The USA is awfully good at many things, but sometimes I think it's too good. As research into disruptive marketing improves, the big companies learn more and more about maintaining their control.
David Korten, in his book "When Corporations Rule the World" has pointed out that big corporations have made the feedback loop between innovation and corporate-control extremely small. In the old days, kids could get into a new style of music and it would be a genuine rebellion against the system. But MTV and all the big corporations can now take this subculture and re-market it to the population within months, and this time will shorten as time goes on. There is no chance for a genuine counter-culture anymore.
What's the underlying problem with a "formula for innovation"?
It's that the culture itself gets stuck inside of a Local Maxima. It takes genuine innovation - revolution, if you will - to prevent cultural stagnation.
I've lived in the USA for two years now, and I fear for this country's culture. This is why.
Well said, I'm quoting you in full in case your post stays at zero. Opposition to society seems to have become a building block of our society. Chances to vocally criticize our society get sucked up into a harmless image of "rebellion". Think of what has happened to the meaning of the word "radical" in pop culture - it seems to have become an out of date slang superlative.
A mentor of mine, Herbert Br:un used to tell a story of a man who sat in a cafe and drummed a rhythem on the table, while another, who understood morse code, argued with the staments he thought the finger tapper was making. Br:un called this phenomenon, when "I listen to what you say, but hear what I mean", drummage. The criticism of the culture we live in becomes heard through drummage as a support of our culture's false rebellions.
The one nit I will pick with you is your statement that there is no possibility for a genuine counter-culture anymore. A counter-culture is possible iff (if and only if) it is radicly (at its root) incompatible with "over-the-counter-culture", if it can in no way be bought or sold, but can still gain mindshare.
To make it simpler and more convenient for students to do what they already are trying to do, a publisher could create an online facility called Cramming.com. Like all disruptive technologies, it would take root in a low-end market: the least conscientious students. Semester after semester, Cramming.com would then improve as a new ?cramming-aid? growth business, without affecting textbook sales. Conscientious students would continue to purchase textbooks. At some point, however, learning the material online would be so much easier and less expensive that, tier by tier, students would stop buying texts. This path of innovation has a much higher chance of success than a direct assault that pits digital texts against conventional textbooks.
Too many people may have missed that joke! Thanks Mr. Coward sir!:)
If you chose technology that way, you'd be running Windows. When you choose technology, you have to ignore what other people are doing, and consider only what will work the best.
this argument seems calculated to convert slashdotters to lisp programming, but it's logic means that in the slashdot subculture, it would have to %s/Windows/Linux/g. A conundrum.
I keep working on learning lisp myself, it's pretty deep stuff, gives me brain cramps trying to understand it. I wish it were a little smaller and a little faster, too. Maybe I just need to upgrade my 486 with 64 megs of RAM...
My point is that it does not matter how many forests you replant, these forests will take 30 years to develope to the state in which they are now. We need to reduce CO2 emissions.
I agree with your intent with this statement, but many forests (the Pacific NorthWestern Rainforests for example) will take hundreds, even thousands of years to reach their previous state.
Is it at all possible to simply enjoy a movie without over analyzing it like you're some sort of Harvard educated sociologist?
Hey, thanks, I barely graduated highschool, not to mention attending college (I shit you not), so I take that as a compliment. If I want to enjoy something without thinking, I have sex, or get drunk, or break things. Or all three. The point I was trying to make was that The Matrix attempts to be something intellectual (there is a Jean Baudrillard book about the nonexistance of reality or the ascendance of hyperreality or something on Keanu Reaves' bookshelf if you look closely, among other pretentious intellectual in references), while being without any real content. I am capable of watching a movie as entertainment, but it is hard when I am teased by pseudo-meaningful bullshit.
Ok, now this is real off topic, but I must say, a real sig, when preceded by the hyphens, as you display yours, must have a space after the hyphens. Really. You can probably find that on google too.
