Wow, what an insightful statement. So what you're saying is all smart people would rather sell their souls, drive SUV, produce poison and generally exhaust the planet. If that is your definition of smart, yipee. And like being smart means your automatically better? Or that being smart automatically means you're going to be rich and successful? It doesn't takes a Phd in physics to become a rich person. In fact most technically brilliant people are poor. Why? Because they realize there is more to life than accumulate piles of cash, treating other people as inferiors and generally being an eletist ass.
Ballmer may be a brilliant businessman, but he is no better than the janitor cleaning the dorms at the state college. Ballmer just gets to blow more money at useless toys to impress the world. Whereas someone with more wisdom realizes what goes around comes around.
I might be going out on a limb here, but since P4 hasn't been selling well and people are happy with 1ghz P3 systems. More and more people are going to buy the cheapest system, since all they need is a computer to surf, write an occasional letter, email and play games.
If there was ever a bad idea, this has got to take the cake. Possibly the only way to make a better movie than the original anime is to do a trilogy that goes into greater depth and goes back to the original comics for material.
First off, some of the numbers they are quoting are totally f()cked up. GenX-ers might be making less than their parents at the same age, but lets look at what happened in the 80's. The whole trickle down economics put the screw to the middle class. Why don't reporters do more research in the first place. Sure GenX-ers had to pay more for college because it was more expensive, but lets look at the last 200 years and make a relative comparison.
The article sounds like it's pandering to the rich or those who lust to be rich. People with their heads bolted to their shoulders have nothing worry about. But then again I'm not fortune's target audience and I don't think being rich is the end all of life.
You can see why it eats at my soul, then, every time I get an e-mail with a subject like "INCREASE YOUR DICK SIZE 5++ INCHESW! (59482)".
But isn't that really due to spammer? Not that pr0n0graphers are angels or anything, but spam is really a social issue. The need or greed for money at all costs and people's need to make a buck. Even if everyone in the world was moral and ethical, there would still be spam. Sure it's annoying and fills up your inbox (no pun intended), but that's life. Some spam is actually useful if it's things you want. One man's spam is another man's treasure. Then again, maybe not.
Along those lines of thinking, there's the concept of "there is no natural law". All laws are only as powerful as the citizen's respect and obedience to them. If certain laws are detrimental to a majority of it's members while benefiting a select few, then the law in essence is no longer a law. Sure it may still be written down and stored in the library of congress, but a law without the support of it's citizens isn't a law.
Whether something is wrong, right, legal or illegal are all artificial guidelines created to promote stability. At the core of the warez issue is really the battle for self expression. Or atleast I like to think it is.
If you're going to it, then why not do something totally revolutionary? Why just redo what already exist. Try to think of a totally new paradim for 3D modeling and animation. You mentioned NURB, polygons and a bunch of other stuff. All of the various techniques have weaknesses. For example, take hash splines in Hash Animation Master. Hash can create a surface with 3 or 5 points, where as NURB's have to have 4 points. A 4 point surface makes it easy for subdivision calculations are render time, but it increases the complexity of a model and requires more memory.
If you can find a completely new way of representing a 3D object that is both more flexible to model and animate than current techniques, then you've got something really worth doing. I'm not smart enough to think of a totally new way to represent a 3D object, but if some one could it would change the 3D application world.
I had a dual processor system and it definitely improves the responsiveness of applications. But it did end up killing two CPU fans on my dual 450mhz. I seriously doubt a Xeon of same speed would perform as well.
claim is not worth the paper it's printed on? For that matter, every piece of software is now insecure. What does this mean for the consumer? Are we to just trust each company and pray their software is as secure as they claim? What about cases where a company has a monopoly and everyone is forced to use it even if it is insecure.
As you just demonstrated, knowledge == control when it's well defined:)
Do we have control over technology? I can certainly control my VCR, and I have the ability to stop it from blinking 12:00 if I so choose. (I'm lazy, and rarely do.) Do we have control over nuclear energy? The average citizen doesn't (Thank goodness!), but I'd argue the fact that nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, harnessing the power of the atom, demonstrate control.
