They have 7-11s over there? Man, I wonder if they have Arby's, BillyBobJack's, and dollar stores...or would that be yen stores?
CurseFree - hilarious :)
on
Quickielanche
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· Score: 3
I love this quote:
"Strict and Religious Settings
Curse Free TV's Strict setting filters out all offensive phrases, including when the names of God are used in an exclamatory way. The Religious setting, however, when viewing Christian programming, allows the names of God to come through without filtering them out."
Well, thank ---!
YOU ARE STUPID AND BRAINWASHED
on
Quickielanche
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· Score: 1
Shutup. You are a stupid brainwashed pedant. You are ignorant because you were born into lies. Everybody lies to you and then you lie. It is a vicious circle. Your education has made you ignorant. You are the most worthless form of human being. Just think, when the sun rises where you are it will be setting on the other side of the earth. This is because of the four corners of the cube. And you thought the world was a sphere. Just goes to show how education has made you stoopid.
Hey, I live in Ithaca, NY, 14850, and/neither/ of the PBS stations' schedules mention Code Rush. Anybody my way that knows when it's on?
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
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· Score: 2
Well if belief in a God alone fulfilled the wager, then everybody should believe in a God (or any God, or at least that God exists). However, most doctrines require that you actually conform to some sort of religious restrictions, so in that case it is not "free". E.g., if I want to be accepted by the Christian God I must conform to the rules of Christianity. If I want to be accepted by the Islamic God, I will have to conform to the rules of Islam. These rules more often than not conflict. So I can only hope to break even by being in some religions' Hells while in other religions' Heavans.
You, know, I think I'll just take the money, the chicks, and Mr. Cox.:)
Ok, how is a comment on one of the alpha Geeks at a Geek Pride festival offtopic?
It seems to me that any "gun nut" attempting to sway over people with bad preconceptions would talk about Constitutional rights, about sporting, about responsibility, about self defense. Instead his site lauds over his ability to perform street-combat firearms maneouvers, and how good he is at blasting bullets into human figures. HUH!?? That would be exactly the WRONG impression I would want to give people. That would just make me feel/more/ against firearms. I mean, if a rather high-level and self-proclaimed gun nut is explaining how thrilled he is at his potential and skill to shoot people with his gun, as a neutral party, what impression does that make about gun owners in general? Good job.
Oh, I guess you can continue and mark this as "redundant" or something...
I followed the link to esr's gun nut page. I have to say I have never seen somebody so thrilled at their ability to put "big-slow-bullet"s into human-figured target's hearts and heads.
Here is an ignorant and off the cuff question...we can "create" antimatter...does antimatter imply antigravity?
Yes I know we can't use antigravity for anything useful because it takes just as much energy to create as it is useful, but wouldn't the existence of antimatter lay ground for the existence of antigravity? Or is what we think of as "antimatter" and "antigravity" just results of mathematical formulas, instead of actual physical phenomena (i.e., we call it "antimatter" simply because it is "the thing that annihilates matter").
Re:you make the same mistake!
on
The Mind of God
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· Score: 2
"Although our method could fail, at least we would have some justification in believing P or !P Unfortunately we have no such method with God. The cases are not parrallel."
Since there is absence of proof of a God, the default assumption is to not believe in the existence of God. This is not the same as believing in the non-existence of God. Most athiests (weak atheists, empirical agnostics) will happily change their opinion if evidence for the existence of God is presented.
However, with the traditional undetectable God, the real question is whether we care. Is this an "interesting" argument? What is the difference between a non-existent God, and a God which is unmeasurable and has no effect on reality? I guess the latter at least provides hope or affirmation to people who want it.
Re:Is it so hard to accept the possibility?
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 2
I've basically given in to the fact that Godel's incompleteness theorem allows for "unprovable" truths, which may give some room for the conception of something "greater" than the sum of physically measurable parts.
I think it is humankind's hubris, though, that we are some special thing and that the universe revolves around is. The universe doesn't give a damn about us, and our own stupidity could very well get us all exterminated. I think we should humble ourselves and realize we are really but a few specks of dust in the global scheme of things.
