I disagree. Alcoholism or overuse of alcohol is due to a deeper problem that has nothing to do with alcohol itself. Alcohol is just an easy way of applying a band aid to the problem that a person chooses not to deal with.
Yeah I'm running a 2.80 GHZ Prescott processcor in a solid case with good airflow. There are only two fans in my machine but it runs below 40C. Granted I don't run tons of shit and when I do play games the fan on the CPU revs up a lot more but if it's just running basic stuff it's quiet as can be.
The problem with that is fundamental to all religious beliefs is the notion of "faith" that removes the requiste of faith from the spiritual practice. I am by no means an expert nor do I pretend to be the man with the answers but based upon my own emperical experiences of the world I would argue that religions power exists through fatih. Without faith religion is no different than any other institution.
That really doesn't have any validity to the discussion at hand so mod me down all you want:)
Re:Gladwell Interview at espn.com
on
Blink
·
· Score: 1
I've actually read the book and I believe Galdwell addresses many of your concerns throughout the book. The point Gladwell is attempting to make is that from an evolutionary standpoint, our ability to make accurate snap judgments on a situation that we have some level experience is what has allowed for our species to survive millions of years. That is not to say it's infalliable, rather to say that there is a basis for trusting our snap judgments.
Galdwell devotes a lot of time to tracking people who are well versed in a field and their initial judgments versus people who are not at all versed in a specific field. A good GM on a baseball team can use the statistical information to create a basic understanding of the players potential but there has to be room for the GM to be able to say "Look, I feel something more is going on here beyond the stats...".
Galdwell is just attempting to open the subconcious minds ability to make decisions to be explored. He is not advocating that people only use snap judgements. I felt the book was a very interesting and thought provoking read myself...
Seriously/.er's... get off this Windows sucks security binge. If Windows XP is set up correctly, it is a fairly safe operating system. So often people forget that if Linux held a 90% market share there would be a great deal many more exploits for the Linux OS. No one spends the time looking for the mistakes, at least not like they do for Windows, there's no money in it.
I'm not saying Microsoft is perfect about it but I am saying I'm happy with Windows XP SP2. It gets the job done. It's not perfect and I will be switching to a Mac in the next six to eighteen months but XP w/ SP2 is tolerable.
I feel bad for a company like Strat-O-Matic Baseball which has been making a baseball simulation, first as a board game and later on the computer, for nearly 40 years. The computer simulation is probably the most complex baseball simulation out there and it produces a fairly accurate depiction relative to the events of the year. Too bad there a small company focusing on a niche market, I imagine they're about to get screwed:(
I was always under the impression that the reason that Apple locked up its format was directly related to the RIAA. By locking the format down they somewhat appease the RIAA because sharing and moving the music becomes a great deal more difficult. The irony is, most/.ers can probably get around this bullshit anyhow. All you have to do is hop on google and do some searching and you can come across software that will convert the closed format in to the open format and then convert the apple format to mp3's etc. You can also do it with that apple movie software and ripping the soundstream... it's not impossible but you definately need some geek skillz.
Uh maybe you know of some fancy conversion ratios that make 20km/hour more than 500miles/hour but I sure as hell don't;). Now if by outrun you mean they realize that shit was about to hit the fan and they got the fuck out of dodge, that's different but if you see the wave and you're not high up on something, doesn't much matter who you are or how fast you are... you're fucked:)
Hahaha this somewhat reminds of my days in high school when I worked at a computer store. Some woman called up interested in buying a computer and she gave me a ridiculously low price range (like $300). I asked her if she was willing to pay any more than that to which she responded no. I told her that there wasn't really a machine we could build her for three hundred bones (this was before the major motherboard companies started releasing boards that basically have everything you'd need onboard so you still had to go buy a soundcard, a nic etc etc). I told her for three hundred dollars the only thing she'd really be able to afford was one of those piece of shit e-Machines, but I didn't recommend them because they sucked. She said she'd think about it and come back... whatever no skin off my back.