But one could play devil's advocate and argue that all things considered, human's do not have control. Someone could play a trick on you and set your VCR to 12:00 when you're not looking. Control at best is temporary. The article also implies control is a state that is maintainable with sufficient knowledge, which it obviously isn't. But that's my opinion, which by no means is true.
"How do we learn fast enough so that we are learning faster than the world changes?" asked Mr Graham, "if we are not learning faster than the world changes then we cannot possibly control it."
Does anyone else see a logical flaw in that argument? It's not like knowledge == control. If knowledge was measurable in quantity and quality, then the statement might make sense. But I've yet to see compelling proof that such measurement is practicle or desireable. Since when did we have control over technology? The statement in that context almost implies we have control over "it" and that some how we will loose "control over it."
It seems like they still have a lot of work to do, like defining what "it" is and how to go about measuring "it". Otherwise, it will just be a truck load of political jargons.
"If we continue to offer this test in these countries where our investigation has revealed students immediately post test questions on the Internet, it will threaten the usefulness of the test both for U.S. graduate admission officers and students worldwide," said Carole Beere, chair of the GRE Board.
Even before students started sharing test questions on the internet, standardized tests only test memorization. It does is terrible job of measuring intelligence and critical analysis. Why in the world people believe SAT and GRE are useful is beyond me. Sure the system has been that way for a long time and everyone knows it's broken, but no one is willing to fix it. People with money to send their kids to test prep schools are the ones who benefit from standardized tests.
Not that anyone cares, but standardized tests were originally created to level the playing field for college admission. I forget who created it (saw a special on discovery), but the original intent was to make it so a smart poor kid could get into college. In practice, that is far from reality. Most of the kids who score well on standardized tests get the results because of test prep schools. People who are brilliant don't count, since they don't need to study in the first place. Children of those who make less than 50K have a harder time, since they can't afford it. I fail to see how paying for a test prep school, which use old tests for practice is different from kids posting the questions for free. Well, except that it negates the need to pay 2K for GRE prep class.
Looking at how many/.-ers claiming it(the design) was stolen from US, people should remember without the contributions of einstein and other great german thinkers where the heck would the US be? Let's also remember all the greek, romain thinkers who contributed to science before USA was created. Also, many of technologies taken for granted today came from Asia. Contrary to Egotistic idiots in the US, not everyone thinks we are the bastion of creativity or technology. Makes me ashamed to be a US citizen, with all ignorant jerks in the country. go ahead and flame me cause I'll just ignore it.
That worked. thanks for the tip. Man, you don't how much time I wasted trying to figure out how to get the win2K folder security options back. I even tried help, which didn't help at all. Why in the world I had to waste over 20 hours looking for a way to do a simple thing really isn't an improvement over win2K in my mind. In unix, all I have to do is do "man ls". Now if windows help was more helpful and gave me that info the first time I searched for security options, it would be a real improvement.
For my workstation, I couldn't change because of all the apps for windows, but for the other system I'd switch to OSX. Anyone with a toddler knows how easy it is for windows to lock up. Windows has come a long way, but my son can lock up windows in about 5 minutes. Whereas on a Mac he hasn't been able to do it w/o resorting to pushing the power button.
The problem I have with windows is it doesn't give me the same level of flexibility as unix systems. If a bug is found, I can patch the system remotely or ssh in the box and shut stuff down. On windows my options are limited. Even things like file ownership and permissions is hobbled in XP. In win XP pro, you have to boot to safe mode to change drive/file security properties. Say there a patch for windows and I want to patch it remotely because I'm away from home for a week. How the heck am I supposed to patch a windows system?