"Users do not need to go through a steep learning curve to use Linux at all, or even to install if they are using a modern distribution. The only learning curve applies when trying to do something fancy maintenance-wise, which is no more difficult (and usually quite a bit easier) than learning to do the same thing under Windows."
That's bs. The plain fact is that to average users to much power is _frightening_. To much flexibility is _confusing_. A command line is _scary_. People don't _wan't_ to have so much power that they are loaded with the responsibility of not accidentally wiping things out or unrecoverably breaking their system. It doesn't help Linux at all to ignore this painful facts. It doesn't matter what/we/ think. It matters what the user thinks.
"The only learning curve applies when trying to do something fancy maintenance-wise, which is no more difficult (and usually quite a bit easier) than learning to do the same thing under Windows."
Hmmm...ok, you attempt to teach users how to configure X, keyboard bindings, and how to use a (perhaps several) new and foreign windowing systems.
"It is very rare for applications to not be present on Linux, and even rarer for them to not work properly. Users are far more married to file formats than they are applications. I have found that, without exception, when a user says "I need to have application x" what they really mean is "I need to have an application as easy to use as x, with the same capabilities and able to read and write the same file format as x," which applications are present under Linux for nearly every task these days."
Well, we'd like to think that, but I simply think that's not true. Users are/trained/, either explicitly in classes, or by long use, to use an/application/. Yes, they are tied to file formats because they are tied to the application they use. It takes a while to figure out what all the goddamn buttons and menus in MS Office do, or at least which ones you need. Remember, users don't give a damn about "Linux" or "Open Source", and our philosophical high ground doesn't mean a thing to a large part of them. Users want something to/use/. Something quick and easy and intuitive that lets them get their work done. If they can't do exactly what they are currently doing it is going to be seen as a pain for them. Why/should/ they move when they already have something that lets them get their work done? Converting users is more of a slow gradual and painful process, than just saying "Here is a whizbang OS with everything you need. GO!".
"...most users I have dealt with have preferred running dual boot machines and running Linux where possible to running windows."
I'd love to meet users like the ones you know. The ones I know don't know what dual boot is, let alone want to know, or even let anyone possible mess up their systems which they've already grown accustomed to, customized, etc. I don't mean this derogatorily either. People are comfortable with what they have and are experienced with. There has to be a/strong/ reason to make them move.
"At least this way they have more control over when and where, and for what reason, their machine is being rebooted, and the frequency of system crashes and hangs is dramatically reduced. Contrary to popular myth here, users do care about stability and reliability very, very much."
I think the _real_ myth is that with our hubris we assume that users have the same priorities and values that we do. We assume that people really care about the fundamental stability and reliability of their computers. They appreciate a well designed or elegantly implemented OS. That they actual respect this stuff, like we techies in our ivory tower do. That they actually/want/ more control. I think that's the myth. And we should wake up to the fact that normal users are not going to be swayed merely by technical merits they don't care about. If their system crashes once or twice a day (or week is more like it), but they can still get their work done fast and efficiently, that is a pretty good trade off. Remember, they don't care about computers for it's own sake. I think that's where we get mislead. We care about good design and implementation, about reliability and stability, because as engineers we design these systems. This dialog simply can't be one way, of us telling users how good a new system is for them. It has to be two-way...we have to/know/ what they want in the first place. If Windows or MacOS really wasn't suiting people for their purposes you'd better believe they'd be using something else. The fact is that those operation systems and applications on them do for the most part suit users perfectly fine. We should concentrate on developing and refining the missing features that users actually want and use, than lauding over technical superiority. In short, if we want users to care about Linux, we have to listen to what they actually want and then provide it for them. Linux systems can "make do"...but I think Linux has the potential for doing a lot better than just "making do".
It doesn't matter how crappy Windows is from our perspective, if a user has to reboot twice a day, but still can get his work done, they will certainly use Windows over a Linux machine on which they either have to go through a steep learning curve or where the applications they use (regardless of equivalents) simply aren't present or don't work. That's the facts.
