This is beyond just having a new stylesheet, but I think it would be pretty simple: can we get the year in the date for posts? Occasionally, I'll go through/.'s archives, or come up with something in Google, and oftentimes I have no idea how current that story is. I dunno-- maybe this is just a preference setting. Anyone know how to turn this on?
Wow, governments have some worthwhile functions after all! Time to pick a new political philosophy out of Wikipedia so you can tell everyone at/. about it with every fucking post.
If I recall, the typical rate for a major studio-produced album was somewhere in the $100k ballpark, which, while very expensive to many of us, is a drop in the bucket to the majors. And there are two other things working in their favor: artists sign contracts that pledge to recoup those expenditures that the label makes-- usually the labels take this out of the artist's measly 1% cut of the MSRP. And if an artist does not sell enough to make that happen (which means they sell less than 'gold', typically), the label can count that production (and many other costs) as a loss when they file their taxes. The label wins both ways.
Next time you visit the U.S., go someplace suburban or rural and then ask for walking directions. They'll think you're a pervert! While I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, I would often ask for walking directions, and although I occasionally got some very helpful answers, most of the time people were taken aback or even offended. I suppose it didn't help that I was pretty stinky as well...
I thought one of the more interesting cultural disconnects was the fact that city/suburb dwellers in both the North and the South acted this way, while it was typically the rural folk (aka, redneck, hick, and so forth...) who were perfectly nice and helpful. In rural Appalachia, people offered me rides without me asking. In the North, you could see the look of horror on their faces as they swerved to avoid my deadly, stinky hitchiker thumb. Oh yeah, and in the North, hitchhiking is illegal. WTF?! (Disclaimer: I am a northerner living in Boston)
I attempted to find a route to ride my bike a measly four miles to work. Forget about it. I would die under the wheels of some irritated middle-aged woman who is drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, and talking on her cellphone. Not to mention the tunnels, highway overpasses, etc. Pedestrians aren't even an afterthought.
You seem to have failed to notice that the list of disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders changes, somewhat dramatically, over time. One could give the explanation that better science yields a better diagnosis, but that fails to account for things like homosexuality, which, according to Wikipedia, was considered a mental illness in DSM-II. So clearly, what constitutes a "mental disorder" also takes into account that which is socially acceptable, whether the psychology establishment realizes it or not.
The idea of "normality" is simply a logical extension of this. Those with "bipolar disorder" are often prescribed medication that "evens out" the intensity of their mood swings. For some people, this is desirable, others-- and I've heard this complaint before from people taking these medications-- consider their heights and their lows an integral part of their personality. People who have had the term "genius" attributed to them often exhibit "mental illness", because they are not "normal". I think we need to be very careful about medicating the next Einstein, or Bach. I'm of the opinion that "normality" is a myth, and a dangerous one. As a society, do we even want everyone to be "normal"?
I'm with pipingguy. If these people aren't hurting anyone, and they don't want "treatment", why medicate them? So you can feel better about having them around?
Re:There's a reason why retro games are popular...
on
Retro Gaming Hacks
·
· Score: 1
Ditto, although I was also a big fan of Nethergate. Funny how my friends would sneer, "the graphics on that game suck!" They didn't know what they were missing.
There's a reason why retro games are popular...
on
Retro Gaming Hacks
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
... and I doubt that it's because "retro" is "in". Back in the day, we always wanted better graphics, etc. But the thing that kept us coming back to those games was gameplay.
I believe that the vast majority of games nowadays-- the mindless shooters-- are so popular because, well, most people are mindless. If you want a great, absorbing game, take a look at the classics: Rogue (and its text-based bretheren), SimCity, Civilization (shit, ANY game from Sid Meier), Myst, Spaceward Ho! and a whole slew of great shareware from the 80's and 90's. I'm sure I missed a bunch. Anyway, there's a big reason I keep coming back to Spiderweb Software and Ambrosia Software's stuff, despite the lack of state-of-the-art graphics: these are great games. When you didn't have graphics, you had to rely on imaginative worlds and gameplay to sell a game.
You leave out the most important part about Mozart's composing for money: he lived beyond his means. From Wikipedia:
Because he was buried in a pauper's grave, it has been popularly assumed that Mozart was penniless and forgotten when he died. In fact, though he was no longer as fashionable in Vienna as before, he continued to have a well-paid job at court and receive substantial commissions from more distant parts of Europe, Prague in particular (citation needed). He earned about 10,000 florins per year, equivalent to at least 42,000 US dollars in 2006, which places him within the top 5 percent of late 18th century wage earners, but he could not manage his own wealth. His mother wrote, "When Wolfgang makes new acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property to them." His impulsive largesse and spending often put him in the position of having to ask others for loans. Many of his begging letters survive but they are evidence not so much of poverty as of his habit of spending more than he earned. He was not buried in a "mass grave" but in a regular communal grave according to the 1784 laws.