With unix, I can ssh in, d/l the patch, apply, restart the service(not the machine) and log out. It's good that security in XP home edition doesn't give normal users the ability to change ownership and file permissions, but for XP Pro why in the world can't I access those features without rebooting to safe mode without network connection? I suppose one could reboot to safe mode with network enabled, but I haven't figured out how to do that remotely. There should be the equivalent of Sudo in windows for remote administration. These are my opinions right or wrong. But there are functional differences in security.
I don't like the idea of single sign-on for every freakin website I purchase from. I actually feel safer knowing that my personal information isn't accessible on all the sites if some kid hacks into a IIS box. Heck webservers have bugs and exploiting takes less time than building and maintaining them, so I'd rather keep my login's to myself.
I would hate to wake one morning and get an email from microsoft saying "sorry some one hacked passport and stole 100K user accounts including everyone's credit card info."
Why in the world are we still defining "rich" in monetary terms? It's obvious the only thing extreme wealth leads to personal troubles. Look at the studies about lottery winners. Or better yet, look at the statistics about the divorce rate of the top 5%. You may have more toys, but people also hate your god damn guts because for every expensive car that's a couple starving families in America. Go ahead and flame away, because there's no good reason for any person to have 1 billion dollars.
but lets not forget there are other great pyramids, like the ones in central and south america. In many reguards, the American pyramids are equally amazing. The real difference here is there's more PR for egyptian pyramids, because they were found by "respected" british gentlemen.
It is so damn irritating to hear so called "scientists" ooh and ahh over some discovery they made. And better yet when they say "see ancient egyptians weren't a bunch of slaves and they were smart." Big deal! If the scientist was so smart, he would have all the answers already. They only thing it really tells me is living scientists automatically assume ancient peoples are stupid or some how less intelligent. Get over your damn self and stop grandstanding. Geez. I don't consider PR gimics hardcore scientific research.
Is this yet another attempt by the record industry to produce only crap? Take david bowie's Outside album for example. A lot of people love bowie, but that album was dense and complex. It took me several months to really appreciate the album. The first I played it, I was honestly confused and a bit unsure about how it made me feel. If the music industry insists that all new music be "catchy" and grab the listener within the first 10 seconds, it leaves little room for art and exploration.
Only superficial pop dance tunes have the instant effect. It's kinda like sugar. You get a rush, but afterwards you feel thirsty and want something more substantial. Any great work of art will require time to absorb, so preventing listeners from hearing only ensure the quality of the music degenerates. No wonder the current crop of corporate engineered bands aren't selling as well as they would like. They bitch about how they've invested in an artist, but they are the ones forcing those bands to rehash the last album. Plenty of musicians have been bullied and pushed away from exploration.
Or as U2 said it. Crap music kills the music industry. Not listeners.
It's good news and all, but what does this really mean? I'm talking about open vs closed source. I'm talking about cultural changes. The open vs close is part of it, but there's a larger issue here. Has computing technology reached the point where it is an utility and is maturing towards that end?
Look at the history of cars and paved roads for example. Once there was enough cars on the road, the need for well paved roads became a public utility. Same is true for gas, water and electricity. Once it starts going that way, people's tolerance for non-standard ways becomes a huge issue.
then again, I could be smoking crack and this is just more PR bs.
I don't watch TIVO or transfer video to my system. If I did, it would definitely be beneficial, but I have about 200 quicktime movies of family members and that barely hit 250megs. Even if I were to go buy a digital camcorder and start storing video on my server, I doubt I'd go over 5 gigs. Considering there are only so many hours in a day, not like an average person like me would fill up 60gigs worth of video in a year.
Back when I played with 3D modeling and animation, it was easy to fill up 3-4 gigs for a 10 minute render, but 320gigs is still a lot of space. Though if some one built a home move appliance to automatically transfer DVD's to HD and hook it up to any DVD player in the house it would be sweet. It would save me the trouble of buying more shelves to store my DVD's. Plus it makes it easier to organize and keep away from babies and toddlers. Some how I doubt this will happen in the near future.
Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer may be a brilliant businessman, but he is no better than the janitor cleaning the dorms at the state college. Ballmer just gets to blow more money at useless toys to impress the world. Whereas someone with more wisdom realizes what goes around comes around.
I might be going out on a limb here, but since P4 hasn't been selling well and people are happy with 1ghz P3 systems. More and more people are going to buy the cheapest system, since all they need is a computer to surf, write an occasional letter, email and play games.
If there was ever a bad idea, this has got to take the cake. Possibly the only way to make a better movie than the original anime is to do a trilogy that goes into greater depth and goes back to the original comics for material.
The article sounds like it's pandering to the rich or those who lust to be rich. People with their heads bolted to their shoulders have nothing worry about. But then again I'm not fortune's target audience and I don't think being rich is the end all of life.
But isn't that really due to spammer? Not that pr0n0graphers are angels or anything, but spam is really a social issue. The need or greed for money at all costs and people's need to make a buck. Even if everyone in the world was moral and ethical, there would still be spam. Sure it's annoying and fills up your inbox (no pun intended), but that's life. Some spam is actually useful if it's things you want. One man's spam is another man's treasure. Then again, maybe not.
Whether something is wrong, right, legal or illegal are all artificial guidelines created to promote stability. At the core of the warez issue is really the battle for self expression. Or atleast I like to think it is.
If you can find a completely new way of representing a 3D object that is both more flexible to model and animate than current techniques, then you've got something really worth doing. I'm not smart enough to think of a totally new way to represent a 3D object, but if some one could it would change the 3D application world.
I had a dual processor system and it definitely improves the responsiveness of applications. But it did end up killing two CPU fans on my dual 450mhz. I seriously doubt a Xeon of same speed would perform as well.
claim is not worth the paper it's printed on? For that matter, every piece of software is now insecure. What does this mean for the consumer? Are we to just trust each company and pray their software is as secure as they claim? What about cases where a company has a monopoly and everyone is forced to use it even if it is insecure.
Do we have control over technology? I can certainly control my VCR, and I have the ability to stop it from blinking 12:00 if I so choose. (I'm lazy, and rarely do.) Do we have control over nuclear energy? The average citizen doesn't (Thank goodness!), but I'd argue the fact that nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, harnessing the power of the atom, demonstrate control.
But one could play devil's advocate and argue that all things considered, human's do not have control. Someone could play a trick on you and set your VCR to 12:00 when you're not looking. Control at best is temporary. The article also implies control is a state that is maintainable with sufficient knowledge, which it obviously isn't. But that's my opinion, which by no means is true.
Does anyone else see a logical flaw in that argument? It's not like knowledge == control. If knowledge was measurable in quantity and quality, then the statement might make sense. But I've yet to see compelling proof that such measurement is practicle or desireable. Since when did we have control over technology? The statement in that context almost implies we have control over "it" and that some how we will loose "control over it."
It seems like they still have a lot of work to do, like defining what "it" is and how to go about measuring "it". Otherwise, it will just be a truck load of political jargons.
Even before students started sharing test questions on the internet, standardized tests only test memorization. It does is terrible job of measuring intelligence and critical analysis. Why in the world people believe SAT and GRE are useful is beyond me. Sure the system has been that way for a long time and everyone knows it's broken, but no one is willing to fix it. People with money to send their kids to test prep schools are the ones who benefit from standardized tests.
Not that anyone cares, but standardized tests were originally created to level the playing field for college admission. I forget who created it (saw a special on discovery), but the original intent was to make it so a smart poor kid could get into college. In practice, that is far from reality. Most of the kids who score well on standardized tests get the results because of test prep schools. People who are brilliant don't count, since they don't need to study in the first place. Children of those who make less than 50K have a harder time, since they can't afford it. I fail to see how paying for a test prep school, which use old tests for practice is different from kids posting the questions for free. Well, except that it negates the need to pay 2K for GRE prep class.
some one must be getting a bribe or kick back for this one. why play fair when you can buy the people in charge with a little bit of money.