Both the Beatles and the Free Software/Open Source movent has been criticized as being "communist". You know, you'd think the Beatles of all people would "get it"...
Imagine
... Imagine there's no countries, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace...
Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, imagine all the people Sharing all the world...
You may say Im a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will live as one
The curse of implementing a new technology first is that you're then stuck with a lot of old legacy infrastructure when new and better stuff is invented.
Isn't it just the/popular/ artists complaining about this stuff? The ones actually/making/ money from the record companies? How about those that are getting ripped off, not making any money? How about all those that are extinguished because record companies don't think they're "hip" or want to give them a chance? MP3 normalizes the field. It means both popular and unpopular artists have equal access and distribution to the populace. Of course those who are raking it in see this as a threat.
"I want the system changed as much as anyone, but the fact is, there's a right way and a wrong way. Breaking the law is the wrong way."
No, breaking, or at least changing, the law is the/only/ way. Remember, we aren't slaves to the law. The law is a tool we use for our own good. When laws start becoming outdated and impinge on that it is the/laws/ that must change not us. I suppose Rosa Parks should have just given her seat up because "breaking the law is the wrong way".
"What would be really cool is if you could define ID3 tag information to be saved as part of the archive, because Napster would be able to search through that information, and it would make things a ton easier."
Is that "meta-data" I hear? Content-based associative database-like organization? I'm saying one-dimensional hierarchical filesystems should give way to associative database-driven "resource systems". That's what Wrapster and Gnutella are essentially.
I really thought Gnutella was going to be cool. I know the guys at Nullsoft can kick out some really tight code. They know what they're doing. It doesn't take long to realize that Napster is just a special case of a much more general case of distributed file sharing.
I have no sympathy for the media syndicates. There is simply NO way that they could NOT have realized that the internet would introduce an entirely new paradigm. If they didn't realize it, well they deserve what they're getting for being so stupid and unadaptable. I'm sure the original creators of the internet, of TCP/IP, the guy who started the Gutenburg project, were aware of the enormous potential and paradigm shift the internet would introduce. It introduces cheap and ubiquitous exchange of information. Media fat cats have long lived on/control/ of information. The internet is completely contrary to their whole foundation. And they will/have/ to adapt. Period. Once the dam of information control bursts you can't put the put the water back in...
I love technology. There will never be too few jobs in the computing industry. Most of our work is creating bugs. Somebody has to fix those bugs, right? And test. And do it all over again. It's a self-sustaining system. Probably doesn't even need customers. Wooo!
A future in which our own quest for knowledge and betterment, is itself a threat to our existence raises many questions about our current fundamental assumptions. Capitalism is great for the economy. It is economical Darwinism. However, evolution is a greedy optimization...the creature which is strong today dies tomorrow because it cannot adapt. This leads, in the long run, to non-optimal creatures, like, say marsupials. Always striving for local maxima will not give the best return in the long run. Capitalism is feverishly tumultuous, and conspicuously attention deficit.
Also, the possibility that mass destruction can be easily brought about with little more than knowledge, and that "verification" of relinquishment is necessary to prevent such, evokes images of "thought crimes" and a limiting of freedom. Could it be that our very hubris of universal freedom, presupposed human rights, and equality is what could eventually doom us? What is better: universal freedom and human "rights" leading to extinction, or curtailing those rights in order to avoid extinction...but in what kind of world?
It is easier, more convenient, and more enjoyable to read on paper than on a CRT. Plain and simple. End of story. As anybody knows, you can only stare at a monitor (or lcd, or whatever) so long before you start getting eye strain and migraines, etc. (due to refresh rates, glare, resolution, unnatural light spectrum, etc.). Electronic display devices are simply NOT the best thing for long duration reading. I don't care/what/ they do with the content. It will still be more convenient to read from a physical object. I'll check up on news, etc., while I'm programming, but I'm not going to read a whole damn book in front of an electron gun.