Three months later we get a phone call from this woman and she is irate because the computer she bought is terrible. Customers are fucking stupid, they hear what they want to hear and do what they want to do and then blame sales people for not being able to give them a quality product at $300. What it comes down to is people get what they pay for...
I never felt that Wikipedia was meant to be used more as a starting point for information. I think that's exactly why it's such a wonderful resource. It gives me the opportunity to have access to a bunch of different perspectives on a topic, some of which may be wrong, and then have a starting point for my own research and knowledge. If, for instance, I was writing a paper on how Kirkegaard (Sorry I was a philosophy major) along with World War I and World War II, layed the foundation for existentialism. I'd use Wikipedia to learn more about Kirkegaard's life and his work and to find various perspectives on what he was about but I would not use it as even a secondary source. It'd merely be a starting point, in the end I'd want to go to peer-reviewed articles and the work of Kirkegaard and existentialists to make that connection.
Wikipedia just wasn't meant to be one-stop shopping, it's designed to show you some paths and let you run down them. And I think that's really good because what is the modern research behind the Children's Crusade of 1212 is wrong and one of the alternative perspectives is right (No I'm not suggesting this, I'm just presenting a hypothetical situation) then wikipedia would be promoting people to persue other potential avenues of truth.
Actually it's not an imaginary model. It's a german company that basically buys a Porsche shell and puts all their own shit in it. There very expensive and more powerful then porsches.
If you enjoy RPG's I suggest Gladius made by Lucas Arts. Intellectually engaging combat-RPG with a story that is at least interesting enough. Good game...
C'mon now, this whole fatalistic "I sincerely hope we're not at the brink of self inflicted globabl destruction" is utter nonsense. I'm not saying global warming isn't real, I'm just say it's very arrogant to assume that we have the capicity to "Destroy" this planet with our fossil fuel consumption.
We could destroy humanity, that is within the scope of our power, but this planet and organisms on this planet will continue to exist long after we're gone. The dinosaurs came and went and so will we, that's just how these things go... so let's stop this sky is falling crap. We're just a blip on the radar, can we mess some things up? Sure but unless we decide to nuke the whole planet I think life will continue to thrive on earth regardless of what we do and even if we did go Mad Max I think life would still find a way to survive, that's just how it goes...
Actually on my TiVo box I can specify if I want to start recording a show X-number of minutes early or late and if I want it to run long, etc. So maybe you're running an old box or maybe you don't know how to use your TiVo;)
According to aguy in a barber shop in South Central, a potatoe works well for a single shot... you can take that with a grain of salt, never tried it myself... merely overheard the conversation while getting my haircut.
Another number I heard which I imagine scales similarly is about 5 hydrogen atoms for every cubic foot of space. At that point there would be enough mass in the universe for it start contracting... at least that's what Brian Greene said in The Elegant Universe... interesting read if you're in to string theory.
Excellent point, the world will continue to turn regardless of who wins the election. The fact of the matter is this election really is between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwhich. Unfortantely, it's almost always between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwhich and I suppose that is something that I need to come to accept.
I've become cynical towards the American political system because I don't feel like they really care what I think or what would be best for the people. I've become apathetic and could just careless, they're both going to do some things right and some things wrong. One may piss the rest of the world off waving his texas flag while the other will back down from tough situations. Niether approach is better, just different.
So I didn't vote. I didn't not vote as a protest against the system or trying to express my distaste for the candidates. I choose not to vote because I don't give a flying fuck. One is as good as another and niether are worth an hour and a half of my day to vote for, I guess Puffy is going to come kill me now.
Please excuse my troll but I'm absolutely sick of/.er's constantly attacking Microsoft and expounding the virtues of Linux. Although I have no hard evidence to suggest the following, it is my conclusion based on my understanding of human nature. The reason that Linux virii don't run loose in the wild is people have no reason to create virii for Linux. 90% of people are on Microsoft systems (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/999634/p osts) thus people with malicious intent scour microsoft products for exploits. Malware/Adware has become a big business and finding exploits helps to facilitate that business. Such a small percentage of people use Linux that there is no reason for people to find exploits, I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with them not being there.