I had never considered the possibility that I may have a disabled signiture, perhaps I can apply for Social Security money. My signiture is an statement about the fragility of human identity, and the way we use the objects we posess, or the hat we wear to attempt to reinforce this fragile sham. Or, perhaps, it is funny cause I saw it on tv. I wonder if I should have my sig shot and sent to the dog food factory.
I have the right to retaliate to an attack to my sig. Do not make me get out my anvil, youngster.
From the article: Then there are the thunder rods. Tossed down from orbit, these long and slender kinetic-energy devices use their own mass and very high velocity to create a destructive effect.
Lastly, for those looking for a celestial "big whopper" of a weapon, how about using natural meteoroids? Good-sized fireballs of metal could be sent to Earth, aimed at targets of choice. These impactors leave a nice crater.
so the only really reasonable weapons are basicly fancy hi tech names for dropping an anvil on the other guys head like they do in Looney Toons. Finally, my sig is appropriate;)
What I am afraid of is that there may be little strategic benifit to space weapons, or that alternatively, once the US has them, either everone will try to get some, or they will be used as a strategic threat for the USification of the world.
I've come to think that Star Wars---all of them---and The Matrix are pretty similar: they're all big flashy movies that make the viewer feel like there's some deep meaning in them when they don't.
You said it. It is actually kind of funny, the Matrix takes many ideas from Jean Baudrillard's pseudophilosophy, and creating the illusion of depth is both one of the greatest themes and one of the greatest accomplishments of Baudrillard's works. Baudrillard is probably the most succesfull troll of the world of critical theory.
It's an attempt to squeeze money out of stupid moviegoers who think that contemplating their existence as merely a figment of someone else's contemplation is deep.
Right on man, that is not funny, it is the truth. The people who treat the Matrix as Philosophy treat Madonna as Philosophy. Hell, Frank Zappa or South Park are deeper than that shit, and I can't stand that tight leather sexy cool pseudo sm but without offending the frat boys image shit. Sexyness is not challenging or daring, it is commercial and good business. And, oh yeah, to wrap up the rant, inspiring thought or introducing challanging ideas is not good for commerce in the world of entertainment.
Err, CmdrTaco mentioned on GIS ages ago that the majority of hits come from IE.
I am sorry, it is all my fault, back when I used closed source software on linux, including Opera, I spent all day reloading the frontpage, giving IE as my spoofed browser id cause I had no life. Now I just use mozilla. Sorry for throwing the statistics all out of whack;)
Even if what you're saying is true, which absolutely is not, who will write the fault tolerant interpreter for you?
It is easier to make one fault tolerant and reliable interpreter (or compiler for a language in which you can have provably bug free code, ie. Haskell or well written compiled lisp.*) than thousands of bug free applications in a buggy or sloppy language. Don't get me wrong, if speed helps me more than a gaurantee of a lack of moronic bugs, I code in C myself.
* interpretation is not mandated in the language spec, as far as I know - it is just that many lisp functions have to do with interpreting lisp code on a meta level (as that they can be true functions in a mathematical sense, more readily than in most languages) - so a staticly compiled (needing only gauranteed OS APIs to run) lisp program is often a standalone lisp interpreter as well.
Weapons the gov't funds the development of are not open. And I don't want them to be. I don't want the software that runs a weapon to be open either. You can't go buy a missile, and you can't go download the code that runs in a missile, and I like it that way.
I mean no offense, but my first response to this post was that you must have been trolling. But I realize that disagreement does not a troll make. You could argue that it would be bad to put free code on the market and hurt businesses, that is plausable, (though see my sarcastic response to this assertion in my previous post above). Yet more plausably you could argue that a government agency can charge or fail to charge for software it comissions or develops as it sees fit, though I still would have some qualms with that argument, given that the government is not a business and does not exist for the sole purpose of making money for the government. Sorry to be so long winded, it is hard enough watching my spellimg with grameer;).