Slashdot Mirror
"3) Why 7-11?"
They have 7-11s over there? Man, I wonder if they have Arby's, BillyBobJack's, and dollar stores...or would that be yen stores?
I love this quote:
"Strict and Religious Settings
Curse Free TV's Strict setting filters out all offensive phrases, including when the names of God are used in an exclamatory way. The Religious setting, however, when viewing Christian programming, allows the names of God to come through without filtering them out."
Well, thank ---!
Shutup. You are a stupid brainwashed pedant. You are ignorant because you were born into lies. Everybody lies to you and then you lie. It is a vicious circle. Your education has made you ignorant. You are the most worthless form of human being. Just think, when the sun rises where you are it will be setting on the other side of the earth. This is because of the four corners of the cube. And you thought the world was a sphere. Just goes to show how education has made you stoopid.
Hey, I live in Ithaca, NY, 14850, and /neither/ of the PBS stations' schedules mention Code Rush. Anybody my way that knows when it's on?
Well if belief in a God alone fulfilled the wager, then everybody should believe in a God (or any God, or at least that God exists). However, most doctrines require that you actually conform to some sort of religious restrictions, so in that case it is not "free". E.g., if I want to be accepted by the Christian God I must conform to the rules of Christianity. If I want to be accepted by the Islamic God, I will have to conform to the rules of Islam. These rules more often than not conflict. So I can only hope to break even by being in some religions' Hells while in other religions' Heavans.
:)
You, know, I think I'll just take the money, the chicks, and Mr. Cox.
Ok, how is a comment on one of the alpha Geeks at a Geek Pride festival offtopic?
/more/ against firearms. I mean, if a rather high-level and self-proclaimed gun nut is explaining how thrilled he is at his potential and skill to shoot people with his gun, as a neutral party, what impression does that make about gun owners in general? Good job.
It seems to me that any "gun nut" attempting to sway over people with bad preconceptions would talk about Constitutional rights, about sporting, about responsibility, about self defense. Instead his site lauds over his ability to perform street-combat firearms maneouvers, and how good he is at blasting bullets into human figures. HUH!?? That would be exactly the WRONG impression I would want to give people. That would just make me feel
Oh, I guess you can continue and mark this as "redundant" or something...
I followed the link to esr's gun nut page. I have to say I have never seen somebody so thrilled at their ability to put "big-slow-bullet"s into human-figured target's hearts and heads.
Here is an ignorant and off the cuff question...we can "create" antimatter...does antimatter imply antigravity?
Yes I know we can't use antigravity for anything useful because it takes just as much energy to create as it is useful, but wouldn't the existence of antimatter lay ground for the existence of antigravity? Or is what we think of as "antimatter" and "antigravity" just results of mathematical formulas, instead of actual physical phenomena (i.e., we call it "antimatter" simply because it is "the thing that annihilates matter").
"Although our method could fail, at least we would have some justification in believing P or !P Unfortunately we have no such method with God. The cases are not parrallel."
Since there is absence of proof of a God, the default assumption is to not believe in the existence of God. This is not the same as believing in the non-existence of God. Most athiests (weak atheists, empirical agnostics) will happily change their opinion if evidence for the existence of God is presented.
However, with the traditional undetectable God, the real question is whether we care. Is this an "interesting" argument? What is the difference between a non-existent God, and a God which is unmeasurable and has no effect on reality? I guess the latter at least provides hope or affirmation to people who want it.
I've basically given in to the fact that Godel's incompleteness theorem allows for "unprovable" truths, which may give some room for the conception of something "greater" than the sum of physically measurable parts.
I think it is humankind's hubris, though, that we are some special thing and that the universe revolves around is. The universe doesn't give a damn about us, and our own stupidity could very well get us all exterminated. I think we should humble ourselves and realize we are really but a few specks of dust in the global scheme of things.
"Users do not need to go through a steep learning curve to use Linux at all, or even to install if they are using a modern distribution. The only learning curve applies when trying to do something fancy maintenance-wise, which is no more difficult (and usually quite a bit easier) than learning to do the same thing under Windows."
