The real irony here is that it is your own statement that is the hasty generalization. By your own admission, you didn't read the book.
I didn't read your whole post, as I was in a hurry (the taco truck will only wait so long). However, this seems like a classic example of the "hasty generalization" fallacy.
You do realize that the US is not the only 'good guy' in wars like WW2? In fact, the US only jumped into WW2 near the end.
Well, you could also say that the war wasn't near the end at all, until we jumped into it.
Without the US involvement, most of Europe would be speaking German right now. Including France, including the UK.
It was a choice to become involved. It came late, perhaps, but it was the right choice. Does anyone disagree?
(rant)
I suppose the thing that amuses me about this discussion is, so many (mostly western) Europeans think they understand the US because they see american films, or american tv, or watch fox news or something. The US is an incredibly diverse country. Those of us in northern california are really nothing like southern californians, much less someone from the east coast. There is no way in hell you've experienced a realistic crosssection of our society through the media pinhole you have available to you. And yet, making these broad, stereotypical generalizations of americans is perfectly socially acceptable. I swear to god, you see an Oliver Stone film or two and you think you know everything about this country.
Hell, you forgot that a lot of us weren't even born here. Or if we were, our parents weren't. You don't know me. You don't know my family, my friends. How is it that you think that you do?
(/rant)
Ah... ignorance. It lives everywhere: on both sides of every ocean, it seems.
You're not thinking about recycling fully. While getting a virgin or near-virgin material back is a good goal, many other factors must be considered. Such as: energy required to recycle back to near-virgin material, energy required to create virgin material (from the ground, other materials, however it is acquired), amount of virgin material (or constituents) available, etc.
This is slashdot. Virgin material is everywhere.
m-
Re:Skills you learn could save your real relations
on
Virtual Girlfriend
·
· Score: 1
Of course, it helps that she's Eastern European and doesn't grant importance to the Hallmark Holidays(tm). American women have bought into that bullshit wholesale, I'm done with them.
There are wonderful, non-selfish, totally cool women out there, who, despite all that, still do care about these things being remembered.
Your gf is the exception, not the rule.
Does it make sense? Does it matter if it makes sense? If it makes her happy, isn't that worth it? Not everything is logical, especially not matters of the heart. Whipped? How about just not being an asshole?
Not ALL American women are like that. It's just a stupid generalization. Besides, you only need to find one who isn't. My wife isn't (that's why she's my wife), though she does care about being remembered and not being taken for granted.
Sure, there has been sculpture too, but never in the sheer volume of traditional two dimensional art.
To start with, full disclosure, IIAS (i am a sculptor).
Uh, I call bullshit. The earliest examples of art we have are not cave paintings, but small carved figures. Lots of them. There is no way on god's green earth you can make a blanket-statement like "2D is more common than 3D". Show me an ethnographic study of the world's cultures (historical, too) that proves that paintings or drawings are more common than sculpture, and I'll eat my hat. (I have spent far too much of my life in art history and anthropology classes, so I feel confident that my hat will remain uneaten)
We live in a 3D world. 3D visualization is inherent in our genome.
2D visualization is not inherent: there have been studies of some isolated cultures with no 2D representative art, and if you're not introduced to the concept of a 2D image by a certain age, you just won't "get" it. Look at the representative art of the Australian aborigines, where every painting is in the style of an exploded anatomical view. Why? Because the damned dingo HAS 4 legs, damn it, so you have to show all of them. None of this side-view perspective crap.
To get back on topic:
The reason the tide of public opinion on this board prefers 2D games to 3D games is because that's what you all grew up with. It's what you cut your teeth on, and it's what you prefer. To sum up, if you honestly think the crappy games of our youth are better than today's games, YOU ARE AN OLD FOGY. I grew up at the same time, but I have no illusions as to how much most of those games sucked. Y'all have very selective memories and are the modern equivalent of those people in the 80s who refused to acknowledge that video games were better than pinball games.
Few people here are lawyers so few statements are going to be hole free. Most statements here and elsewhere in the world require a little common sense to interpret correctly.
You see, if you don't say what you mean, then you don't mean what you say, and a gentleman always means what he says.
