Coke or Pepsi, who feel the same way.
Americanisation of the world is not a solution of the problem of people hating America - it's the bloody cause of it!
It's part of the dare I say 'arrogant' mindset of large organisations of unlimited power such a the NSA, the FBI and the CIA. They have failed, miserably, at doing their job, and they are clearly inept, as the terrorist attacks prove. Not only the fact that the terrorists got through without them noticing it, but the even more upsetting fact that parts of these organisations knew (some of) the suspects were terrorists, other parts knew a big attack on american soil was coming, yet atoher part knew some ofthem had pilot licences, and yet other parts had been warned by the French secret service that terrorists had been following pilot's training, and intended to hijack planes in the US.
It now appears that the heads of the security organisations don't know what the tails are up to, selectively ignore vital information because they believe French people are stupid, never succeed in preventing attacks, and are always suspiciously quick to point to the usual suspects, providing no evidence (supposedly top secret, cannot be revealed without compromising operations etc) to reassure the public that they have caught the culprits, and not just some minions while the master minds are still out there plotting new attacks.
In short: the FBI, NSA and CIA have failed miserably. In their eyes this is impossible, because they are omnipotent, so the only explanation is some random outside factor beyond even their control is to blame, and once they are allowed to bring that (back) under their control, everyone will be safe again.
Today's things not sufficiently under their control: encryption algorythms and the licence to make political assassinations.
Oh imagine how much safer we will all be feeling soon when we know that we can be prosecuted if they can't read our mail, and they can assassinate us at will.
Now I don't have the delusion that I am important enough for American espionnage organisations to snoop on me, or assassinate me, but just because it doesn't affect ME doesn't mean it is no problem!
The NSA and CIA would not have been in this mess of having to explain to the public why it is that they exist, and have an unlimited budget again, if they didn't waste 100% of that budget on industrial espionnage, spying on America's closest allies, ignoring all information that doesn't travel by satelite or sub marine cable, because it can't be worth a lot of money anyway.
Re:Try be inovative instead of just replicate ?
on
Linux on the Desktop
·
· Score: 2
printing on a non-postscript printer still sucks in linux. It's more trouble than needed, and the results arent as nice as with NT.
I know this is a problem with drivers and applications and not the kernel, and I know it seems like a minor issue (not!), but besides games (unsolvable) printing is still an issue that makes Linux less fit for the desktop.
Funny that everyone who replied to my posts assumed I am American, and that I support the idea of invading Afghanistan.
I'm not in the least bit American, and in my opinion destroying Afghanistan because a terrorist is hiding there is like blowing up Boston because a serial killer lives there.
I just happen to believe brute force works when it is not constrained by popular opinion, there are no reporters present at ground zero, and even if they were, the viewers at home would howl and cheer at the sight of dead or exploding Afghans.
I'm also of the opinion that Afghanistan is in such a sorry shape that it can't defend itself. Certainly not the way they handled the Soviet invasion.
So far it looks like the whole muslim world other than Iraq (or at least the national govenrments, I'm not sure how much influence popular opinion has in those at best pseudo democratic systems), has turned away from the Taleban.
They may have stockpiles of the weapons, but they certainly have used these weapons on each other quite a lot in the decade since the soviets left.
I agree with you that it is no solution for the terrorist problem. It is a solution to the home front demaning retalliation problem.
I suppose we will see very soon if the US military are capable of planning an operation that results in the death or capture of bin Laden with minimal loss of American life. I think they probably are, unless they insist on rushing it.
- You can use your air superiority this time, unlike the soviets you dont have to fear stingers
- Afghanistan is now in a seriously worse shape than it was 20 years ago
- The Taleban can't even count on support from their own population, foreign support will be cut off by the fact that their only neighbour that isnt very hostile towards them, Pakistan, has promised their full cooperation.
and most of all:
- No need to occupy the whole country for a decade trying to keep an unpopular puppet regime in power. The target is mr bin Laden and his training facilities. Eliminating that target does little to solve the terrorism problem, but it will satisfy the outcry for vengeance, at least for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
This invetion will go the way of the Sinclair horizontal bike.
It is awkward, expensive, makes you look like a dork, and isn't really more useful than something you already had.
Mind you, I'm never wrong about these things. When the CD-ROM was invented, I accurately predicted we would never hear from such a useless invention again. After all, it was more expensive than the PC you plug it in, and all of that for half a GB of read only data, while no one could have any conceivable use for read only data.