/we/ think. It matters what the user thinks.
/trained/, either explicitly in classes, or by long use, to use an /application/. Yes, they are tied to file formats because they are tied to the application they use. It takes a while to figure out what all the goddamn buttons and menus in MS Office do, or at least which ones you need. Remember, users don't give a damn about "Linux" or "Open Source", and our philosophical high ground doesn't mean a thing to a large part of them. Users want something to /use/. Something quick and easy and intuitive that lets them get their work done. If they can't do exactly what they are currently doing it is going to be seen as a pain for them. Why /should/ they move when they already have something that lets them get their work done? Converting users is more of a slow gradual and painful process, than just saying "Here is a whizbang OS with everything you need. GO!".
/strong/ reason to make them move.
/want/ more control. I think that's the myth. And we should wake up to the fact that normal users are not going to be swayed merely by technical merits they don't care about. If their system crashes once or twice a day (or week is more like it), but they can still get their work done fast and efficiently, that is a pretty good trade off. Remember, they don't care about computers for it's own sake. I think that's where we get mislead. We care about good design and implementation, about reliability and stability, because as engineers we design these systems. This dialog simply can't be one way, of us telling users how good a new system is for them. It has to be two-way...we have to /know/ what they want in the first place. If Windows or MacOS really wasn't suiting people for their purposes you'd better believe they'd be using something else. The fact is that those operation systems and applications on them do for the most part suit users perfectly fine. We should concentrate on developing and refining the missing features that users actually want and use, than lauding over technical superiority. In short, if we want users to care about Linux, we have to listen to what they actually want and then provide it for them. Linux systems can "make do"...but I think Linux has the potential for doing a lot better than just "making do".
That's bs. The plain fact is that to average users to much power is _frightening_. To much flexibility is _confusing_. A command line is _scary_. People don't _wan't_ to have so much power that they are loaded with the responsibility of not accidentally wiping things out or unrecoverably breaking their system. It doesn't help Linux at all to ignore this painful facts. It doesn't matter what
"The only learning curve applies when trying to do something fancy maintenance-wise, which is no more difficult (and usually quite a bit easier) than learning to do the same thing under Windows."
Hmmm...ok, you attempt to teach users how to configure X, keyboard bindings, and how to use a (perhaps several) new and foreign windowing systems.
"It is very rare for applications to not be present on Linux, and even rarer for them to not work properly. Users are far more married to file formats than they are applications. I have found that, without exception, when a user says "I need to have application x" what they really mean is "I need to have an application as easy to use as x, with the same capabilities and able to read and write the same file format as x," which applications are present under Linux for nearly every task these days."
Well, we'd like to think that, but I simply think that's not true. Users are
"...most users I have dealt with have preferred running dual boot machines and running Linux where possible to running windows."
I'd love to meet users like the ones you know. The ones I know don't know what dual boot is, let alone want to know, or even let anyone possible mess up their systems which they've already grown accustomed to, customized, etc. I don't mean this derogatorily either. People are comfortable with what they have and are experienced with. There has to be a
"At least this way they have more control over when and where, and for what reason, their machine is being rebooted, and the frequency of system crashes and hangs is dramatically reduced. Contrary to popular myth here, users do care about stability and reliability very, very much."
I think the _real_ myth is that with our hubris we assume that users have the same priorities and values that we do. We assume that people really care about the fundamental stability and reliability of their computers. They appreciate a well designed or elegantly implemented OS. That they actual respect this stuff, like we techies in our ivory tower do. That they actually
Man, people...the first thing I do when I see a suspicious story is go to the SOURCE.
/discussion about/ security and disclosure:
e =1268
On MozillaZine.org they have a post explaining that there is only open
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?articl
It doesn't matter how crappy Windows is from our perspective, if a user has to reboot twice a day, but still can get his work done, they will certainly use Windows over a Linux machine on which they either have to go through a steep learning curve or where the applications they use (regardless of equivalents) simply aren't present or don't work. That's the facts.
