But that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of really good coders and ops folks who post comments. I'd like to think (though I could be wrong) that the other topics make it on the site because of the coders, not in spite of them. Although I'm a professional developer, all the things you list fall into my interest areas.
So to keep the programmers and computer folks happy, we should set the bar higher for the quality of discussion on those topics and everything else ought to be chump change? Thankfully, "news for nerds, stuff that matters" means something more cosmopolitan to the general crop of slashdot editors. I'm not always pleased with some submissions which don't hold my interest, but I'm grateful that the broad lattitude displayed by Taco and the gang gives me a chance to broaden my horizons. In a large community like slashdot, I think it is rather arrogant to expect every experience to be tailored to any individual's fancy. Also, you're really missing my point by claiming interest rather than expertise in broad areas I mentioned. If you will recall, the context of this discussion is some clueless guy curious about very basic issues. Would you feel the same way if the guy in question was asking about protein synthesis or DNA sequencing? How much bio-technology training have you had? A RTFM wouldn't be out of order, as such topics are easily found in any modern textbook of general biology. But biotechnology is a dynamic field with widely deployed and very influential technologies that are not well understood by a general public which uses them. Does that mean the general public is better served by not being curious or asking questions? And if one is interested, you would expect one to matriculate at the local community college and take a few semsters to cover the materials one didn't get in high school biology? Ultimately, I think the important thing is to foster an environment where not only access, but interest in casual knowledge is encouraged. And you're not going to get that if newbie inquiries are always snubbed.
So I'm curious - when you bothered these people, did you have a project you were working on, or did you just to it for your own personal edification? My feeling is that if you're doing it just for fun then you should go pay for your information. I value other people's time because I value my own, so if I feel like I'll eventually be able to use that information to contribute something back then I don't mind asking someone for their time.
I never got the impression that I was bothering anyone. Most of my mentors through the years have been very enthusiastic about sharing things they are themselves very excited about. To be fair, I've encountered a few who feel the same way you do. Those tend to be very serious about their work and treat their professional expertise primarily as a critical source of livelihood rather than a cherished career. To bring the discussion back to the subject at hand, is anyone paying you to take time and effort to participate on slashdot? What compels you to reply to these posts besides your own free will? Why do you feel obligated to police the level of discussion here? I still don't understand why it is so hard to just ignore the stuff that doesn't interest you.
Well, I'd disagree. There are lots of times when you just need more information no matter how smart you are. For what it's worth, when I find a jewel in a post then I'll send the author a comment thanking them for their efforts. It's often just a single piece of missing information that can make or break a project.
Now imagine if instead of helpful comments, some wise guru replied to you with the sentiment that you simply haven't done *enough* brain-racking and you're wasting their time with your pleas for help. (Hmm, I wonder who would be so rude?!) It's not so comfy when *you're* the one needing "just a single piece of missing information that can make or break a project", is it?:-)
...submitting a question like this would be like going to a convention of heart surgeons...
*chuckle* Oh, dear...... If you're going to start out by comparing the general community of/.ers to a convention of heart surgeons, I'm afraid you've just lost a lot credibility as a/.er yourself. Slashdot is hardly as exclusive or serious a place as a professional convention. Gawkers and clueless spectators abound. Even some of the most ernest questions/comments posted to a story on, say modern physics or cosmology, makes me cringe at the sheer absurdity of some posters. But, one replies to these stories of ones own free will. Slashdot serves a truly diverse group. To expect this place to remain the playground of elite coders is rather myopic and narrowminded. We are astronomers, geneticist, sci-fi geeks, and just general knowledge lovers. Let's just accept the fact that some of us will end up looking stupid and ignorant at least once but likely often. And when that comes to pass, it isn't rude or ill-mannered to ask for some help or advice.
I think that you'd have to agree that the OP really didn't seem to have any real focus
I would agree with you here. But in his defense, how can you have a focus when you're just starting out? My educational background is electrical engineering. When I was a freshman straight out of high school, it made little sense to worry about specializing in analog or digital when I didn't even know what a transistor did.
so any comments submitted are going to be in the context of the person posting the comment rather than in the context of the person seeking the information.
I see nothing wrong with that. Learning by extraction out of context is a great way to learn about more than strictly the answer to a stated question. In my experience, answering the simple fundamental questions (and answering them well) is the true hallmark of really understanding a subject. So even if you get a bad question, you should award yourself brownie points if you still manage to be informative and helpful with an (good) answer.
It's surprising that given your history that you'd defend laziness. You remember just how hard it was to get information on anything back in those days.....
Which was why I asked a lot of questions of a lot of people with a lot of experience. Generally, those who bothered to help me were rewarded with my willingness to use my accumulating knowledge to help them when necessary. No money was involved, it was just good manners that helped to build a sense of community.
