Or you can live in comfort, with good food and warm clothing... women as you desire them (virtual, of course)... allowed to pursue your studies of source code and operating systems.
It's up to you. A life of ease... of reflection and unlimited access to Microsoft source code...
And all you have to do is just one little thing... it's nothing really...
There you go, presuming innocence. This is America 2.0, and you're getting in the way of finding Emmanual Goldstein... I mean, Osama BinLaden. Citizen, please report to the nearest Ministry... err, Department of Truth office for corrective training.
My box at work is a win2k. I come in, turn it on, and then go make a liter of tea. When I come back, it's just popping up to leg me log in. I log in, then go down to the vending machine 4 floors down (walking both ways) to get a snikers or something and come back. Right about that time, it's finally doing all it's post-login stuff and I'm ready to work. That's a good 10 minutes out of my day.
I don't know what I'll do if they make the damn thing boot up immediately. My boss would probably expect me to start working too.
ON MY COMPUTER, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OGG AND OGG. I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT...
The lameness filter is giving me grief for my stupid joke, so here's some good patriotic reading to get through that...
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
BBC also did a nice abridged version of LOTR. Interesting differences from Mind's Eye. Personally, I own them both because I like them both for different reasons.
Why does it matter who's a "journalist" or not? The constitution guarantees freedom of the press, not journalists. This was a time when lots of people had presses and made lots of pamphlets. Should the consitution not be interpreted to mean that anyone who wishes to publish something is protected by the 1st Ammendment?
Do I have to be a journalist to have free-speech protections? And why should anyone who publishes be forced to reveal sources? I thought this was supposed to be a free country. Clearly, it's not.
The book "Art & Physics" by Leonard Shlain, http://www.artandphysics.com/, actually argues the opposite. His research shows that for certain cases in physics, what happened in art actualy preceeded, and in a way, predicted breakthroughs in physics.
From the website: Leonard Shlain proposes that the visionary artist is the first member of a culture to see the world in a new way. Then, nearly simultaneously, a revolutionary physicist discovers a new way to think about the world. Escorting the reader through the classical, medieval, Renaissance and modern eras, Shlain shows how the artists' images when superimposed on the physicists' concepts create a compelling fit.
I haven't read this particular book, but I read his other two: Sex, Time, & Power, and Alphabet vs. The Goddess. They were fascinating reads!
Well, the tests must measure the presence or absence of some chemical in the blood. And the brain operates via chemical processes. It's possible that when the brain is suffering from OCD, it produces different chemicals (maybe as a waste process) than one that does not have OCD. It would be kind of like monitoring the exaust of a car. If you have excessive CO compared to normal, you find something's not optimal, even though the car functions.
Well, I don't talk that much on the phone - in fact, I usually use my phone to arrange to meet with people so I can talk to them in person. I only use about 500 minutes/month. It costs just a bit less than my Verizon service.
Virgin Mobile is not the best for everyone, but I like it and find the service great.
I got a cheap $29 discounted phone for Virgin Mobile. It makes calls (good reception/signal, etc), keeps my phonebook, and tells me the time. That's all I want in a phone. When I want a camera, I get a camera that's good at being a camera. 1.3 Megapixels' great, but you have shitty plastic lens in front of it.
VM's not good for you, but for a lot of people, I think it's a great way to go. Plus it comes without any stupid contracts. I can't wait to get out from under my Verizon contract.
To be fair, Verizon has had great service. But, I'm one of the freedom-loving Americans (not all of us are), and I don't like to be bound by a contract when it's not necessary.
Negotiate? You're kidding, right? Negotiate with Verizon for different contract terms - when all they have is a generic, Verizon-friendly, contract that comes out of a receipt printer? Right. You say, "I'd like to ammend the contract.", and after consulting their manager, they'll say, "I'm sorry we can't do that."
I know - I can walk away.
Go to Sprint - same thing.
Go to Cingular - turn around and walk away before you even talk to them...
Negotiating a new contract is just not available. That's why I'm switching back to a pre-paid when my current contract expires.