Maybe, by your logic, it would be best for the economy if the Army Corps of Engineers devoted itself to creating man made earthquakes, creating much wealth through the stimulation of the construction industry. Duplicate or otherwise unneccisary work (including artificialy neccisary work) is not good for the economy, only the GNP.
1) Solaris' next release will not be available for x86, as the article said
2) If the threading on Linux is the only API differece from Solaris, than IE for Solaris might just become portable to Linux boxen, but WINE may be your best bet in this case.
Strangers aren't who you should be worrying about the most, it is uncles, parents, or trusted adults who most often fuck kids. Attacks by strangers are of an insinificant number compared to those.
It is a shame you posted this AC, it is quite sesible, and deserves to be at a higher threshold than 0. When I was 15, there were major anti first ammendmant, anti gay laws almost passed in the town I lived in (Portlad OR). I had resolved to distribute naked pictures of myself on the street if they passed. I feel that I was mature enough to make that decision at that age.
Oh, ignore my other comment on your sig. Look into the writings of Mark Twain (his later "misanthropic" period) for some good exposition of this moral stance you present (or see the bawdlerized version in the Philip Jose Farmer River World series, from the "Samuel Clemens" character). A passage from the Evenson book I thought was being quoted:
"He did not believe that the brain was, as the Traditional view held, a soft, gray folded organ. Rather, it was a series of black and white cords stretched tightly from one side of the skull to the other, held in place by delicate hooks of bone"
from your sig: --- When I found out I was nothing more than a bunch of vibrating strings, I realized 'morality' no longer had meaning. Brian Evenson is the shit. The Din of Celestial Birds wasn't quite as good as Altman's Tongue though. That is where your sig is from, right?
all the mod points are being wasted modding down the ACs' death threats, none left for modding up. I always read at -1 and the signal/noise on any bsd story is disgustingly low. And it's mostly cut and paste, trolls, not the creative ones either.
Slashdot Mirror
The USA is awfully good at many things, but sometimes I think it's too good. As research into disruptive marketing improves, the big companies learn more and more about maintaining their control.
David Korten, in his book "When Corporations Rule the World" has pointed out that big corporations have made the feedback loop between innovation and corporate-control extremely small. In the old days, kids could get into a new style of music and it would be a genuine rebellion against the system. But MTV and all the big corporations can now take this subculture and re-market it to the population within months, and this time will shorten as time goes on. There is no chance for a genuine counter-culture anymore.
What's the underlying problem with a "formula for innovation"?
It's that the culture itself gets stuck inside of a Local Maxima. It takes genuine innovation - revolution, if you will - to prevent cultural stagnation.
I've lived in the USA for two years now, and I fear for this country's culture. This is why.
Well said, I'm quoting you in full in case your post stays at zero. Opposition to society seems to have become a building block of our society. Chances to vocally criticize our society get sucked up into a harmless image of "rebellion". Think of what has happened to the meaning of the word "radical" in pop culture - it seems to have become an out of date slang superlative.
A mentor of mine, Herbert Br:un used to tell a story of a man who sat in a cafe and drummed a rhythem on the table, while another, who understood morse code, argued with the staments he thought the finger tapper was making. Br:un called this phenomenon, when "I listen to what you say, but hear what I mean", drummage. The criticism of the culture we live in becomes heard through drummage as a support of our culture's false rebellions.
The one nit I will pick with you is your statement that there is no possibility for a genuine counter-culture anymore. A counter-culture is possible iff (if and only if) it is radicly (at its root) incompatible with "over-the-counter-culture", if it can in no way be bought or sold, but can still gain mindshare.
This [cramming.com] is innovation?
The article said:
To make it simpler and more convenient for students to do what they already are trying to do, a publisher could create an online facility called Cramming.com. Like all disruptive technologies, it would take root in a low-end market: the least conscientious students. Semester after semester, Cramming.com would then improve as a new ?cramming-aid? growth business, without affecting textbook sales. Conscientious students would continue to purchase textbooks. At some point, however, learning the material online would be so much easier and less expensive that, tier by tier, students would stop buying texts. This path of innovation has a much higher chance of success than a direct assault that pits digital texts against conventional textbooks.