Let me give you one more thing to ponder. Even though I've done very little telephony, I'm now working on building out a fairly sophisicated Asterisk server. If you've ever worked with this technology then you'll know that it's less than well documented, but that doesn't mean that I'm not responsible for doing research before asking questions. If I were to put a post on Ask Slashdot saying "I want to build an Asterisk server that connects to a database - tell me how" then the community would be right in flaming me. If I was to submit a question like "is there a better way to interact with a database than the system command?" then I would expect to get some really good answers.
I guess you and I have a genuine difference of opinion. Your efforts and achievement in building your Asterisk server is admirable. But I would be more than happy to help you if I had more expertise in this area than you did. In my opinion, if you're expereinced enough to ask sophisticated questions, you ought to be smart/resourceful enough to figure it out yourself. But if you're just starting out, you often don't even know what the right *questions* are let alone the right answers. I tend to think those are the ones who need the most help.
toddbu: Please understand I'm not trying to flame you in particular. This is a general reply to all those who feel the question posed by the original submitter was ill-concieved. I think it *is* obvious that by the way the question was framed, this guy doesn't know much about what he is asking. But most people don't seem to realize how amazingly hard it is to get to the point where that isn't true anymore. I first started writing BASIC routines for APPLE ][e in the mid 80's as an 8 year old. A few years ago, I begin doing embedded programming for the AVR microcontroller. Regardless, I *still* get intimidated walking around the computer/technology isles at Border's bookstore.
Put yourself in this guy's shoes for a minute. So you have questions and you gonna do research: Where the friggin hell do you actually begin? Considering the way the question is stated, I'd be suprised if the guy's written anything with more than a few hundred lines of code. With that kind of background, how do you evaluate rows and rows of shelves with titles such as "The PERL COOKBOOK", "LEARN PHP IN 24 HOURS", "EXTREME PROGRAMMING EXPLAINED"? What the hell do these names mean to someone who has barely any concept of a library? Most of covers are just pretty words with useless information intended to get you to buy the book. It doesn't get any simpler on the web. Sure you have massive amounts of information you can google, but how does any one individual digest all that information when one doesn't know enough to sort out the relevent websites from those that are way over one's head?
When I first started out years ago, it was really bewildering making sense out of the sea of resources. It was only through years of interaction with others of greater experience that I learned about good books and good websites by reputation. This guy asmor is doing the same - simply asking the folks here what's out there, not imploring any of us to write his programs for him.
You suggest he go to college to seriously study up on this. Certainly that would be an ideal way to learn computer programming in a structured fashion. But that is easier said then done for someone who may be just a casual programmer coding for fun in his spare time. It all boils down to the notion that some folks who are very capable may not be able to devote the amount of time and resouces many/.ers would consider appropriate. If they are willing and brave enough to ask, they deserve any help they can get.
In 2015, the probe will awaken the giant mysterious creatures known as Angels. Earth will be attacked and our only chance will rest in the fighting ability of towering mechas which runs on Linux called Penguingelion operated by young obnoxious geeks who've been raised on slashdot after the devestation of the dot-com bubble. Naturally, all the action will occur somewhere in the US or at least the western hemisphere. (Tokyo? pft! Lord knows how jealous Hollywood can get.) Linus Torvald, the brilliant father of GNU/Linux operating system, is the sensitive, emotionally dependent ex-lover of ********, who heads up SCO, the only truly effective organized defense effort of Earth against the Angels. As we join the story in progress, A frantic effort is underway to recompile the latest kernel and boot up the Penguingelions in a race to beat the imminent arival of the latest Angel......
This gas isn't inside the black hole, so light can still get out. Once it falls into the black hole, no more light comes from it, but before then, there is usually a lot of light.
A thought just occured to me. They say nothing can escape from a black hole due to it's huge gravity. Not even light. We know photons are the carriers of the electromagnetic force, one of the 4 fundamental forces in nature. I believe we have identified the carriers of the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force as well. But the suposed graviton has remained elusive and unidentified. By their very nature, though, shouldn't we be able to conclude that in order for black holes to generate such intense gravitational fields, they must allow their own gravitons to interact with nearby objects? In other words, the carriers for the force of gravity must be allowed to escape the black hole in order to exert that very force. Wait a minute....I can't be saying that right. Let's try again, suppose communication through an event horizon is possible - with gravity waves.
?????
Profit?
apologies, slightly off-topic...[but only a little
on
Chemical Words List
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
For the longest time, I've had a private gripe that I just can't seem to shake off. Many years ago, I took a chemistry class at Cornell during the summer that gave me my first taste of the collegiate experience. Some of the things I've learned I could do without (for example: Cornell has the hightest suicide rate among ivy leagues? I still think I was being toyed with). But one of the most enduring experiences that has stayed with me were some of the lab stuff we did when we got to the organic chemistry part of the class. It was pretty mind-blowing for me (just a high schooler back then) to open up a little vial of liquid or wet gauze and have the sweet pungent smell of fresh fruit waif out at me. Similarly, I was amazed that some of the most evil smell produced by bacteria and mold could be so definitively identified as well.