And someone should not buy a house because the cellphone company they're locked into has bad coverage? Why should that even have to be part of the calculus... "I can't buy this house because my cellphone company will fuck me out of $300". That's irrational! Why are we even stuck in a world like that? Hell, with a lease on an apartment, they can't stick it to you for the rest of your term when you quit unless they fail to fill the apartment after making a good-faith effort.
The industry is working in a way that fucks the customers - the customers really want cellphones and they have few options. How is that nearly all the companies work in the same fucked-up way? It really looks like there is some kind of collusion - and that's when governments have to step in.
I disagree. The pre-paids typically have you pay for your phone upfront and they don't have the benefit of tying you into an overpriced service for 2 years. I used a Virgin Mobile phone for a year and I was much more impressed with it than I am with the Verizon phone I'm stuck with until December. It's going to shit. Of course, Verizon will give me a new phone - for another 2 year contract.
All I know is that in December, I'm going back to Virgin Mobile. Cheaper service, no contract, and a phone that's "just a phone" that works great.
My guess is that they are considering dropping region-codes because there is some other option in the format that gives the media producers even more controls over the media than region controls.
Set up players that have to register the media (we're already getting conditioned to this through satellite receivers and TIVO like things that need to "phone home") and maybe they lock the media to specific players.
Once you have that, region coding is a moot point. Why not toss us consumers a bone?
I got to thinking today that the "worlds" of Firefly/Serenity make an interesting parallel to what is going on here on Earth today. You have the "western world" which is the equivalent of the core planets - wealthy people and high standards of living. Then you have all the rest of the moons and lesser planets, which is a lot like the current developing world - where most people live on the equivalent of less than a dollar a day.
Most of the people on this planet just get by - spend all their time and energy getting food and having babies. It's the relative few who live in the rich planets that live in luxury, have cars, cellphones, computers, and toys.
It's interesting that you don't even have to go to some distant solar system 500 years in the future to see exactly the same situation. I wonder if that's what Joss is trying to say?
Actually, another mystery has to do with who actually built them and when. Many Egyptologists claim they were made around 5000 years. But a geologist, Robert Schoch (and others) noticed while visiting the Giza plateau that some of the erosion was water-erosion rather than wind. I believe records show that there has not been that much water on plateau in the last 5000 years. In fact I *think* the evidence is that water at that level and quantity was not on the plateau since at least 10,000 years.
So, if the structures are there, and there is water erosion on them - and the water to do that erosion hasn't been there since 10,000, it indicates that the stuctures have been there at least 10,000 years.
Schoch may be a crackpot, or maybe he misinterpreted the erosion evidence. But, the best the egyptoligists throw back is, "it cannot have been built 10,000 years ago because we know it was built 5,000 years ago."
So, I would say, indeed, there is a mystery. Were they really built 10,000 years ago, and if so, who was there 10,000 years ago, and how did they do it?
It is the responsibility of the article submitter to find dupes.
That's great for stuff that dups over several days. But, there's a lag in article submission, so several people may submit the "dup" before a first one finally gets posted. It's hard to check against articles that aren't there yet. So, by that, I would say the editors should shoulder some of the blame/responsibility.
That's easy. We just go back to the way it used to be - before recorded music. You listen to the person perform it once. If you want to hear it again, you pay them to play it again.
If you ban written forms of music, then only those with good ear-training might be able to reproduce/cover someone else's work. Those people, we can just kill, or cut out off their ears.
Well, from a short-term economic point of view, it's probably best to do as you say, and just trash the drive.
In the longer term, you really should let the drive be used (wiping it), or make sure you recycle it. But, even if you destroy it and recycle it, you're making less use of the energy resources used to create it. Meaning, suppose it took 1000 joules of energy (pulling a number out of my ass) to make and transport that drive, and you trash it after 3 years, when it could have run for 6, you've just reduced the efficiency of the use of that 1000 joules in half.
I know it doesn't seem like much, but as energy is starting to cost more, I think it's wise for people to consider the total cost of what they are doing. I knw
It probably doesn't matter a lot. But using concepts that lay people can understnad does make astrophysicists more approachable.