Looking at how many /.-ers claiming it(the design) was stolen from US, people should remember without the contributions of einstein and other great german thinkers where the heck would the US be? Let's also remember all the greek, romain thinkers who contributed to science before USA was created. Also, many of technologies taken for granted today came from Asia. Contrary to Egotistic idiots in the US, not everyone thinks we are the bastion of creativity or technology. Makes me ashamed to be a US citizen, with all ignorant jerks in the country. go ahead and flame me cause I'll just ignore it.
That worked. thanks for the tip. Man, you don't how much time I wasted trying to figure out how to get the win2K folder security options back. I even tried help, which didn't help at all. Why in the world I had to waste over 20 hours looking for a way to do a simple thing really isn't an improvement over win2K in my mind. In unix, all I have to do is do "man ls". Now if windows help was more helpful and gave me that info the first time I searched for security options, it would be a real improvement.
For my workstation, I couldn't change because of all the apps for windows, but for the other system I'd switch to OSX. Anyone with a toddler knows how easy it is for windows to lock up. Windows has come a long way, but my son can lock up windows in about 5 minutes. Whereas on a Mac he hasn't been able to do it w/o resorting to pushing the power button.
With unix, I can ssh in, d/l the patch, apply, restart the service(not the machine) and log out. It's good that security in XP home edition doesn't give normal users the ability to change ownership and file permissions, but for XP Pro why in the world can't I access those features without rebooting to safe mode without network connection? I suppose one could reboot to safe mode with network enabled, but I haven't figured out how to do that remotely. There should be the equivalent of Sudo in windows for remote administration. These are my opinions right or wrong. But there are functional differences in security.
I would hate to wake one morning and get an email from microsoft saying "sorry some one hacked passport and stole 100K user accounts including everyone's credit card info."
what about pee hole and ear hole?
Why in the world are we still defining "rich" in monetary terms? It's obvious the only thing extreme wealth leads to personal troubles. Look at the studies about lottery winners. Or better yet, look at the statistics about the divorce rate of the top 5%. You may have more toys, but people also hate your god damn guts because for every expensive car that's a couple starving families in America. Go ahead and flame away, because there's no good reason for any person to have 1 billion dollars.
It is so damn irritating to hear so called "scientists" ooh and ahh over some discovery they made. And better yet when they say "see ancient egyptians weren't a bunch of slaves and they were smart." Big deal! If the scientist was so smart, he would have all the answers already. They only thing it really tells me is living scientists automatically assume ancient peoples are stupid or some how less intelligent. Get over your damn self and stop grandstanding. Geez. I don't consider PR gimics hardcore scientific research.
/ rant
Only superficial pop dance tunes have the instant effect. It's kinda like sugar. You get a rush, but afterwards you feel thirsty and want something more substantial. Any great work of art will require time to absorb, so preventing listeners from hearing only ensure the quality of the music degenerates. No wonder the current crop of corporate engineered bands aren't selling as well as they would like. They bitch about how they've invested in an artist, but they are the ones forcing those bands to rehash the last album. Plenty of musicians have been bullied and pushed away from exploration.
Or as U2 said it. Crap music kills the music industry. Not listeners.
Look at the history of cars and paved roads for example. Once there was enough cars on the road, the need for well paved roads became a public utility. Same is true for gas, water and electricity. Once it starts going that way, people's tolerance for non-standard ways becomes a huge issue.
then again, I could be smoking crack and this is just more PR bs.
Anyone know what exactly the violation was?
Back when I played with 3D modeling and animation, it was easy to fill up 3-4 gigs for a 10 minute render, but 320gigs is still a lot of space. Though if some one built a home move appliance to automatically transfer DVD's to HD and hook it up to any DVD player in the house it would be sweet. It would save me the trouble of buying more shelves to store my DVD's. Plus it makes it easier to organize and keep away from babies and toddlers. Some how I doubt this will happen in the near future.