Even since, I've been mystified by the fact that our society has standard color charts for use by artists and precise tuning standards of notes and scales for use by musicians, but there seem to be no standard or measurement criteria for smells or odors. None that are taught in school anyhow. Yet, in everyday literature, we often enough come across descriptions of smells and odors which the authors seem to take for granted without concern for whether the readers know what they are talking about.
And so I ask my fellow slasdoters, how does one concisely characterize the experience of say, the multitude of different ways milk can spoil; the various acridness of old unwashed gym cloths; the powerful fetidness of well-used, unwashed trash containers? and be absolutely certain that one is getting one's point across? Is there a practical dictionary or directory for such things?
Don't know how much credibility Wikipedia has nowadays though. The source cited is rather dissapointing since the casual mention of the area being flagged as a "red star" doesn't leave much to follow up on. I was rather hoping an enlightened/.er might point out a reliable reference that would include a more comprehensive list of ALL US targets which reveals the tactical or strategic importance of each particular one. Great-grandparent suggested Silicon Valley, which I thought a bit odd. I know there are millitary installations in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, but I'd imagine the technology/industrial center Silicon Valley is known for wouldn't be much of an immediate threat to a nuclear adversary. Wouldn't a higher priority industrial target be the nearby Lauwrence Livermore National Laboratory, or maybe Los Alamos? In any case, I can't understand how any of these facilities may produce a product that can deploy immediately against a nuclear adversary in the time frame relevant to a nuclear exchange. Is it a possible targets? I strongly agree, but hardly a top priority. Similarly, I'm curious about the importance of New York City, as cited in the Huntsville article at Wikipedia. NYC is well known as a cultural icon and financial center (significance not lost on al-Qa'ida), but why should it be a priority during a nuclear exchange. Maybe a nuclear target for psychological effect? I could venture a guess that NYC might be critical as a command/control/communications hub, but then I'd be talking out of my ass about things I know nothing about. Just curious and wondering if anyone more knowledgeble about US national defense infrastructure could set me straight.
... we're #4 on the hit list if nuclear war ever breaks out...
#4 on who's hit list? The rooskies or the chinese? God, I can't believe such a "list" would be public knowledge and bandied about so casually. I don't suppose you can tell us you're #4 out of how many and who the other three are? ^_^
VLC is my favorite player as well. I use it almost exclusively - with one exception: subtitles. Many of the media I've gradually aquired come with *.srt subtitle files. So far, the only tool I've found that will process these is the DirectVobSub plugin. Unfortunately VLC can't use these (last I checked) as it requires directshow (?directx? my sources are a bit confusing). I wonder if some more resourceful souls out there can show me how to use *.srt subtitles with VLC (if at all).
I'm probably not the only one on slashdot who tends to accumulate old hardware. As I think many of the collectors here might sympathize, often the pieces are obscure/generic brands for which not much information is available. In fact, even some of the brand names often no longer have any documentation. Locating drivers has become an easier task, but performance features and such are still hard to find. I have an old 486 class motherboard which I found out (only from talking to older folks) was very well regarded by those who used it. But it was very hard work trying to find anything to coroborate those casual conversations on the web. Charts and tables like the ones compiled by THG can give a good idea about which pieces should be paired up for an appropriate system that avoids unnecessary bottlenecks. I really wish this kind of information exists for soundcards, video cards, and modems in the form of a giant database of hardware products from the past as well as the present.
Yeah, telephone abuse is a real problem over here in the land of convicts.
Ha! Quit the contrary, it seems maybe the telephone (industry) is doing the abusing.
When I was a boy I had a "Blue tounge" lizard that ate egg & lettuce sandwiches, does that count? Cows and Caterpillers both eat grass, I doubt there digestive organs are the same or even similar.
hmm.... Egg and lettuce sandwiches are hardly found in nature as a normal food source. I don't really know if you can consider cows and caterpillars as fulfilling similar ecological roles. They don't eat grass the same way (I'll explain this later) Secondly, the two are most certainly not at the same position on the food chain. Whoever wrote the article was excited for legitimate reasons. The fact that grass existed earlier than we thought drastically changes our understanding of the ecological landscape when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But actually I'm excited for the same reason. You have a large animal that eats grass, like modern rhumanid mammals. Thing is, we know a lot about modern rhumanid mammals: from their predator/prey relationships with other species, to their growth and development, to the influence of percipitation and other seasonal factors on their survival. If herbivore dinosaurs did the same thing *in the same (or similar) way* that tells us a lot about the early Earth. When you start thinking about these parallels, all sorts of interesting questions arise. If their digestive systems worked similarly, did sauropods belch methane like modern cows? Would there have been enough of that to play a significant part in a potential greenhouse situation? The existance of grass so much earlier than we thought IS astonishing. I'm just wondering about the consequences of that fact from a particular perspective.