I think a problem with relations between the science community and the "common people" is that scientists come off as elitest, which makes a lot of people feel that the work they do is pointless. Considering so much science is funded by the government, ie, "the people", it only makes sense to make it more appealing to them.
One reason (I'll let you decide if it's a good one) is that it can be used as a bridging point to talk to non-astrophysicists about what you do.
You can say you're studing gamma emissions at some location described by a bunch of numbers and letter (I have no idea how it's described, actually), or instead you say, "near the handle of the Big Dipper".
Sure, for the person you're talking to, they don't have any more real/useful information. But you've helped connect what you know to something they know, and from a PR point of view, that's more useful than you might imagine.
Part of the problem described in the article is that lay-people and scientist are separated by media that do a poor job of communicating between the two.
So, for that reason, I would say it's not a bad thing for an astrophysicist to know the constellations. Because while it has no real relevance to their work, it serves as a common context that serves as a bridge between them and everyone else.
It's not so much that OO is almost the same as MSO.
It's more about psychology. People generally don't like change. And big change is more disrupting than small change. Part of that comes from fear of the unknown.
You get people transitioned to OO still on their familiar windows platform. It gets them used to the new OO system, while also helping build confidence in the overall changes to come.
While it might make more sense from an IT standpoint to just make the change and be done with it, from a human management point of view, it makes more sense to make a gradual transition. A successful deployment of OO on Windows will help win over the timid, and help check the nay-sayers. It builds confidence in what you are doing and helps build overall buy-in to what you're doing.
I guarantee you, if the people you're supporting don't buy in, they can make your life hell and cause the project to fail miserably.
Slashdot Mirror
Or you can live in comfort, with good food and warm clothing... women as you desire them (virtual, of course)... allowed to pursue your studies of source code and operating systems.
It's up to you. A life of ease... of reflection and unlimited access to Microsoft source code...
And all you have to do is just one little thing... it's nothing really...
There you go, presuming innocence. This is America 2.0, and you're getting in the way of finding Emmanual Goldstein... I mean, Osama BinLaden. Citizen, please report to the nearest Ministry... err, Department of Truth office for corrective training.
My box at work is a win2k. I come in, turn it on, and then go make a liter of tea. When I come back, it's just popping up to leg me log in. I log in, then go down to the vending machine 4 floors down (walking both ways) to get a snikers or something and come back. Right about that time, it's finally doing all it's post-login stuff and I'm ready to work. That's a good 10 minutes out of my day.
I don't know what I'll do if they make the damn thing boot up immediately. My boss would probably expect me to start working too.
Not all progress is a good thing!
ON MY COMPUTER, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OGG AND OGG. I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT...
The lameness filter is giving me grief for my stupid joke, so here's some good patriotic reading to get through that...
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Mind's Eye also did a nice Hobbit.
BBC also did a nice abridged version of LOTR. Interesting differences from Mind's Eye. Personally, I own them both because I like them both for different reasons.
Why does it matter who's a "journalist" or not? The constitution guarantees freedom of the press, not journalists. This was a time when lots of people had presses and made lots of pamphlets. Should the consitution not be interpreted to mean that anyone who wishes to publish something is protected by the 1st Ammendment?
Do I have to be a journalist to have free-speech protections? And why should anyone who publishes be forced to reveal sources? I thought this was supposed to be a free country. Clearly, it's not.
The book "Art & Physics" by Leonard Shlain, http://www.artandphysics.com/, actually argues the opposite. His research shows that for certain cases in physics, what happened in art actualy preceeded, and in a way, predicted breakthroughs in physics.
From the website:
Leonard Shlain proposes that the visionary artist is the first member of a culture to see the world in a new way. Then, nearly simultaneously, a revolutionary physicist discovers a new way to think about the world. Escorting the reader through the classical, medieval, Renaissance and modern eras, Shlain shows how the artists' images when superimposed on the physicists' concepts create a compelling fit.