I also accurately predicted that Java would be just a fad. After all, who would need a slow interpreted platform independant language while only one platform would exist a few years on.
this time I'm right tho.
There is always an anonymous coward who will take a metaphor literally, miss the point by a mile and make a complete arse of himself.
Evolution makes attempts at U-turns all the time...
Flightless birds dont get their hands back, marine mammals don't get their gills back, we stand up straight, but our spine can't take it, our yes attempt to focus by bending/stretching the lens rather than moving the lens back and forth, etc etc.
Evolution as a method works because it achieves results without requiring a plan or a design.
However if you do have a specific goal set, such as 'we want an application that solves this problem', then a 'try 1000 different angles to throw 999 away isn't very efficient... A proper design might allow you to throw away the 999 redundant ones before work has even begun...
and on the other hand, a horse cannot evolve wheels, because the intermediate steps between a legged horse and a wheeled horse would not be able to move. pity because a wheeled horse could be faster...
just look at biological species to see that a process of evolution rarely results in the optimal design, and is unable to take U-turns or back out of dead ends...
You cant take amphibians alone as counter evidence. There are for example several species of toads and frogs that live in the desert, and lie buried under ground, sometimes for many years, waiting for the conditions to become just right to come to the surface and reproduce.
When food is suddenly very scarce, a huge dinosaur suddenly loses its robustness and starves, while small creatures, or species that can lie dormant for some time (seed bearing plants for instance) gain in robustness...
Thing with craters on the earth's surface is that they weather. Water, wind, ice, chemicals and life erode the features.
As a result, a crater on earth doesn't look like one on for example Mars: a hole, with a ring around it and an elevation in the middle. The crater on Yukatan for instance, is completely covered with sediment, and can only be recognised with detailed geological research.
Full solar eclipses are even more efficient at that
moral of the story:
If your stock suddenly rises to clearly unrealistic levels and you are "surprised by wealth"
sell it all!
Remember the incident with the monkey bars?
One of the hits seaching for monkey was this picture of monkey bars, featuring a black family playing with them. This got Microsoft sued for racism.
What are you trying to tell me? That I can run without operating system?
No, Emacs. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.
Before long, people will figure out how to send viruses by e-mail as well as snail mail. Uhm, hang on...
People would get horrible damage to their eyes, perhaps drying their eyeballs out trying to control their blinking ;-)
Most Americans have creditcards. Most people in the rest of the world don't, or if they do, it's of a company that's not accepted in the US.
Me for instance, I pay with a bank card. Incidentally, anyone with a bank account (all ages afaik) can get one.
Using creditcards as an online ID amounts to using Visa and American Express as online ID's.
But it seems to break from the "known" Star Trek history, as described by the other shows and movies
I believe it was on saturday night live, after being confronted by a trekkie with apparent historical inconsistensies between different episodes, that William Shatner immortalised the phrase: It's just a show, 'Get a life'
;-)
I'd use an obscure MP3 sharing site, not jpegs. Something that does not arouse suspicion if you try to do it covertly.
Nothing as suspicious as trying to hide something seemingly innocent, but if they take it too far (pr0n jpegs or warez for instance) it would attract attention again.
you probably work for proctor & gamble :)
Rule number one:
never force a customer to change his habits
This product will fail, and they will go broke.
(some other far superior products that failed because they were too different:
- sinclair's horizontal bicycle that was safer and made more efficient use of your muscle power, but made you look like a martian
- omo power laundry detergent that cleaned your clothers efficiently at room temperature, but turned out to dissolve clothes, because people insisted on washing at 60 degrees C like they always had)
because Iran couldn't invade Iraq in 8 years of fighting.
That is a travesty. Iraq invaded Iran, not the other way around. Iraq failed there, despite immense support both from the USA and from the soviets, and immense losses on the Irani side, because of the fanatical determination of Iran.
First, give their women a better lot in life.
Gain territory. Then make the territory safe. Then give the people within that territory everything their hearts desire. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Jewelry. Television. McDonald's.
Unfortunately exactly these things are what make the USA so hated by the general population in most parts of the world. The fact that the entire world is slowly turning into a poor copy of the USA.