Too many people may have missed that joke! Thanks Mr. Coward sir! :)
If you chose technology that way, you'd be running Windows. When you choose technology, you have to ignore what other people are doing, and consider only what will work the best.
this argument seems calculated to convert slashdotters to lisp programming, but it's logic means that in the slashdot subculture, it would have to %s/Windows/Linux/g. A conundrum.
I keep working on learning lisp myself, it's pretty deep stuff, gives me brain cramps trying to understand it. I wish it were a little smaller and a little faster, too. Maybe I just need to upgrade my 486 with 64 megs of RAM...
My point is that it does not matter how many forests you replant, these forests will take 30 years to develope to the state in which they are now. We need to reduce CO2 emissions.
I agree with your intent with this statement, but many forests (the Pacific NorthWestern Rainforests for example) will take hundreds, even thousands of years to reach their previous state.
Is it at all possible to simply enjoy a movie without over analyzing it like you're some sort of Harvard educated sociologist?
Hey, thanks, I barely graduated highschool, not to mention attending college (I shit you not), so I take that as a compliment. If I want to enjoy something without thinking, I have sex, or get drunk, or break things. Or all three. The point I was trying to make was that The Matrix attempts to be something intellectual (there is a Jean Baudrillard book about the nonexistance of reality or the ascendance of hyperreality or something on Keanu Reaves' bookshelf if you look closely, among other pretentious intellectual in references), while being without any real content. I am capable of watching a movie as entertainment, but it is hard when I am teased by pseudo-meaningful bullshit.
--
This is a real sig.
Ok, now this is real off topic, but I must say, a real sig, when preceded by the hyphens, as you display yours, must have a space after the hyphens. Really. You can probably find that on google too.
s/an/a/
s/hat/hats/
Your sig is lame. wtf does it mean?
I had never considered the possibility that I may have a disabled signiture, perhaps I can apply for Social Security money. My signiture is an statement about the fragility of human identity, and the way we use the objects we posess, or the hat we wear to attempt to reinforce this fragile sham. Or, perhaps, it is funny cause I saw it on tv. I wonder if I should have my sig shot and sent to the dog food factory.
I have the right to retaliate to an attack to my sig. Do not make me get out my anvil, youngster.
thx
From the article:
;)
Then there are the thunder rods. Tossed down from orbit, these long and slender kinetic-energy devices use their own mass and very high velocity to create a destructive effect.
Lastly, for those looking for a celestial "big whopper" of a weapon, how about using natural meteoroids? Good-sized fireballs of metal could be sent to Earth, aimed at targets of choice. These impactors leave a nice crater.
so the only really reasonable weapons are basicly fancy hi tech names for dropping an anvil on the other guys head like they do in Looney Toons. Finally, my sig is appropriate
What I am afraid of is that there may be little strategic benifit to space weapons, or that alternatively, once the US has them, either everone will try to get some, or they will be used as a strategic threat for the USification of the world.
Spell "lousy" correctly, please.
It is entirely possible the borg gave him a lice infested t-shirt.
I've come to think that Star Wars---all of them---and The Matrix are pretty similar: they're all big flashy movies that make the viewer feel like there's some deep meaning in them when they don't.
You said it. It is actually kind of funny, the Matrix takes many ideas from Jean Baudrillard's pseudophilosophy, and creating the illusion of depth is both one of the greatest themes and one of the greatest accomplishments of Baudrillard's works. Baudrillard is probably the most succesfull troll of the world of critical theory.
It's an attempt to squeeze money out of stupid moviegoers who think that contemplating their existence as merely a figment of someone else's contemplation is deep.
Right on man, that is not funny, it is the truth. The people who treat the Matrix as Philosophy treat Madonna as Philosophy. Hell, Frank Zappa or South Park are deeper than that shit, and I can't stand that tight leather sexy cool pseudo sm but without offending the frat boys image shit. Sexyness is not challenging or daring, it is commercial and good business. And, oh yeah, to wrap up the rant, inspiring thought or introducing challanging ideas is not good for commerce in the world of entertainment.