You are correct in that there's no point in being excessively pedantic. However, you should note that "picking apart posts" and quibbling over technicalities is part of what we do here. Technicalities are what the technical world is built around. Have you ever tried to accomplish an unfamiliar technical task when working from poorly written instructions? Clear, concise speech and writing are crucial to getting your message across. What is common sense to a person is highly dependent on their background, and in a mixed environment like/., it's simply unwise to rely on someone understanding "what you really meant" as versus "what you actually said."
As someone who works with product labeling, it's always a question of "how many ways are there for someone to misunderstand this?"
The sandwich exercise you mention sounds like a good idea... I wish more grade school teachers would focus on clear writing--and subsequently, clear thinking.
Thanks for the metaphor. This "heated air" concept is difficult to get across to the layperson.
Well, "heated air" would be inaccurate. That would be a convection oven (think a blow drier).
What they are talking about here is the reentering ejecta radiating IR directly down onto the surface, from the entire sky at once. Heating by radiation, not convection. Hence the "Broiler Oven" simile.
Plus, if it were that powerful to bake animals, would not the water temperature rise, and the air bake the animals which did survive, and destroy the birds as they're not too good about going underwater, and melt the ice at the caps, and...
To kill most large animals, the air doesn't need to be hot enough to bake the whole animal, just ruin its lungs.
Plants are easy. Many (most?) plants have evolved mechanisms to allow them to survive forest fires, brush fires and the like. The root stock would survive, and the seeds are mixed with soil/blown into protected places etc. Remember, they don't all have to survive, just enough to repopulate the species. There would be myriad places where plants or animals would be sheltered by the shape of a canyon/cave or whatever.
There are quite a few bird species that live in burrows/caves/hollow logs etc which would have survived. There are a lot of bird species that respond to any danger by diving into the water, and diving deep. Grebes, cormorants, and the like. There are lots of diving birds.
As far as raising the temperature of the water, you're vastly underestimating the amount of energy it would take to raise the temperature of all of the earth's oceans. It takes a lot more energy to raise the temperature of a volume of water than it takes to raise the same volume of air the same amount. (any physicists/chemists/engineers want to run the numbers?) The surface temperature of the oceans would probably rise a bit, then most of that energy would be shed back into the atmosphere by evaporation. The overall temp of the oceans would remain pretty constant, certainly not enough to melt the ice caps. For the superheated air directly above the glaciers, there would probably be a little bit of surface melting, which would immediately refreeze, leaving a glazed surface.
Yes, introducing (sic)"foreing"(/sic) species would be a bad idea. Using a few trained rats is hardly likely to result in a giant rat invasion. This sort of trained animal helper is very valuable, and would be under very close observation, probably on a leash or tether.
What do you expect, they would just dump a crate full of giant rats on the ground and say "Go get 'em boys!" and wait for them to come back dragging land mines? (gee, hope they come back)
Out of curiosity, are all examples of ecological catastrophe of which you are aware based on episodes of The Simpsons? Hey, have you considered running for congress?
The 2 main reason 3 Gorges is being built are thus: 1. It will generate vast quantities of electricity, and pull millions of people out of poverty/3rd world conditions. 2. It will control the annual flood/drought cycles that are responsible for the worst natural disasters in china, every year.
I'm not saying it's the ideal solution, but at least i make an effort to understand the problems.
Centralized production of electricity from coal or other fossil fuels is orders of magnitude more efficient than in an internal combustion engine. Also, emission-reducing devices are far, far more efficient on a very large scale.
In other words, you're completely, utterly, totally, wrong.
Electric vehicles also open themselves up to other forms of power-generation (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro).
Fat frickin' chance. Price went down for CD manufacturing. Did the price at Best Buy drop any? No. Are the Insurance companies any more ethical than the RIAA? Hell no.
Wow, ignorance reigns supreme. That's a completely false analogy.
I'm not sure about all insurance companies, but State Farm sends me a check at the end of the year if the claims they paid out for the for the year were less than the amount they collected, minus their administrative overhead. As I understand it, this is hardly uncommon. State Farm, like many others, is a mutual insurance company owned by its policyholders.