McDonalds, Hollywood, Coca Cola, Nike are seen as a much bigger threat than america's armed forces. McDonalds et al. hold no elections, have no embassy, and have an ecomic power that local products cannot compete with.
It is not just the parents who blame the 'moral decay' of their youth on the USA (I'm sure all older generations in the history of mankind has complained about 'moral decay' of the youth), but also a very difficult to understand double standard of youths wearing nikes and drinking Coke or Pepsi, who feel the same way.
Americanisation of the world is not a solution of the problem of people hating America - it's the bloody cause of it!
Ofcourse they blame encryption -
It's part of the dare I say 'arrogant' mindset of large organisations of unlimited power such a the NSA, the FBI and the CIA. They have failed, miserably, at doing their job, and they are clearly inept, as the terrorist attacks prove. Not only the fact that the terrorists got through without them noticing it, but the even more upsetting fact that parts of these organisations knew (some of) the suspects were terrorists, other parts knew a big attack on american soil was coming, yet atoher part knew some ofthem had pilot licences, and yet other parts had been warned by the French secret service that terrorists had been following pilot's training, and intended to hijack planes in the US.
It now appears that the heads of the security organisations don't know what the tails are up to, selectively ignore vital information because they believe French people are stupid, never succeed in preventing attacks, and are always suspiciously quick to point to the usual suspects, providing no evidence (supposedly top secret, cannot be revealed without compromising operations etc) to reassure the public that they have caught the culprits, and not just some minions while the master minds are still out there plotting new attacks.
In short: the FBI, NSA and CIA have failed miserably. In their eyes this is impossible, because they are omnipotent, so the only explanation is some random outside factor beyond even their control is to blame, and once they are allowed to bring that (back) under their control, everyone will be safe again.
Today's things not sufficiently under their control: encryption algorythms and the licence to make political assassinations.
Oh imagine how much safer we will all be feeling soon when we know that we can be prosecuted if they can't read our mail, and they can assassinate us at will.
Now I don't have the delusion that I am important enough for American espionnage organisations to snoop on me, or assassinate me, but just because it doesn't affect ME doesn't mean it is no problem!
The NSA and CIA would not have been in this mess of having to explain to the public why it is that they exist, and have an unlimited budget again, if they didn't waste 100% of that budget on industrial espionnage, spying on America's closest allies, ignoring all information that doesn't travel by satelite or sub marine cable, because it can't be worth a lot of money anyway.
printing on a non-postscript printer still sucks in linux. It's more trouble than needed, and the results arent as nice as with NT.
I know this is a problem with drivers and applications and not the kernel, and I know it seems like a minor issue (not!), but besides games (unsolvable) printing is still an issue that makes Linux less fit for the desktop.
Funny that everyone who replied to my posts assumed I am American, and that I support the idea of invading Afghanistan.
I'm not in the least bit American, and in my opinion destroying Afghanistan because a terrorist is hiding there is like blowing up Boston because a serial killer lives there.
I just happen to believe brute force works when it is not constrained by popular opinion, there are no reporters present at ground zero, and even if they were, the viewers at home would howl and cheer at the sight of dead or exploding Afghans.
I'm also of the opinion that Afghanistan is in such a sorry shape that it can't defend itself. Certainly not the way they handled the Soviet invasion.
So far it looks like the whole muslim world other than Iraq (or at least the national govenrments, I'm not sure how much influence popular opinion has in those at best pseudo democratic systems), has turned away from the Taleban.
They may have stockpiles of the weapons, but they certainly have used these weapons on each other quite a lot in the decade since the soviets left.
I agree with you that it is no solution for the terrorist problem. It is a solution to the home front demaning retalliation problem.
I suppose we will see very soon if the US military are capable of planning an operation that results in the death or capture of bin Laden with minimal loss of American life. I think they probably are, unless they insist on rushing it.
All true, but:
- You can use your air superiority this time, unlike the soviets you dont have to fear stingers
- Afghanistan is now in a seriously worse shape than it was 20 years ago
- The Taleban can't even count on support from their own population, foreign support will be cut off by the fact that their only neighbour that isnt very hostile towards them, Pakistan, has promised their full cooperation.
and most of all:
- No need to occupy the whole country for a decade trying to keep an unpopular puppet regime in power. The target is mr bin Laden and his training facilities. Eliminating that target does little to solve the terrorism problem, but it will satisfy the outcry for vengeance, at least for a while.