This all being said, I have no problem with Linux. I tool around with it at home, but as an IT Professional I know it is NOT the solution to my companies problems. A great deal of software we use is not compatible with it and our clients software is not compatible with it either. Simply changing the Colorado DMV over to Linux would be a TERRIBLE solution. Although the OS would cost no money, the money it'd cost to build appropriate software, train employees and transfers all the systems over to the new systems would be ASTRONOMICAL.
All you slashdotters are WAY too gung-ho on linux. Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of problems with Windows but the DMV is probably running some software that DOES NOT EXIST FOR LINUX. So, they could A) PAY someone to develop the software or B) Work with what they have.
I work in IT, and viruses don't cripple our system because we properly protect it. MIGHT linux be a better solution? Who am I to say, but I do know that we have machines still running NT. Not because we want them to but because software that is used, where the company is no longer in business but is essential for our business will not run on WinNT.
Linux doesn't solve all the problems, it merely makes certain things easier.
Jane Boxwine should spend $399 buying one of those Dell machines that come preloaded with XP home edition.
Most people would not drive a car that puts them at risk on the road, it is no different with a computer. By using a windows 98 OS you're making yourself vulnerable to a plethora of attacks, some of which could cost you a great deal of money. So does she need a 1.4 GHZ celeron to run the software that she'll run, save the OS? Nope she doesn't, but in my mind it's worth the money for the added security. And anyone who says XP can't be secure, it's only not secure if you don't set it up right. Is it perfect? Nah but it is good enough to stop most things.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree. Alcoholism or overuse of alcohol is due to a deeper problem that has nothing to do with alcohol itself. Alcohol is just an easy way of applying a band aid to the problem that a person chooses not to deal with.
Yeah I'm running a 2.80 GHZ Prescott processcor in a solid case with good airflow. There are only two fans in my machine but it runs below 40C. Granted I don't run tons of shit and when I do play games the fan on the CPU revs up a lot more but if it's just running basic stuff it's quiet as can be.
A bad ass server for what? Half-Life 2? Enterprise class equipment is in a completely different ballbark than the shit you're thinking about.
The problem with that is fundamental to all religious beliefs is the notion of "faith" that removes the requiste of faith from the spiritual practice. I am by no means an expert nor do I pretend to be the man with the answers but based upon my own emperical experiences of the world I would argue that religions power exists through fatih. Without faith religion is no different than any other institution.
:)
That really doesn't have any validity to the discussion at hand so mod me down all you want
I've actually read the book and I believe Galdwell addresses many of your concerns throughout the book. The point Gladwell is attempting to make is that from an evolutionary standpoint, our ability to make accurate snap judgments on a situation that we have some level experience is what has allowed for our species to survive millions of years. That is not to say it's infalliable, rather to say that there is a basis for trusting our snap judgments.
...
Galdwell devotes a lot of time to tracking people who are well versed in a field and their initial judgments versus people who are not at all versed in a specific field. A good GM on a baseball team can use the statistical information to create a basic understanding of the players potential but there has to be room for the GM to be able to say "Look, I feel something more is going on here beyond the stats...".
Galdwell is just attempting to open the subconcious minds ability to make decisions to be explored. He is not advocating that people only use snap judgements. I felt the book was a very interesting and thought provoking read myself
Actually my iShuffle integrated seamlessly with Windows XP ... oh wait that's Apple again!
Seriously /.er's ... get off this Windows sucks security binge. If Windows XP is set up correctly, it is a fairly safe operating system. So often people forget that if Linux held a 90% market share there would be a great deal many more exploits for the Linux OS. No one spends the time looking for the mistakes, at least not like they do for Windows, there's no money in it.