The other difference between insurance companies and the RIAA: the RIAA have a functional monopoly. (Yes, there are independent artists/labels, but most of what I listen to was recorded more than 15 years ago, and it's ALL RIAA material.) Insurance companies have to compete, fiercely, for your business. That's what keeps rates at (semi) reasonable levels. The RIAA doesn't have to. They have no real competition.
So yes, this technology could very well result in lower premiums, if the areas it is deployed in see a significant drop in accident rates. Why do you think your insurance premium is cheaper when you have airbags? Out of simple human kindness?
I can't figure out if I should buy a package, like this HP deal or a Dell machine, or build a system myself. I'm reasonably technically adept, just not with PC's (my machines are heavily modified, and I've done hw and sw troubleshooting for 15 years on macs). I'm just getting a PC for games, because my MDD G4 is fine for the Photoshop/Illustrator work that's my bread and butter.
So... does someone have a guide to picking components for a game machine? What are the dangers?
Would it make sense to plop down the extra $$ to buy a package?
I've never actually owned a PC, so it might be a good learning experience to put one together... hrm.
Slashdot Mirror
The real irony here is that it is your own statement that is the hasty generalization. By your own admission, you didn't read the book.
I didn't read your whole post, as I was in a hurry (the taco truck will only wait so long). However, this seems like a classic example of the "hasty generalization" fallacy.
Food for thought.
m-
You do realize that the US is not the only 'good guy' in wars like WW2? In fact, the US only jumped into WW2 near the end.
Well, you could also say that the war wasn't near the end at all, until we jumped into it.
Without the US involvement, most of Europe would be speaking German right now. Including France, including the UK.
It was a choice to become involved. It came late, perhaps, but it was the right choice. Does anyone disagree?
(rant)
I suppose the thing that amuses me about this discussion is, so many (mostly western) Europeans think they understand the US because they see american films, or american tv, or watch fox news or something. The US is an incredibly diverse country. Those of us in northern california are really nothing like southern californians, much less someone from the east coast. There is no way in hell you've experienced a realistic crosssection of our society through the media pinhole you have available to you. And yet, making these broad, stereotypical generalizations of americans is perfectly socially acceptable. I swear to god, you see an Oliver Stone film or two and you think you know everything about this country.
Hell, you forgot that a lot of us weren't even born here. Or if we were, our parents weren't. You don't know me. You don't know my family, my friends. How is it that you think that you do?
(/rant)
Ah... ignorance. It lives everywhere: on both sides of every ocean, it seems.
m-
You must be new here if you think that "you-must-be-new-here-if-you-think-you-must-be-new -here-jokes-are-funny" jokes are funny.
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal, I hear it's delicious. Seriously.
m-
You're not thinking about recycling fully. While getting a virgin or near-virgin material back is a good goal, many other factors must be considered. Such as: energy required to recycle back to near-virgin material, energy required to create virgin material (from the ground, other materials, however it is acquired), amount of virgin material (or constituents) available, etc.
This is slashdot. Virgin material is everywhere.
m-
Of course, it helps that she's Eastern European and doesn't grant importance to the Hallmark Holidays(tm). American women have bought into that bullshit wholesale, I'm done with them.
There are wonderful, non-selfish, totally cool women out there, who, despite all that, still do care about these things being remembered.
Your gf is the exception, not the rule.
Does it make sense? Does it matter if it makes sense? If it makes her happy, isn't that worth it? Not everything is logical, especially not matters of the heart. Whipped? How about just not being an asshole?
Not ALL American women are like that. It's just a stupid generalization. Besides, you only need to find one who isn't. My wife isn't (that's why she's my wife), though she does care about being remembered and not being taken for granted.
Grrrr, just don't be a troglodyte.
m-
It's called an Alcubierre Drive. You can finish yourself off now.
{hawking} "I call it a Hawking Drive." {/hawking}
m-
But if you want to talk drool-worthy phone, take a look at the Moto RAZRV3
I mean yeah, I guess it'll make phone calls and stuff, but good lord. Nice match for a 17" Powerbook...
m-
For example, a daylight murder with a single bullet to the head is quite different from finding a decapitated and mutilated body in a ditch.
So... It's like the difference between UT2k4 and Doom3?