I haven't read this particular book, but I read his other two: Sex, Time, & Power, and Alphabet vs. The Goddess. They were fascinating reads!
Well, the tests must measure the presence or absence of some chemical in the blood. And the brain operates via chemical processes. It's possible that when the brain is suffering from OCD, it produces different chemicals (maybe as a waste process) than one that does not have OCD. It would be kind of like monitoring the exaust of a car. If you have excessive CO compared to normal, you find something's not optimal, even though the car functions.
i-podder http://ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php
Is a nice OSS program for downloading podcasts too. No need for spyware/bloatware/crapware from the big guys.
Well, I don't talk that much on the phone - in fact, I usually use my phone to arrange to meet with people so I can talk to them in person. I only use about 500 minutes/month. It costs just a bit less than my Verizon service.
Virgin Mobile is not the best for everyone, but I like it and find the service great.
I got a cheap $29 discounted phone for Virgin Mobile. It makes calls (good reception/signal, etc), keeps my phonebook, and tells me the time. That's all I want in a phone. When I want a camera, I get a camera that's good at being a camera. 1.3 Megapixels' great, but you have shitty plastic lens in front of it.
VM's not good for you, but for a lot of people, I think it's a great way to go. Plus it comes without any stupid contracts. I can't wait to get out from under my Verizon contract.
To be fair, Verizon has had great service. But, I'm one of the freedom-loving Americans (not all of us are), and I don't like to be bound by a contract when it's not necessary.
Negotiate? You're kidding, right? Negotiate with Verizon for different contract terms - when all they have is a generic, Verizon-friendly, contract that comes out of a receipt printer? Right. You say, "I'd like to ammend the contract.", and after consulting their manager, they'll say, "I'm sorry we can't do that."
I know - I can walk away.
Go to Sprint - same thing.
Go to Cingular - turn around and walk away before you even talk to them...
Negotiating a new contract is just not available. That's why I'm switching back to a pre-paid when my current contract expires.
And someone should not buy a house because the cellphone company they're locked into has bad coverage? Why should that even have to be part of the calculus... "I can't buy this house because my cellphone company will fuck me out of $300". That's irrational! Why are we even stuck in a world like that? Hell, with a lease on an apartment, they can't stick it to you for the rest of your term when you quit unless they fail to fill the apartment after making a good-faith effort.
The industry is working in a way that fucks the customers - the customers really want cellphones and they have few options. How is that nearly all the companies work in the same fucked-up way? It really looks like there is some kind of collusion - and that's when governments have to step in.
The government will get involved when lots of people are unhappy and complain a lot - and an election season is on the horizon.
I disagree. The pre-paids typically have you pay for your phone upfront and they don't have the benefit of tying you into an overpriced service for 2 years. I used a Virgin Mobile phone for a year and I was much more impressed with it than I am with the Verizon phone I'm stuck with until December. It's going to shit. Of course, Verizon will give me a new phone - for another 2 year contract.
All I know is that in December, I'm going back to Virgin Mobile. Cheaper service, no contract, and a phone that's "just a phone" that works great.
My guess is that they are considering dropping region-codes because there is some other option in the format that gives the media producers even more controls over the media than region controls.
Set up players that have to register the media (we're already getting conditioned to this through satellite receivers and TIVO like things that need to "phone home") and maybe they lock the media to specific players.
Once you have that, region coding is a moot point. Why not toss us consumers a bone?
I got to thinking today that the "worlds" of Firefly/Serenity make an interesting parallel to what is going on here on Earth today. You have the "western world" which is the equivalent of the core planets - wealthy people and high standards of living. Then you have all the rest of the moons and lesser planets, which is a lot like the current developing world - where most people live on the equivalent of less than a dollar a day.
Most of the people on this planet just get by - spend all their time and energy getting food and having babies. It's the relative few who live in the rich planets that live in luxury, have cars, cellphones, computers, and toys.
It's interesting that you don't even have to go to some distant solar system 500 years in the future to see exactly the same situation. I wonder if that's what Joss is trying to say?