Nah, me and Rus just like to pick fights...
Well, I have to say you fight like a gentleman. (^_^) I half expect you to be just a troll simply looking to flame someone. You do yourself credit for conducting yourself with a measure of civility in this discussion. I respect a person who responds to missunderstanding with reasonable discourse.
Hold on there fella, don't go picking a fight where none was offered. I don't believe there is yet a consensus that dinosaurs are *NOT* reptiles. Some have speculated they share certain features with birds, but that doesn't mean they *ARE* all birds. Secondly, if grass was found in dino turd, doesn't it stand to reason their digestive system are adapted to handle the material? I merely meant it kind of neat to know such things despite not having any direct evidence for what the internal organs might be like. Now, if certain dinosaurs ate grass in the past, it is concievable that there just *might* be modern reptiles with the same digestive ability to process grass. Thatt is why I wondered if we have anything to compare with to get an idea of what the digestive system of herbivore dinosaur might be like. It should be interesting to compare those biological systems with mammal grazers who dominate this ecological niche today but grew into this role independently. So be a good boy and help develope this discussion constructively by at least *trying* to find a modern grass eating reptile before you declare everyone you don't like to be an illiterate idiot.
Not knowing who you are, your other posts on slashdot seems reasonably intelligent. But you have *GOT* to drop the attitude that there is only one insight to be gained and your's is better than anyone elses. Are all aussies so arrogant and volatile? It's people like you and Russell Crowe that give the land down under a bad name.
Wow! Who would've thought such information would be discernable when soft tissue like digestive organs are almost never fossilized?!?! I'm racking my brains and I can't think of a single modern reptile that can handle the same diet. Do we have anything to compare with to get some idea of what form the internal organs of herbivore dinosaurs might take? God! I've got to be missing something... What modern reptile eats grass?
grandparent was making a joke. lighten up. I think our dino friends must have also prayed to the FSM. I'll bet dinos also made pasta and they taste great with cretaceous ingredients. Yummm....
After all these years of mindless sophistry, an authoritative voice of reason from the religious community has finally stepped up to the plate. Why did it take this long for the stewards of Christianity to recognize the need to police their own? I realize there are countless sects and denominations out there, but surely any one of them would have realized that any one act of stupidity reflects badly on all of them? I am not a religious man myself, but if it *were* up to me, I'd take the first step as a church leader to publicly and emphatically declare that this is *not* the "true" nature of Christianity.
If this is a serious statement from the Vatican, a policy they have the conviction to uphold, then they deserve a lot of kudos for having the wisdom to know and respect the difference between science and religion. I am optimistic that continued development in this direction will be influential and truly productive for everyone as effort is redirected from the religious community from fighting a hopeless defensive war against modernity to helping all those people on earth who are desperately in need of relief from suffering.
Now, is there any hope that the same thing can happen on the political front? What brave soul is willing to attempt a separation of politics from religion in the Islamic community? Is it too much to hope that the leaders of Islam will make a descent effort to repudiate the rampant militarism that has corrupted this religion? We all have to remember that it doesn't have to be like this. In the hayday of Islamic expansion, Islam was extremely tolerant of local customs and cultures among those who were converted. They were the preservers of knowledge in science, math, and philosophy when Europe was plunged into the dark ages. I don't think it is too much to ask for the Muslim community to rediscover this admirable part of their own heritage.
I hate to flip the question at hand on its head, but a friend of mine got himself into a potential landmine of a problem last week when he possibly *LOST* his SS ID card at the subway station. (We're all still praying for him to find it elsewhere, but the chances of that are pretty grim. Guess that'll teach him to start using a wallet like us normal people. But a better lesson would probably be to just not carry the damn thing around - how hard is it to memorize 9 digits anyway?) He said he didn't think a person's SSN could be changed. Any advice on what he should do or be prepared to deal with?
You forget we also has this new thing called "dark energy" we can also blame now for that which we don't yet understand. Seriously, though, no one is fooling themselves that it really *is* dark matter for certain. The article itself refers to the idea only as just a "intriguing hypothesis". It's hard to apply constraints and rule out options when so little is known.
"Swift detected the burst and relayed its coordinates within minutes to scientists around the world. Reichart's team discovered the afterglow using the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope atop Cerro Pachon, Chile."
There just happened by chance to be a deep space optical telescope available for chasing after this event? I've always thought one needed to book time at observatories due to the high ratio of astronomers to available telescopes. How is it they can just take over an expensive instrument like this? What happens to anyone unfortunate enough to have reserved an observation run during this event?
I wanna know what the two'll be eating during their mission.
Do you think spin-off technology would bring us instant-dehydrated-dimsum, maybe?
or perhaps space-roast...