Err, CmdrTaco mentioned on GIS ages ago that the majority of hits come from IE.
;)
I am sorry, it is all my fault, back when I used closed source software on linux, including Opera, I spent all day reloading the frontpage, giving IE as my spoofed browser id cause I had no life. Now I just use mozilla. Sorry for throwing the statistics all out of whack
Even if what you're saying is true, which absolutely is not, who will write the fault tolerant interpreter for you?
It is easier to make one fault tolerant and reliable interpreter (or compiler for a language in which you can have provably bug free code, ie. Haskell or well written compiled lisp.*) than thousands of bug free applications in a buggy or sloppy language. Don't get me wrong, if speed helps me more than a gaurantee of a lack of moronic bugs, I code in C myself.
* interpretation is not mandated in the language spec, as far as I know - it is just that many lisp functions have to do with interpreting lisp code on a meta level (as that they can be true functions in a mathematical sense, more readily than in most languages) - so a staticly compiled (needing only gauranteed OS APIs to run) lisp program is often a standalone lisp interpreter as well.
Weapons the gov't funds the development of are not open. And I don't want them to be. I don't want the software that runs a weapon to be open either. You can't go buy a missile, and you can't go download the code that runs in a missile, and I like it that way.
;).
I mean no offense, but my first response to this post was that you must have been trolling. But I realize that disagreement does not a troll make. You could argue that it would be bad to put free code on the market and hurt businesses, that is plausable, (though see my sarcastic response to this assertion in my previous post above). Yet more plausably you could argue that a government agency can charge or fail to charge for software it comissions or develops as it sees fit, though I still would have some qualms with that argument, given that the government is not a business and does not exist for the sole purpose of making money for the government. Sorry to be so long winded, it is hard enough watching my spellimg with grameer
Maybe, by your logic, it would be best for the economy if the Army Corps of Engineers devoted itself to creating man made earthquakes, creating much wealth through the stimulation of the construction industry. Duplicate or otherwise unneccisary work (including artificialy neccisary work) is not good for the economy, only the GNP.
Why are you so hostile? Is it that you see homosexual men as competition, Ms. Asspussy?
1) Solaris' next release will not be available for x86, as the article said
2) If the threading on Linux is the only API differece from Solaris, than IE for Solaris might just become portable to Linux boxen, but WINE may be your best bet in this case.
Strangers aren't who you should be worrying about the most, it is uncles, parents, or trusted adults who most often fuck kids. Attacks by strangers are of an insinificant number compared to those.
It is a shame you posted this AC, it is quite sesible, and deserves to be at a higher threshold than 0. When I was 15, there were major anti first ammendmant, anti gay laws almost passed in the town I lived in (Portlad OR). I had resolved to distribute naked pictures of myself on the street if they passed. I feel that I was mature enough to make that decision at that age.
Oh, ignore my other comment on your sig. Look into the writings of Mark Twain (his later "misanthropic" period) for some good exposition of this moral stance you present (or see the bawdlerized version in the Philip Jose Farmer River World series, from the "Samuel Clemens" character). A passage from the Evenson book I thought was being quoted:
"He did not believe that the brain was, as the Traditional view held, a soft, gray folded organ. Rather, it was a series of black and white cords stretched tightly from one side of the skull to the other, held in place by delicate hooks of bone"
from your sig:
--- When I found out I was nothing more than a bunch of vibrating strings, I realized 'morality' no longer had meaning.
Brian Evenson is the shit. The Din of Celestial Birds wasn't quite as good as Altman's Tongue though. That is where your sig is from, right?
all the mod points are being wasted modding down the ACs' death threats, none left for modding up. I always read at -1 and the signal/noise on any bsd story is disgustingly low. And it's mostly cut and paste, trolls, not the creative ones either.