Copyright, as the money-making machine it is today, did not exist in Mozart's time (at least not in Europe-- the modern conception of copyright stems from UK law). Copyright may have existed informally, but unless I'm mistaken, it was not a part of law. Despite that Mozart make quite a good living from his music. Additionally, it was quite common-- and acceptable-- to compose "variations" on another composer's work. This practice is briefly mentioned in the quasi-fictional movie, Amadeus. But derivative works, though still technically permissible, are not often undertaken due to a threat of lawsuit and, from what I gather, not smiled upon by courts.
But using Mozart's case to support an argument about modern times is pointless anyhow-- in the 18th century, you're talking about sheet music and a vast underclass that has little interest in copying it. Today, we have a huge population with disposible incomes and high-quality recordings that can be distributed at virtually no cost. The dynamics are quite different.
Here's to hoping that the price of gas increases sharply enough to seriously discourage purchases of SUVs, but not so sharply as to cause an economic crisis. Although, I wonder, what with politicians naming every potential vote-earning issue a 'crisis', if gas prices really would cause one...
I wear Proclear Compatibles, and they are a VAST improvement on the lenses I was wearing before (some kind of AcuVue lenses). I've been wearing contacts since I was 14 (I'm 27 now). I will typically wear these lenses for 14-18 hours, and only toward the end will I notice the "dry eyes" problem that used to plague me. Also, these lenses are vastly more gas permeable than my previous lenses-- before, my eyes would be extremely red and irritated. This doesn't happen anymore.
I was told by an optometrist that there are cheaper (non Proclear) versions of these lenses available now, but since my insurance covers my Proclear lenses nearly entirely, I'm not particularly motivated to switch. I'm just holding out until my girlfriend finishes her optometry degree. I'd better be getting some free lenses or else that free tech support for the family will be drying up pretty quickly;^)
All you need now is the robot car driving itself in and out of the driveway and the proxy teenager sneaking out of the house at ungodly hours, and it'll be perfect.
To add to your comments, the only theater experiences I've been really satisfied with are the small art-house theaters I find around universities. They offer something of value to me: they say, "Hey, this foreign film or obscure movie not available in your video store is worth seeing! Come check it out!" They also tend to have more reasonable ticket prices, have better concessions (you can get weird European candy at the Pleasant St. Theater in Northampton, MA), and you also tend to run into people who enjoy a quality film, thus making it more of a social activity than typical theatergoing. When I walk out of one of the megaplexes, I'm usually thinking to myself "What a waste of $20! I should have waited for Netflix!"
Instead, hook up this device to electrodes in the audience. Instant attention! This would work wonders in high school algebra classes! Who cares if I know someone's bored-- let's eliminate boredom altogether!
I think many people see an apparent contradiction between 'cultural relativism' and morality. While the predomainant thinking in social science may say "your beliefs are relative to your own culture", that does not mean that morality itself is vapid. I think we can recognize that while a belief system may be rooted in tradition, that does not mean that those roots are not also pragmatic. Furthermore, it does not follow that it is not valid for a culture to judge itself better than another culture based on its own criteria.
Your example of fundamental Islam vs. Western democracy is a good one, and I see no reason why we should accept practices like the subordination of women, religious intolerance, etc, just because we know, in the grand scheme of things, that those beliefs are the product of our own [Western] culture.
Sometimes one wonders how Microsoft maintains it's customer base in the face of these kinds of security problems. It's truly scary. And I don't need a refresher in the market forces at work.
Here's why: nearly every day, when I come into work, I have a request from a user to "enable IE" for them. See, in our office, we've locked down IE (using privoxy) so that it can only go to certain, "approved", sites. Users usually want to use something like MSN Video, which will not run on anything but IE, and, despite the fact that this isn't really important stuff for work, I don't blame them for being angry about it not working. I explain calmly that if I were to allow IE across the board, I wouldn't have time to do other things, like set up that shiny new printer for you, or give you access that that spiffy new intranet server, etc-- I would be removing spyware from your machine. They usually see it my way (or at least pretend to) in the end.
Microsoft has too much control of the market, and so "market forces" just don't work the same way.
I'd love to switch the company off of MS, but we're firmly tied in: MS Exchange, intranet sites that require ActiveX, Windows-only database software, etc. It's a joke, because there's no reason why we can't be doing the same things on a better platform, but people get used to a software monoculture and make business decisions based on that environment. I think of myself as the voice of reason, but I think I'm probably more widely perceived as an irritating shithead.
When I came on to this company, they already had a well-established MS install base. I'm convinced that the easiest way to break free is to literally start a new company.
Anyhow, that's how MS has the marketshare they do.