*duck*
Slashdot Mirror
So to keep the programmers and computer folks happy, we should set the bar higher for the quality of discussion on those topics and everything else ought to be chump change? Thankfully, "news for nerds, stuff that matters" means something more cosmopolitan to the general crop of slashdot editors. I'm not always pleased with some submissions which don't hold my interest, but I'm grateful that the broad lattitude displayed by Taco and the gang gives me a chance to broaden my horizons. In a large community like slashdot, I think it is rather arrogant to expect every experience to be tailored to any individual's fancy. Also, you're really missing my point by claiming interest rather than expertise in broad areas I mentioned. If you will recall, the context of this discussion is some clueless guy curious about very basic issues. Would you feel the same way if the guy in question was asking about protein synthesis or DNA sequencing? How much bio-technology training have you had? A RTFM wouldn't be out of order, as such topics are easily found in any modern textbook of general biology. But biotechnology is a dynamic field with widely deployed and very influential technologies that are not well understood by a general public which uses them. Does that mean the general public is better served by not being curious or asking questions? And if one is interested, you would expect one to matriculate at the local community college and take a few semsters to cover the materials one didn't get in high school biology? Ultimately, I think the important thing is to foster an environment where not only access, but interest in casual knowledge is encouraged. And you're not going to get that if newbie inquiries are always snubbed.
So I'm curious - when you bothered these people, did you have a project you were working on, or did you just to it for your own personal edification? My feeling is that if you're doing it just for fun then you should go pay for your information. I value other people's time because I value my own, so if I feel like I'll eventually be able to use that information to contribute something back then I don't mind asking someone for their time.
I never got the impression that I was bothering anyone. Most of my mentors through the years have been very enthusiastic about sharing things they are themselves very excited about. To be fair, I've encountered a few who feel the same way you do. Those tend to be very serious about their work and treat their professional expertise primarily as a critical source of livelihood rather than a cherished career. To bring the discussion back to the subject at hand, is anyone paying you to take time and effort to participate on slashdot? What compels you to reply to these posts besides your own free will? Why do you feel obligated to police the level of discussion here? I still don't understand why it is so hard to just ignore the stuff that doesn't interest you.
Well, I'd disagree. There are lots of times when you just need more information no matter how smart you are. For what it's worth, when I find a jewel in a post then I'll send the author a comment thanking them for their efforts. It's often just a single piece of missing information that can make or break a project.
Now imagine if instead of helpful comments, some wise guru replied to you with the sentiment that you simply haven't done *enough* brain-racking and you're wasting their time with your pleas for help. (Hmm, I wonder who would be so rude?!) It's not so comfy when *you're* the one needing "just a single piece of missing information that can make or break a project", is it? :-)
So are you saying that any an
....Don't have a cow, man!
*chuckle* Oh, dear...... If you're going to start out by comparing the general community of /.ers to a convention of heart surgeons, I'm afraid you've just lost a lot credibility as a /.er yourself. Slashdot is hardly as exclusive or serious a place as a professional convention. Gawkers and clueless spectators abound. Even some of the most ernest questions/comments posted to a story on, say modern physics or cosmology, makes me cringe at the sheer absurdity of some posters. But, one replies to these stories of ones own free will. Slashdot serves a truly diverse group. To expect this place to remain the playground of elite coders is rather myopic and narrowminded. We are astronomers, geneticist, sci-fi geeks, and just general knowledge lovers. Let's just accept the fact that some of us will end up looking stupid and ignorant at least once but likely often. And when that comes to pass, it isn't rude or ill-mannered to ask for some help or advice.
I think that you'd have to agree that the OP really didn't seem to have any real focusI would agree with you here. But in his defense, how can you have a focus when you're just starting out? My educational background is electrical engineering. When I was a freshman straight out of high school, it made little sense to worry about specializing in analog or digital when I didn't even know what a transistor did.
so any comments submitted are going to be in the context of the person posting the comment rather than in the context of the person seeking the information.I see nothing wrong with that. Learning by extraction out of context is a great way to learn about more than strictly the answer to a stated question. In my experience, answering the simple fundamental questions (and answering them well) is the true hallmark of really understanding a subject. So even if you get a bad question, you should award yourself brownie points if you still manage to be informative and helpful with an (good) answer.
It's surprising that given your history that you'd defend laziness. You remember just how hard it was to get information on anything back in those days.....Which was why I asked a lot of questions of a lot of people with a lot of experience. Generally, those who bothered to help me were rewarded with my willingness to use my accumulating knowledge to help them when necessary. No money was involved, it was just good manners that helped to build a sense of community.
Let me give you one more thing to ponder. Even though I've done very little telephony, I'm now working on building out a fairly sophisicated Asterisk server. If you've ever worked with this technology then you'll know that it's less than well documented, but that doesn't mean that I'm not responsible for doing research before asking questions. If I were to put a post on Ask Slashdot saying "I want to build an Asterisk server that connects to a database - tell me how" then the community would be right in flaming me. If I was to submit a question like "is there a better way to interact with a database than the system command?" then I would expect to get some really good answers.