And, "That's why I never kiss'em on the mouth."
Amen! And most places I drink have cute girls in short shorts that flirt and deliver drinks. Why would I want to cut them out of my beer drinking?
Actually, another mystery has to do with who actually built them and when. Many Egyptologists claim they were made around 5000 years. But a geologist, Robert Schoch (and others) noticed while visiting the Giza plateau that some of the erosion was water-erosion rather than wind. I believe records show that there has not been that much water on plateau in the last 5000 years. In fact I *think* the evidence is that water at that level and quantity was not on the plateau since at least 10,000 years.
So, if the structures are there, and there is water erosion on them - and the water to do that erosion hasn't been there since 10,000, it indicates that the stuctures have been there at least 10,000 years.
Schoch may be a crackpot, or maybe he misinterpreted the erosion evidence. But, the best the egyptoligists throw back is, "it cannot have been built 10,000 years ago because we know it was built 5,000 years ago."
So, I would say, indeed, there is a mystery. Were they really built 10,000 years ago, and if so, who was there 10,000 years ago, and how did they do it?
The test will certainly be relatively cheap. It's the cure you want after your positive diagnosis that's going to cost you.
It is the responsibility of the article submitter to find dupes.
That's great for stuff that dups over several days. But, there's a lag in article submission, so several people may submit the "dup" before a first one finally gets posted. It's hard to check against articles that aren't there yet. So, by that, I would say the editors should shoulder some of the blame/responsibility.
That's easy. We just go back to the way it used to be - before recorded music. You listen to the person perform it once. If you want to hear it again, you pay them to play it again.
If you ban written forms of music, then only those with good ear-training might be able to reproduce/cover someone else's work. Those people, we can just kill, or cut out off their ears.
Well, from a short-term economic point of view, it's probably best to do as you say, and just trash the drive.
In the longer term, you really should let the drive be used (wiping it), or make sure you recycle it. But, even if you destroy it and recycle it, you're making less use of the energy resources used to create it. Meaning, suppose it took 1000 joules of energy (pulling a number out of my ass) to make and transport that drive, and you trash it after 3 years, when it could have run for 6, you've just reduced the efficiency of the use of that 1000 joules in half.
I know it doesn't seem like much, but as energy is starting to cost more, I think it's wise for people to consider the total cost of what they are doing.
I knw
It probably doesn't matter a lot. But using concepts that lay people can understnad does make astrophysicists more approachable.
I think a problem with relations between the science community and the "common people" is that scientists come off as elitest, which makes a lot of people feel that the work they do is pointless. Considering so much science is funded by the government, ie, "the people", it only makes sense to make it more appealing to them.
One reason (I'll let you decide if it's a good one) is that it can be used as a bridging point to talk to non-astrophysicists about what you do.
You can say you're studing gamma emissions at some location described by a bunch of numbers and letter (I have no idea how it's described, actually), or instead you say, "near the handle of the Big Dipper".
Sure, for the person you're talking to, they don't have any more real/useful information. But you've helped connect what you know to something they know, and from a PR point of view, that's more useful than you might imagine.
Part of the problem described in the article is that lay-people and scientist are separated by media that do a poor job of communicating between the two.
So, for that reason, I would say it's not a bad thing for an astrophysicist to know the constellations. Because while it has no real relevance to their work, it serves as a common context that serves as a bridge between them and everyone else.
It's not so much that OO is almost the same as MSO.
It's more about psychology. People generally don't like change. And big change is more disrupting than small change. Part of that comes from fear of the unknown.
You get people transitioned to OO still on their familiar windows platform. It gets them used to the new OO system, while also helping build confidence in the overall changes to come.
While it might make more sense from an IT standpoint to just make the change and be done with it, from a human management point of view, it makes more sense to make a gradual transition. A successful deployment of OO on Windows will help win over the timid, and help check the nay-sayers. It builds confidence in what you are doing and helps build overall buy-in to what you're doing.
I guarantee you, if the people you're supporting don't buy in, they can make your life hell and cause the project to fail miserably.