If I do anything with a new source control system (or anything else that messes with my files, like encryption or backup software) that I am "trying out", i.e. do not yet fully understand, I back up whatevery I am checking in or adding to the repository. Not offsite,nothing elaborate, CTRL-C, CTRL-V to a different disk, done. Once I am fully comfortable with the software I might get rid of the copy.
History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Last time, the crash involved somewhat viable companies and ideas that were vastly overfunded and overvalued. This time round, I see nothing but tulips and outright scams. Just look at that filecoin thing. I wonder if, in a few weeks, they'll have part of their supply of coins "stolen by hackers" as well, or if they'll syphon the money out in other ways and simply fold. Or perhaps some other idiot will buy them.
Which musicians? Bach is dead. Ishizaka is happy to release her work free (libre) to the public. Apparently so are the musicians involved in the actual performance. Who are we to tell them otherwise?
Now I disagree with Stallman on many points, and I prefer to use other licenses over GPL, but in this case I'd agree with him that "free" is a better word to apply to this project than "open"
One guy called Baby Driver "a soundtrack with a movie attached". A bit harsh, but it's another one of those things wrong with movies. Several movies (most notably Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2) did well by adding a nice feelgood soundtrack to it; it works in that kind of movie. However in Baby Driver this felt rather contrived, using a lame plot device to shoehorn that soundtrack in there.
But the year so far has seen a rather poor harvest of movies. Dunkirk was pretty decent. But they even managed to screw up the Alien franchise.
Intellectual diversity is not the same thing as cultural relativism, which when taken too far holds that all opinions hold equal weight. Intellectual diversity means that all opinions and ideas are heard... and then judged and weighed on merit. It means you can still label objectively wrong opinions as such, but not out of hand, a priori. Which is what is happening in some circles, and it's kind of the same thing as racial discrimination: ideas are not rejected or suppressed because of the merits of the idea itself, but because of its "heritage": where does this idea come from, who uttered it, where was it published, what school of thought does it belong to? And more importantly: does its color match our warm and cozy filter bubble?
Nope, we should not all think the same about minorities. There are many cultural differences between groups of humans and even important biological ones, but in most cases these are statistical biases rather than absolutes. What pretty much all people agree on these days is that we should not judge an individual member of a group on statistically aberrant traits of that group, in fact it's illegal in a lot of cases.
But when we're talking about the position of each group in society and the question of when, how (and if) we should improve it, in other words matters of diversity, the differences between groups and the cause of those differences are very important points to consider. And there we are dealing with a lot of unknowns and assumptions rather than established facts. Why are so few women in tech; is it because they suck at it, because they feel threatened by its predominantly male culture, or because women "naturally" tend to prefer other pursuits? Why so few women execs; is it because the patriarchy is sitting on its glass ceiling, or because women tend to place a much higher value on work-life balance which doesn't fit well with the busy life of senior management? No easy answers; not even in the social sciences -- where, of all places, groupthink is becoming a real issue -- will you find clear answers and strong agreement; a lot of what might be mistaken for established facts are in fact unverified and unscientific opinions of a small but extremely vocal subgroup.
These are important questions to answer before you can begin to formulate a plan to address any differences, or even determine if you should address them in the first place. When it comes to addressing bias against minorities, we need intellectual diversity: honest research and a respectful but open discussion, not repressive groupthink.
As Gad Saad said: "We're good at promoting endless forms of diversity: racial diversity, ethnic diversity, religious diversity, sexual orientation diversity, and so on. But the most important diversity of all, which is intellectual diversity: no, that one we simply won't tolerate. We should all think the same way. "
You'd hope that these services (Netflix included) would start offering pay-per-view options so that you can watch the 1 or 2 shows you're interested in at a reasonable price. But of course these companies are very keen to suck you into a monthly plan, so even if they offer pay-per-view at all, I am sure that they'll leave out part of the offering, especially popular original content. Or they'll price it unreasonably high.