I guess you and I have a genuine difference of opinion. Your efforts and achievement in building your Asterisk server is admirable. But I would be more than happy to help you if I had more expertise in this area than you did. In my opinion, if you're expereinced enough to ask sophisticated questions, you ought to be smart/resourceful enough to figure it out yourself. But if you're just starting out, you often don't even know what the right *questions* are let alone the right answers. I tend to think those are the ones who need the most help.
toddbu:
/.ers would consider appropriate. If they are willing and brave enough to ask, they deserve any help they can get.
Please understand I'm not trying to flame you in particular. This is a general reply to all those who feel the question posed by the original submitter was ill-concieved. I think it *is* obvious that by the way the question was framed, this guy doesn't know much about what he is asking. But most people don't seem to realize how amazingly hard it is to get to the point where that isn't true anymore. I first started writing BASIC routines for APPLE ][e in the mid 80's as an 8 year old. A few years ago, I begin doing embedded programming for the AVR microcontroller. Regardless, I *still* get intimidated walking around the computer/technology isles at Border's bookstore.
Put yourself in this guy's shoes for a minute. So you have questions and you gonna do research: Where the friggin hell do you actually begin? Considering the way the question is stated, I'd be suprised if the guy's written anything with more than a few hundred lines of code. With that kind of background, how do you evaluate rows and rows of shelves with titles such as "The PERL COOKBOOK", "LEARN PHP IN 24 HOURS", "EXTREME PROGRAMMING EXPLAINED"? What the hell do these names mean to someone who has barely any concept of a library? Most of covers are just pretty words with useless information intended to get you to buy the book. It doesn't get any simpler on the web. Sure you have massive amounts of information you can google, but how does any one individual digest all that information when one doesn't know enough to sort out the relevent websites from those that are way over one's head?
When I first started out years ago, it was really bewildering making sense out of the sea of resources. It was only through years of interaction with others of greater experience that I learned about good books and good websites by reputation. This guy asmor is doing the same - simply asking the folks here what's out there, not imploring any of us to write his programs for him.
You suggest he go to college to seriously study up on this. Certainly that would be an ideal way to learn computer programming in a structured fashion. But that is easier said then done for someone who may be just a casual programmer coding for fun in his spare time. It all boils down to the notion that some folks who are very capable may not be able to devote the amount of time and resouces many
In 2015, the probe will awaken the giant mysterious creatures known as Angels. Earth will be attacked and our only chance will rest in the fighting ability of towering mechas which runs on Linux called Penguingelion operated by young obnoxious geeks who've been raised on slashdot after the devestation of the dot-com bubble. Naturally, all the action will occur somewhere in the US or at least the western hemisphere. (Tokyo? pft! Lord knows how jealous Hollywood can get.) Linus Torvald, the brilliant father of GNU/Linux operating system, is the sensitive, emotionally dependent ex-lover of ********, who heads up SCO, the only truly effective organized defense effort of Earth against the Angels. As we join the story in progress, A frantic effort is underway to recompile the latest kernel and boot up the Penguingelions in a race to beat the imminent arival of the latest Angel......
A thought just occured to me. They say nothing can escape from a black hole due to it's huge gravity. Not even light. We know photons are the carriers of the electromagnetic force, one of the 4 fundamental forces in nature. I believe we have identified the carriers of the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force as well. But the suposed graviton has remained elusive and unidentified. By their very nature, though, shouldn't we be able to conclude that in order for black holes to generate such intense gravitational fields, they must allow their own gravitons to interact with nearby objects? In other words, the carriers for the force of gravity must be allowed to escape the black hole in order to exert that very force. Wait a minute....I can't be saying that right. Let's try again, suppose communication through an event horizon is possible - with gravity waves.
?????
Profit?
For the longest time, I've had a private gripe that I just can't seem to shake off. Many years ago, I took a chemistry class at Cornell during the summer that gave me my first taste of the collegiate experience. Some of the things I've learned I could do without (for example: Cornell has the hightest suicide rate among ivy leagues? I still think I was being toyed with). But one of the most enduring experiences that has stayed with me were some of the lab stuff we did when we got to the organic chemistry part of the class. It was pretty mind-blowing for me (just a high schooler back then) to open up a little vial of liquid or wet gauze and have the sweet pungent smell of fresh fruit waif out at me. Similarly, I was amazed that some of the most evil smell produced by bacteria and mold could be so definitively identified as well.
Even since, I've been mystified by the fact that our society has standard color charts for use by artists and precise tuning standards of notes and scales for use by musicians, but there seem to be no standard or measurement criteria for smells or odors. None that are taught in school anyhow. Yet, in everyday literature, we often enough come across descriptions of smells and odors which the authors seem to take for granted without concern for whether the readers know what they are talking about.