The curse of implementing a new technology first is that you're then stuck with a lot of old legacy infrastructure when new and better stuff is invented.
Isn't it just the /popular/ artists complaining about this stuff? The ones actually /making/ money from the record companies? How about those that are getting ripped off, not making any money? How about all those that are extinguished because record companies don't think they're "hip" or want to give them a chance? MP3 normalizes the field. It means both popular and unpopular artists have equal access and distribution to the populace. Of course those who are raking it in see this as a threat.
"I want the system changed as much as anyone, but the fact is, there's a right way and a wrong way. Breaking the law is the wrong way."
/only/ way. Remember, we aren't slaves to the law. The law is a tool we use for our own good. When laws start becoming outdated and impinge on that it is the /laws/ that must change not us. I suppose Rosa Parks should have just given her seat up because "breaking the law is the wrong way".
No, breaking, or at least changing, the law is the
$150/hr? $312 grand a year for installing hardware and software? Perhaps you should talk to my employer...
"What would be really cool is if you could define ID3 tag information to be saved as part of the archive, because Napster would be able to search through that information, and it would make things a ton easier."
Is that "meta-data" I hear? Content-based associative database-like organization? I'm saying one-dimensional hierarchical filesystems should give way to associative database-driven "resource systems". That's what Wrapster and Gnutella are essentially.
Wow...I guess using "paradigm" and "fat cat" in a post leads to a score of 5 :)
I really thought Gnutella was going to be cool. I know the guys at Nullsoft can kick out some really tight code. They know what they're doing. It doesn't take long to realize that Napster is just a special case of a much more general case of distributed file sharing.
/control/ of information. The internet is completely contrary to their whole foundation. And they will /have/ to adapt. Period. Once the dam of information control bursts you can't put the put the water back in...
I have no sympathy for the media syndicates. There is simply NO way that they could NOT have realized that the internet would introduce an entirely new paradigm. If they didn't realize it, well they deserve what they're getting for being so stupid and unadaptable. I'm sure the original creators of the internet, of TCP/IP, the guy who started the Gutenburg project, were aware of the enormous potential and paradigm shift the internet would introduce. It introduces cheap and ubiquitous exchange of information. Media fat cats have long lived on
I love technology. There will never be too few jobs in the computing industry. Most of our work is creating bugs. Somebody has to fix those bugs, right? And test. And do it all over again. It's a self-sustaining system. Probably doesn't even need customers. Wooo!
Seriously though:
A future in which our own quest for knowledge and betterment, is itself a threat to our existence raises many questions about our current fundamental assumptions. Capitalism is great for the economy. It is economical Darwinism. However, evolution is a greedy optimization...the creature which is strong today dies tomorrow because it cannot adapt. This leads, in the long run, to non-optimal creatures, like, say marsupials. Always striving for local maxima will not give the best return in the long run. Capitalism is feverishly tumultuous, and conspicuously attention deficit.
Also, the possibility that mass destruction can be easily brought about with little more than knowledge, and that "verification" of relinquishment is necessary to prevent such, evokes images of "thought crimes" and a limiting of freedom. Could it be that our very hubris of universal freedom, presupposed human rights, and equality is what could eventually doom us? What is better: universal freedom and human "rights" leading to extinction, or curtailing those rights in order to avoid extinction...but in what kind of world?
now if only iCraveTV would rebroadcast it...
It is easier, more convenient, and more enjoyable to read on paper than on a CRT. Plain and simple. End of story. As anybody knows, you can only stare at a monitor (or lcd, or whatever) so long before you start getting eye strain and migraines, etc. (due to refresh rates, glare, resolution, unnatural light spectrum, etc.). Electronic display devices are simply NOT the best thing for long duration reading. I don't care /what/ they do with the content. It will still be more convenient to read from a physical object. I'll check up on news, etc., while I'm programming, but I'm not going to read a whole damn book in front of an electron gun.