What does that have to do with anything? Am I missing the point?
m-
"You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore."
.sig. Thanks!
With your permission, I think I've found my new
m-
Sure, there has been sculpture too, but never in the sheer volume of traditional two dimensional art.
To start with, full disclosure, IIAS (i am a sculptor).
Uh, I call bullshit. The earliest examples of art we have are not cave paintings, but small carved figures. Lots of them. There is no way on god's green earth you can make a blanket-statement like "2D is more common than 3D". Show me an ethnographic study of the world's cultures (historical, too) that proves that paintings or drawings are more common than sculpture, and I'll eat my hat. (I have spent far too much of my life in art history and anthropology classes, so I feel confident that my hat will remain uneaten)
We live in a 3D world. 3D visualization is inherent in our genome.
2D visualization is not inherent: there have been studies of some isolated cultures with no 2D representative art, and if you're not introduced to the concept of a 2D image by a certain age, you just won't "get" it. Look at the representative art of the Australian aborigines, where every painting is in the style of an exploded anatomical view. Why? Because the damned dingo HAS 4 legs, damn it, so you have to show all of them. None of this side-view perspective crap.
To get back on topic:
The reason the tide of public opinion on this board prefers 2D games to 3D games is because that's what you all grew up with. It's what you cut your teeth on, and it's what you prefer. To sum up, if you honestly think the crappy games of our youth are better than today's games, YOU ARE AN OLD FOGY. I grew up at the same time, but I have no illusions as to how much most of those games sucked. Y'all have very selective memories and are the modern equivalent of those people in the 80s who refused to acknowledge that video games were better than pinball games.
Just my opinion,
m-
Few people here are lawyers so few statements are going to be hole free. Most statements here and elsewhere in the world require a little common sense to interpret correctly.
/., it's simply unwise to rely on someone understanding "what you really meant" as versus "what you actually said."
Ah, so. Yet sloppy speaking (and writing) leads to sloppy thinking.
You see, if you don't say what you mean, then you don't mean what you say, and a gentleman always means what he says.
You are correct in that there's no point in being excessively pedantic. However, you should note that "picking apart posts" and quibbling over technicalities is part of what we do here. Technicalities are what the technical world is built around. Have you ever tried to accomplish an unfamiliar technical task when working from poorly written instructions? Clear, concise speech and writing are crucial to getting your message across. What is common sense to a person is highly dependent on their background, and in a mixed environment like
As someone who works with product labeling, it's always a question of "how many ways are there for someone to misunderstand this?"
The sandwich exercise you mention sounds like a good idea... I wish more grade school teachers would focus on clear writing--and subsequently, clear thinking.
Just my opinion,
m-
Mr. President?
What are you doing here?
m-
Obviously it's not a ford.
Actually, it is... Ford Prefect, to be exact.
(how far it is to Betelgeuse, anyway?)
m-
... and I doubt they would make it to the front page on Slashdot without someone actually downloading and running them to see what they are.
Hi, welcome to Slashdot. You must be new here.
m-
Thanks for the metaphor. This "heated air" concept is difficult to get across to the layperson.
Well, "heated air" would be inaccurate. That would be a convection oven (think a blow drier).
What they are talking about here is the reentering ejecta radiating IR directly down onto the surface, from the entire sky at once. Heating by radiation, not convection. Hence the "Broiler Oven" simile.
m-
Plus, if it were that powerful to bake animals, would not the water temperature rise, and the air bake the animals which did survive, and destroy the birds as they're not too good about going underwater, and melt the ice at the caps, and...
To kill most large animals, the air doesn't need to be hot enough to bake the whole animal, just ruin its lungs.
Plants are easy. Many (most?) plants have evolved mechanisms to allow them to survive forest fires, brush fires and the like. The root stock would survive, and the seeds are mixed with soil/blown into protected places etc. Remember, they don't all have to survive, just enough to repopulate the species. There would be myriad places where plants or animals would be sheltered by the shape of a canyon/cave or whatever.
There are quite a few bird species that live in burrows/caves/hollow logs etc which would have survived. There are a lot of bird species that respond to any danger by diving into the water, and diving deep. Grebes, cormorants, and the like. There are lots of diving birds.