I'm not saying Microsoft is perfect about it but I am saying I'm happy with Windows XP SP2. It gets the job done. It's not perfect and I will be switching to a Mac in the next six to eighteen months but XP w/ SP2 is tolerable.
I feel bad for a company like Strat-O-Matic Baseball which has been making a baseball simulation, first as a board game and later on the computer, for nearly 40 years. The computer simulation is probably the most complex baseball simulation out there and it produces a fairly accurate depiction relative to the events of the year. Too bad there a small company focusing on a niche market, I imagine they're about to get screwed :(
I was always under the impression that the reason that Apple locked up its format was directly related to the RIAA. By locking the format down they somewhat appease the RIAA because sharing and moving the music becomes a great deal more difficult. The irony is, most /.ers can probably get around this bullshit anyhow. All you have to do is hop on google and do some searching and you can come across software that will convert the closed format in to the open format and then convert the apple format to mp3's etc. You can also do it with that apple movie software and ripping the soundstream ... it's not impossible but you definately need some geek skillz.
Uh maybe you know of some fancy conversion ratios that make 20km/hour more than 500miles/hour but I sure as hell don't ;). Now if by outrun you mean they realize that shit was about to hit the fan and they got the fuck out of dodge, that's different but if you see the wave and you're not high up on something, doesn't much matter who you are or how fast you are ... you're fucked :)
Hahaha this somewhat reminds of my days in high school when I worked at a computer store. Some woman called up interested in buying a computer and she gave me a ridiculously low price range (like $300). I asked her if she was willing to pay any more than that to which she responded no. I told her that there wasn't really a machine we could build her for three hundred bones (this was before the major motherboard companies started releasing boards that basically have everything you'd need onboard so you still had to go buy a soundcard, a nic etc etc). I told her for three hundred dollars the only thing she'd really be able to afford was one of those piece of shit e-Machines, but I didn't recommend them because they sucked. She said she'd think about it and come back ... whatever no skin off my back.
...
Three months later we get a phone call from this woman and she is irate because the computer she bought is terrible. Customers are fucking stupid, they hear what they want to hear and do what they want to do and then blame sales people for not being able to give them a quality product at $300. What it comes down to is people get what they pay for
I never felt that Wikipedia was meant to be used more as a starting point for information. I think that's exactly why it's such a wonderful resource. It gives me the opportunity to have access to a bunch of different perspectives on a topic, some of which may be wrong, and then have a starting point for my own research and knowledge. If, for instance, I was writing a paper on how Kirkegaard (Sorry I was a philosophy major) along with World War I and World War II, layed the foundation for existentialism. I'd use Wikipedia to learn more about Kirkegaard's life and his work and to find various perspectives on what he was about but I would not use it as even a secondary source. It'd merely be a starting point, in the end I'd want to go to peer-reviewed articles and the work of Kirkegaard and existentialists to make that connection.
Wikipedia just wasn't meant to be one-stop shopping, it's designed to show you some paths and let you run down them. And I think that's really good because what is the modern research behind the Children's Crusade of 1212 is wrong and one of the alternative perspectives is right (No I'm not suggesting this, I'm just presenting a hypothetical situation) then wikipedia would be promoting people to persue other potential avenues of truth.
Actually this has been in the works since the middle of the summer, there was even an article on slashdot about it.
Actually it's not an imaginary model. It's a german company that basically buys a Porsche shell and puts all their own shit in it. There very expensive and more powerful then porsches.
If you enjoy RPG's I suggest Gladius made by Lucas Arts. Intellectually engaging combat-RPG with a story that is at least interesting enough. Good game ...
C'mon now, this whole fatalistic "I sincerely hope we're not at the brink of self inflicted globabl destruction" is utter nonsense. I'm not saying global warming isn't real, I'm just say it's very arrogant to assume that we have the capicity to "Destroy" this planet with our fossil fuel consumption.