And so I ask my fellow slasdoters, how does one concisely characterize the experience of say, the multitude of different ways milk can spoil; the various acridness of old unwashed gym cloths; the powerful fetidness of well-used, unwashed trash containers? and be absolutely certain that one is getting one's point across? Is there a practical dictionary or directory for such things?
Thanks.
/.er might point out a reliable reference that would include a more comprehensive list of ALL US targets which reveals the tactical or strategic importance of each particular one. Great-grandparent suggested Silicon Valley, which I thought a bit odd. I know there are millitary installations in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, but I'd imagine the technology/industrial center Silicon Valley is known for wouldn't be much of an immediate threat to a nuclear adversary. Wouldn't a higher priority industrial target be the nearby Lauwrence Livermore National Laboratory, or maybe Los Alamos? In any case, I can't understand how any of these facilities may produce a product that can deploy immediately against a nuclear adversary in the time frame relevant to a nuclear exchange. Is it a possible targets? I strongly agree, but hardly a top priority. Similarly, I'm curious about the importance of New York City, as cited in the Huntsville article at Wikipedia. NYC is well known as a cultural icon and financial center (significance not lost on al-Qa'ida), but why should it be a priority during a nuclear exchange. Maybe a nuclear target for psychological effect? I could venture a guess that NYC might be critical as a command/control/communications hub, but then I'd be talking out of my ass about things I know nothing about. Just curious and wondering if anyone more knowledgeble about US national defense infrastructure could set me straight.
Don't know how much credibility Wikipedia has nowadays though. The source cited is rather dissapointing since the casual mention of the area being flagged as a "red star" doesn't leave much to follow up on. I was rather hoping an enlightened
short list...care to cite your source?
... we're #4 on the hit list if nuclear war ever breaks out...
#4 on who's hit list? The rooskies or the chinese? God, I can't believe such a "list" would be public knowledge and bandied about so casually. I don't suppose you can tell us you're #4 out of how many and who the other three are? ^_^
got it working! thanks a lot!
VLC is my favorite player as well. I use it almost exclusively - with one exception: subtitles. Many of the media I've gradually aquired come with *.srt subtitle files. So far, the only tool I've found that will process these is the DirectVobSub plugin. Unfortunately VLC can't use these (last I checked) as it requires directshow (?directx? my sources are a bit confusing). I wonder if some more resourceful souls out there can show me how to use *.srt subtitles with VLC (if at all).
I'm probably not the only one on slashdot who tends to accumulate old hardware. As I think many of the collectors here might sympathize, often the pieces are obscure/generic brands for which not much information is available. In fact, even some of the brand names often no longer have any documentation. Locating drivers has become an easier task, but performance features and such are still hard to find. I have an old 486 class motherboard which I found out (only from talking to older folks) was very well regarded by those who used it. But it was very hard work trying to find anything to coroborate those casual conversations on the web. Charts and tables like the ones compiled by THG can give a good idea about which pieces should be paired up for an appropriate system that avoids unnecessary bottlenecks. I really wish this kind of information exists for soundcards, video cards, and modems in the form of a giant database of hardware products from the past as well as the present.
Yeah, telephone abuse is a real problem over here in the land of convicts.
.
Ha! Quit the contrary, it seems maybe the telephone (industry) is doing the abusing
When I was a boy I had a "Blue tounge" lizard that ate egg & lettuce sandwiches, does that count? Cows and Caterpillers both eat grass, I doubt there digestive organs are the same or even similar.
hmm.... Egg and lettuce sandwiches are hardly found in nature as a normal food source. I don't really know if you can consider cows and caterpillars as fulfilling similar ecological roles. They don't eat grass the same way (I'll explain this later) Secondly, the two are most certainly not at the same position on the food chain. Whoever wrote the article was excited for legitimate reasons. The fact that grass existed earlier than we thought drastically changes our understanding of the ecological landscape when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But actually I'm excited for the same reason. You have a large animal that eats grass, like modern rhumanid mammals. Thing is, we know a lot about modern rhumanid mammals: from their predator/prey relationships with other species, to their growth and development, to the influence of percipitation and other seasonal factors on their survival. If herbivore dinosaurs did the same thing *in the same (or similar) way* that tells us a lot about the early Earth. When you start thinking about these parallels, all sorts of interesting questions arise. If their digestive systems worked similarly, did sauropods belch methane like modern cows? Would there have been enough of that to play a significant part in a potential greenhouse situation? The existance of grass so much earlier than we thought IS astonishing. I'm just wondering about the consequences of that fact from a particular perspective.
Nah, me and Rus just like to pick fights...