As far as raising the temperature of the water, you're vastly underestimating the amount of energy it would take to raise the temperature of all of the earth's oceans. It takes a lot more energy to raise the temperature of a volume of water than it takes to raise the same volume of air the same amount. (any physicists/chemists/engineers want to run the numbers?) The surface temperature of the oceans would probably rise a bit, then most of that energy would be shed back into the atmosphere by evaporation. The overall temp of the oceans would remain pretty constant, certainly not enough to melt the ice caps. For the superheated air directly above the glaciers, there would probably be a little bit of surface melting, which would immediately refreeze, leaving a glazed surface.
m-
Its a very complicated process to turn the nuclear energy released in a plasma back into electricity, and requires a metric buttload of human effort.
What is that in Imperial Arseloads?
m-
I'm astonished this would get modded up.
Yes, introducing (sic)"foreing"(/sic) species would be a bad idea. Using a few trained rats is hardly likely to result in a giant rat invasion. This sort of trained animal helper is very valuable, and would be under very close observation, probably on a leash or tether.
What do you expect, they would just dump a crate full of giant rats on the ground and say "Go get 'em boys!" and wait for them to come back dragging land mines? (gee, hope they come back)
Out of curiosity, are all examples of ecological catastrophe of which you are aware based on episodes of The Simpsons? Hey, have you considered running for congress?
m-
I wonder how many people go for an intoxicant whilst programming. If you do, does it help your creativity and productivity?
No, but it does apparently result in increased usage of the word "whilst."
m-
literally enslave hundreds of thousands of people
Back this statement up, please. Links?
The 2 main reason 3 Gorges is being built are thus:
1. It will generate vast quantities of electricity, and pull millions of people out of poverty/3rd world conditions.
2. It will control the annual flood/drought cycles that are responsible for the worst natural disasters in china, every year.
I'm not saying it's the ideal solution, but at least i make an effort to understand the problems.
m-
Centralized production of electricity from coal or other fossil fuels is orders of magnitude more efficient than in an internal combustion engine. Also, emission-reducing devices are far, far more efficient on a very large scale.
In other words, you're completely, utterly, totally, wrong.
Electric vehicles also open themselves up to other forms of power-generation (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro).
Did you even bother to think before you posted?
m-
Fat frickin' chance. Price went down for CD manufacturing. Did the price at Best Buy drop any? No. Are the Insurance companies any more ethical than the RIAA? Hell no.
Wow, ignorance reigns supreme. That's a completely false analogy.
I'm not sure about all insurance companies, but State Farm sends me a check at the end of the year if the claims they paid out for the for the year were less than the amount they collected, minus their administrative overhead. As I understand it, this is hardly uncommon. State Farm, like many others, is a mutual insurance company owned by its policyholders.
The other difference between insurance companies and the RIAA: the RIAA have a functional monopoly. (Yes, there are independent artists/labels, but most of what I listen to was recorded more than 15 years ago, and it's ALL RIAA material.)
Insurance companies have to compete, fiercely, for your business. That's what keeps rates at (semi) reasonable levels. The RIAA doesn't have to. They have no real competition.
So yes, this technology could very well result in lower premiums, if the areas it is deployed in see a significant drop in accident rates. Why do you think your insurance premium is cheaper when you have airbags? Out of simple human kindness?
m-
This was my suspicion, but it's still nice to hear it from someone else.
Are there any compatibility problems with using an Athlon64 as versus a P4?
Thanks!
m-
Ah, this is what I was looking for. Thanks for taking the time to answer.
m-
I can't figure out if I should buy a package, like this HP deal or a Dell machine, or build a system myself. I'm reasonably technically adept, just not with PC's (my machines are heavily modified, and I've done hw and sw troubleshooting for 15 years on macs). I'm just getting a PC for games, because my MDD G4 is fine for the Photoshop/Illustrator work that's my bread and butter.
So... does someone have a guide to picking components for a game machine? What are the dangers?
Would it make sense to plop down the extra $$ to buy a package?
I've never actually owned a PC, so it might be a good learning experience to put one together... hrm.
Opinions?
m-