... so let's stop this sky is falling crap. We're just a blip on the radar, can we mess some things up? Sure but unless we decide to nuke the whole planet I think life will continue to thrive on earth regardless of what we do and even if we did go Mad Max I think life would still find a way to survive, that's just how it goes ...
We could destroy humanity, that is within the scope of our power, but this planet and organisms on this planet will continue to exist long after we're gone. The dinosaurs came and went and so will we, that's just how these things go
Actually on my TiVo box I can specify if I want to start recording a show X-number of minutes early or late and if I want it to run long, etc. So maybe you're running an old box or maybe you don't know how to use your TiVo ;)
According to aguy in a barber shop in South Central, a potatoe works well for a single shot ... you can take that with a grain of salt, never tried it myself ... merely overheard the conversation while getting my haircut.
C'mon now, we're Americans we don't have to think about the rest of the world ;)
Another number I heard which I imagine scales similarly is about 5 hydrogen atoms for every cubic foot of space. At that point there would be enough mass in the universe for it start contracting ... at least that's what Brian Greene said in The Elegant Universe ... interesting read if you're in to string theory.
Excellent point, the world will continue to turn regardless of who wins the election. The fact of the matter is this election really is between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwhich. Unfortantely, it's almost always between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwhich and I suppose that is something that I need to come to accept.
I've become cynical towards the American political system because I don't feel like they really care what I think or what would be best for the people. I've become apathetic and could just careless, they're both going to do some things right and some things wrong. One may piss the rest of the world off waving his texas flag while the other will back down from tough situations. Niether approach is better, just different.
So I didn't vote. I didn't not vote as a protest against the system or trying to express my distaste for the candidates. I choose not to vote because I don't give a flying fuck. One is as good as another and niether are worth an hour and a half of my day to vote for, I guess Puffy is going to come kill me now.
Please excuse my troll but I'm absolutely sick of /.er's constantly attacking Microsoft and expounding the virtues of Linux. Although I have no hard evidence to suggest the following, it is my conclusion based on my understanding of human nature. The reason that Linux virii don't run loose in the wild is people have no reason to create virii for Linux. 90% of people are on Microsoft systems (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/999634/p osts) thus people with malicious intent scour microsoft products for exploits. Malware/Adware has become a big business and finding exploits helps to facilitate that business. Such a small percentage of people use Linux that there is no reason for people to find exploits, I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with them not being there.
This all being said, I have no problem with Linux. I tool around with it at home, but as an IT Professional I know it is NOT the solution to my companies problems. A great deal of software we use is not compatible with it and our clients software is not compatible with it either. Simply changing the Colorado DMV over to Linux would be a TERRIBLE solution. Although the OS would cost no money, the money it'd cost to build appropriate software, train employees and transfers all the systems over to the new systems would be ASTRONOMICAL.
Linux is great, but it's not the holy grail.
All you slashdotters are WAY too gung-ho on linux. Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of problems with Windows but the DMV is probably running some software that DOES NOT EXIST FOR LINUX. So, they could A) PAY someone to develop the software or B) Work with what they have.
:-p
I work in IT, and viruses don't cripple our system because we properly protect it. MIGHT linux be a better solution? Who am I to say, but I do know that we have machines still running NT. Not because we want them to but because software that is used, where the company is no longer in business but is essential for our business will not run on WinNT.
Linux doesn't solve all the problems, it merely makes certain things easier.
The emperor has no clothes
Not to mention the fact that Adobe Acrobate Standard edition is going to run you $200.
Jane Boxwine should spend $399 buying one of those Dell machines that come preloaded with XP home edition.
Most people would not drive a car that puts them at risk on the road, it is no different with a computer. By using a windows 98 OS you're making yourself vulnerable to a plethora of attacks, some of which could cost you a great deal of money. So does she need a 1.4 GHZ celeron to run the software that she'll run, save the OS? Nope she doesn't, but in my mind it's worth the money for the added security. And anyone who says XP can't be secure, it's only not secure if you don't set it up right. Is it perfect? Nah but it is good enough to stop most things.