Well, I have to say you fight like a gentleman. (^_^) I half expect you to be just a troll simply looking to flame someone. You do yourself credit for conducting yourself with a measure of civility in this discussion. I respect a person who responds to missunderstanding with reasonable discourse.
Hold on there fella, don't go picking a fight where none was offered. I don't believe there is yet a consensus that dinosaurs are *NOT* reptiles. Some have speculated they share certain features with birds, but that doesn't mean they *ARE* all birds. Secondly, if grass was found in dino turd, doesn't it stand to reason their digestive system are adapted to handle the material? I merely meant it kind of neat to know such things despite not having any direct evidence for what the internal organs might be like. Now, if certain dinosaurs ate grass in the past, it is concievable that there just *might* be modern reptiles with the same digestive ability to process grass. Thatt is why I wondered if we have anything to compare with to get an idea of what the digestive system of herbivore dinosaur might be like. It should be interesting to compare those biological systems with mammal grazers who dominate this ecological niche today but grew into this role independently. So be a good boy and help develope this discussion constructively by at least *trying* to find a modern grass eating reptile before you declare everyone you don't like to be an illiterate idiot.
Not knowing who you are, your other posts on slashdot seems reasonably intelligent. But you have *GOT* to drop the attitude that there is only one insight to be gained and your's is better than anyone elses. Are all aussies so arrogant and volatile? It's people like you and Russell Crowe that give the land down under a bad name.
Wow! Who would've thought such information would be discernable when soft tissue like digestive organs are almost never fossilized?!?! I'm racking my brains and I can't think of a single modern reptile that can handle the same diet. Do we have anything to compare with to get some idea of what form the internal organs of herbivore dinosaurs might take? God! I've got to be missing something... What modern reptile eats grass?
grandparent was making a joke. lighten up.
I think our dino friends must have also prayed to the FSM. I'll bet dinos also made pasta and they taste great with cretaceous ingredients.
Yummm....
jeez... some folks just have no sense of humor.
I see apes like that all the time here on campus. But we don't have a fancy name for them - here they're called, "offensive linemen."
What could possibly be so offensive about these gentle bamboo-eating herbivore giants?
After all these years of mindless sophistry, an authoritative voice of reason from the religious community has finally stepped up to the plate. Why did it take this long for the stewards of Christianity to recognize the need to police their own? I realize there are countless sects and denominations out there, but surely any one of them would have realized that any one act of stupidity reflects badly on all of them? I am not a religious man myself, but if it *were* up to me, I'd take the first step as a church leader to publicly and emphatically declare that this is *not* the "true" nature of Christianity.
If this is a serious statement from the Vatican, a policy they have the conviction to uphold, then they deserve a lot of kudos for having the wisdom to know and respect the difference between science and religion. I am optimistic that continued development in this direction will be influential and truly productive for everyone as effort is redirected from the religious community from fighting a hopeless defensive war against modernity to helping all those people on earth who are desperately in need of relief from suffering.
Now, is there any hope that the same thing can happen on the political front? What brave soul is willing to attempt a separation of politics from religion in the Islamic community? Is it too much to hope that the leaders of Islam will make a descent effort to repudiate the rampant militarism that has corrupted this religion? We all have to remember that it doesn't have to be like this. In the hayday of Islamic expansion, Islam was extremely tolerant of local customs and cultures among those who were converted. They were the preservers of knowledge in science, math, and philosophy when Europe was plunged into the dark ages. I don't think it is too much to ask for the Muslim community to rediscover this admirable part of their own heritage.
dude, That was sarcasm leaving a message on your answering machine.
I hate to flip the question at hand on its head, but a friend of mine got himself into a potential landmine of a problem last week when he possibly *LOST* his SS ID card at the subway station. (We're all still praying for him to find it elsewhere, but the chances of that are pretty grim. Guess that'll teach him to start using a wallet like us normal people. But a better lesson would probably be to just not carry the damn thing around - how hard is it to memorize 9 digits anyway?) He said he didn't think a person's SSN could be changed. Any advice on what he should do or be prepared to deal with?
You forget we also has this new thing called "dark energy" we can also blame now for that which we don't yet understand. Seriously, though, no one is fooling themselves that it really *is* dark matter for certain. The article itself refers to the idea only as just a "intriguing hypothesis". It's hard to apply constraints and rule out options when so little is known.
from the article:
"Swift detected the burst and relayed its coordinates within minutes to scientists around the world. Reichart's team discovered the afterglow using the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope atop Cerro Pachon, Chile."
There just happened by chance to be a deep space optical telescope available for chasing after this event? I've always thought one needed to book time at observatories due to the high ratio of astronomers to available telescopes. How is it they can just take over an expensive instrument like this? What happens to anyone unfortunate enough to have reserved an observation run during this event?
I wanna know what the two'll be eating during their mission. Do you think spin-off technology would bring us instant-dehydrated-dimsum, maybe? or perhaps space-roast... *duck*