I worked with a consultant recently who had previously been a member of Microsoft's Exchange corporate support department. He said that if there was a suspected bug in a product, you needed to track down the affected software modules first, and then you would submit reports to the appropriate Microsoft working groups (programmers) who would track down and fix the bug. He said each working group's knowledge was highly specialized (their expertise was on the DLL level). So specialized, in fact, that he often had the programmers call him back to ask him what the other modules were for.
I'm not a Microsoft programmer, but the scrapping of huge chunks of code seems crazy to me, and I suspect that it is a big source of bugs. Why aren't they doing incremental rewrites? 60%? That number makes it sound like big-time architectural problems.
It really depends on where you work. The last place I was at (state-run) had virtually no chance of advancement unless someone died or retired. The place I work now has already promoted me since I started, and I've gotten annual pay raises and bonuses. And I get more vacation time. The trade-off is that I work harder, but my job is much more stimulating. If I were in the same situation as I was in before, I would have left by now, but I see no reason to leave. You've got to call it as you see it.
Or you could a BSD, like OpenBSD, which has support for a huge number of wireless cards out of the box, and one utility, ifconfig, to manage both wired and wireless connections. You can even do ingress and egress filtering using pf (also out of the box) so that you only need to write your rules once for multiple NICs. And, of course, if you've ever liked Gentoo's ports collection, you'll love OpenBSD's.
Slashdot Mirror
This is beyond just having a new stylesheet, but I think it would be pretty simple: can we get the year in the date for posts? Occasionally, I'll go through /.'s archives, or come up with something in Google, and oftentimes I have no idea how current that story is. I dunno-- maybe this is just a preference setting. Anyone know how to turn this on?
until you become a programmer, and then everything is strikingly non-obvious.
Wow, governments have some worthwhile functions after all! Time to pick a new political philosophy out of Wikipedia so you can tell everyone at /. about it with every fucking post.
If I recall, the typical rate for a major studio-produced album was somewhere in the $100k ballpark, which, while very expensive to many of us, is a drop in the bucket to the majors. And there are two other things working in their favor: artists sign contracts that pledge to recoup those expenditures that the label makes-- usually the labels take this out of the artist's measly 1% cut of the MSRP. And if an artist does not sell enough to make that happen (which means they sell less than 'gold', typically), the label can count that production (and many other costs) as a loss when they file their taxes. The label wins both ways.
I thought one of the more interesting cultural disconnects was the fact that city/suburb dwellers in both the North and the South acted this way, while it was typically the rural folk (aka, redneck, hick, and so forth...) who were perfectly nice and helpful. In rural Appalachia, people offered me rides without me asking. In the North, you could see the look of horror on their faces as they swerved to avoid my deadly, stinky hitchiker thumb. Oh yeah, and in the North, hitchhiking is illegal. WTF?! (Disclaimer: I am a northerner living in Boston)
I attempted to find a route to ride my bike a measly four miles to work. Forget about it. I would die under the wheels of some irritated middle-aged woman who is drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, and talking on her cellphone. Not to mention the tunnels, highway overpasses, etc. Pedestrians aren't even an afterthought.
The idea of "normality" is simply a logical extension of this. Those with "bipolar disorder" are often prescribed medication that "evens out" the intensity of their mood swings. For some people, this is desirable, others-- and I've heard this complaint before from people taking these medications-- consider their heights and their lows an integral part of their personality. People who have had the term "genius" attributed to them often exhibit "mental illness", because they are not "normal". I think we need to be very careful about medicating the next Einstein, or Bach. I'm of the opinion that "normality" is a myth, and a dangerous one. As a society, do we even want everyone to be "normal"?
I'm with pipingguy. If these people aren't hurting anyone, and they don't want "treatment", why medicate them? So you can feel better about having them around?
Ditto, although I was also a big fan of Nethergate. Funny how my friends would sneer, "the graphics on that game suck!" They didn't know what they were missing.
I believe that the vast majority of games nowadays-- the mindless shooters-- are so popular because, well, most people are mindless. If you want a great, absorbing game, take a look at the classics: Rogue (and its text-based bretheren), SimCity, Civilization (shit, ANY game from Sid Meier), Myst, Spaceward Ho! and a whole slew of great shareware from the 80's and 90's. I'm sure I missed a bunch. Anyway, there's a big reason I keep coming back to Spiderweb Software and Ambrosia Software's stuff, despite the lack of state-of-the-art graphics: these are great games. When you didn't have graphics, you had to rely on imaginative worlds and gameplay to sell a game.
Are you f***ing serious? A billion-dollar game and they're not multihomed?
Would you like a definition for "DNS" while we're at it? How about "computer"?
Copyright, as the money-making machine it is today, did not exist in Mozart's time (at least not in Europe-- the modern conception of copyright stems from UK law). Copyright may have existed informally, but unless I'm mistaken, it was not a part of law. Despite that Mozart make quite a good living from his music. Additionally, it was quite common-- and acceptable-- to compose "variations" on another composer's work. This practice is briefly mentioned in the quasi-fictional movie, Amadeus. But derivative works, though still technically permissible, are not often undertaken due to a threat of lawsuit and, from what I gather, not smiled upon by courts.
But using Mozart's case to support an argument about modern times is pointless anyhow-- in the 18th century, you're talking about sheet music and a vast underclass that has little interest in copying it. Today, we have a huge population with disposible incomes and high-quality recordings that can be distributed at virtually no cost. The dynamics are quite different.
Here's to hoping that the price of gas increases sharply enough to seriously discourage purchases of SUVs, but not so sharply as to cause an economic crisis. Although, I wonder, what with politicians naming every potential vote-earning issue a 'crisis', if gas prices really would cause one...
I was told by an optometrist that there are cheaper (non Proclear) versions of these lenses available now, but since my insurance covers my Proclear lenses nearly entirely, I'm not particularly motivated to switch. I'm just holding out until my girlfriend finishes her optometry degree. I'd better be getting some free lenses or else that free tech support for the family will be drying up pretty quickly ;^)
All you need now is the robot car driving itself in and out of the driveway and the proxy teenager sneaking out of the house at ungodly hours, and it'll be perfect.
Or the X10 stuff he already has and is happy with.
To add to your comments, the only theater experiences I've been really satisfied with are the small art-house theaters I find around universities. They offer something of value to me: they say, "Hey, this foreign film or obscure movie not available in your video store is worth seeing! Come check it out!" They also tend to have more reasonable ticket prices, have better concessions (you can get weird European candy at the Pleasant St. Theater in Northampton, MA), and you also tend to run into people who enjoy a quality film, thus making it more of a social activity than typical theatergoing. When I walk out of one of the megaplexes, I'm usually thinking to myself "What a waste of $20! I should have waited for Netflix!"
Instead, hook up this device to electrodes in the audience. Instant attention! This would work wonders in high school algebra classes! Who cares if I know someone's bored-- let's eliminate boredom altogether!
Why are you reading /. if you can't find enjoyment in obscure jokes? Fucking lighten up, man. Read this and realize that I was agreeing with you.
Interviewer: Goodnight, ding-ding-ding-ding-ding.
Your example of fundamental Islam vs. Western democracy is a good one, and I see no reason why we should accept practices like the subordination of women, religious intolerance, etc, just because we know, in the grand scheme of things, that those beliefs are the product of our own [Western] culture.
Well, ESR is fond of shooting in general.
Here's why: nearly every day, when I come into work, I have a request from a user to "enable IE" for them. See, in our office, we've locked down IE (using privoxy) so that it can only go to certain, "approved", sites. Users usually want to use something like MSN Video, which will not run on anything but IE, and, despite the fact that this isn't really important stuff for work, I don't blame them for being angry about it not working. I explain calmly that if I were to allow IE across the board, I wouldn't have time to do other things, like set up that shiny new printer for you, or give you access that that spiffy new intranet server, etc-- I would be removing spyware from your machine. They usually see it my way (or at least pretend to) in the end.
Microsoft has too much control of the market, and so "market forces" just don't work the same way.
I'd love to switch the company off of MS, but we're firmly tied in: MS Exchange, intranet sites that require ActiveX, Windows-only database software, etc. It's a joke, because there's no reason why we can't be doing the same things on a better platform, but people get used to a software monoculture and make business decisions based on that environment. I think of myself as the voice of reason, but I think I'm probably more widely perceived as an irritating shithead.
When I came on to this company, they already had a well-established MS install base. I'm convinced that the easiest way to break free is to literally start a new company.
Anyhow, that's how MS has the marketshare they do.
I'm not a Microsoft programmer, but the scrapping of huge chunks of code seems crazy to me, and I suspect that it is a big source of bugs. Why aren't they doing incremental rewrites? 60%? That number makes it sound like big-time architectural problems.
It really depends on where you work. The last place I was at (state-run) had virtually no chance of advancement unless someone died or retired. The place I work now has already promoted me since I started, and I've gotten annual pay raises and bonuses. And I get more vacation time. The trade-off is that I work harder, but my job is much more stimulating. If I were in the same situation as I was in before, I would have left by now, but I see no reason to leave. You've got to call it as you see it.
Or you could a BSD, like OpenBSD, which has support for a huge number of wireless cards out of the box, and one utility, ifconfig, to manage both wired and wireless connections. You can even do ingress and egress filtering using pf (also out of the box) so that you only need to write your rules once for multiple NICs. And, of course, if you've ever liked Gentoo's ports collection, you'll love OpenBSD's.