In my country: 33% CO2 emissions from transportation (and we do a lot of that). Almost half of that is ships, the other half road transportation (47% of transport, or 15% of total). About half that is transport of people, making up just over 8% of total CO2. Swapping every single car and bus for an electric model charged with 100% renewable electricity will net you an 8% savings on CO2 (2014 figures). The actual savings are likely to be a lot lower, and come at considerable cost to people. Better to focus on something else?
Cars are a popular "environmental" target here because of the common misconception about these figures; it makes the seriously high taxes on them easy to sell as both the left and the right still feel guilty about driving.
It's also a powerful message for the rest of the world in case NK decides to attack SK with its considerable conventional armed forces: "Nothing to see here, move along, and do NOT mess with us today"
All those floods, storms, heat waves, and other events are being caused by humans, using fossil fuels
The contribution of modern personal vehicles to global warming, while not tiny, is a lot smaller than you might think. Cleaner cars and better fuel economy are great, but if you want to save the planet, don't get too hung up about cars. There are much bigger fish out there to fry.
OH DEAR GOD NO WHYYYYYY? We have enough god damn movies based on comic books, in fact it seems that pretty much all recent big budget action flicks are based on comics. And they suck, one or two notable exceptions aside. What the hell, is the writer guild strike still on or something?
If the battery is cheap enough (and somewhat recycable), replacing the car pack every 2 years or so might be acceptable. Unfortunately the article is a bit low on details; they mention that the battery is lighter, but no hard details on power density per kg or per m3.
Also, Li-ion batteries are great for infrequently used equipment. My old cordless drill with NiMH cells either had to be left on the charger (which craps out the batteries eventually) or left unplugged which meant the batteries would be empty when I needed the tool. My new drill with Li-ion can be left in the drawer and still be ready for duty after a year. How do these alkaline batteries behave when left alone for a long time?
That seems fair. Especially since copyright, despite having the word "right" in it, certainly is a privilege. A temporary one, granted by society and for the benefit of society.
I agree. And have them fight in an abandoned "tactical village" so that there's plenty of room for these things to throw each other into / through buildings, smash cars over each other's heads, etc. You know, Michael Bay stuff.
So what happens? Simply what has already been happening for a while. Cars won't be banned but excessively taxed instead. The left loves this because they hate the middle class individualism that cars represent (not kidding: some openly admit this). The greens love this because they think it'll save the environment (it won't, modern cars are quite clean and if you want to improve the environment you'd better focus on other things). And the right loves this because it brings in sweet sweet tax revenue without raising the kind of taxes that everyone gets upset about. No one likes higher taxes, but people have been brainwashed into believing that the car is the root of all environmental evil to such an extent that even conservatives can be convinced to take one for the team on this issue.
Ending socialist (nay, fascist [wikipedia.org]) policies like minimum parking requirements
I'd rather have that than the socialist policy of an upper limit on parking. This was rather popular with a number of councils here for a while. I remember working in an office in an industrial estate with zero public transport or options for biking unless you're Froome, yet the council insisted on allowing only 70% of the reasonable amount of parking these offices required. So some people came in crazy early, and the latecomers parked on sidewalks, in parks, or they used the parking lot of a nearby church (a brisk 15 minute walk away).
Another point: cars (in most places in Europe) haven't been the main contributor to air pollution for a while now. Want to make a big improvement in air quality? Don't ban modern petrol cars and certainly don't ban electric ones. Ban older diesels, maybe. But in many European cities you can make an even bigger gain by banning fireplaces and BBQs, a huge source of particulate matter. The air in cities was orders of magnitude worse than it is now before we switched to gas for heating and cooking, and before cars hit the mainstream.
Musk is not an inventor but an innovator. Invention is coming up with new ideas. Innovation is putting the right ideas together and putting the result into practice. The iPhone didn't really contain anything new, yet it was a game changer. Electric cars have been around for ages, but Musk built the first ones that even petrolheads actually wanted to drive (and didn't look like shit). This transportation system is not a new idea but if he pulls it off, it'll be the first one to go into service.
Sure, there's a weird cult around Musk and a lot of hype around everything he does... but sometimes that's what it takes to get the investors signed up and the right minds on board. It sounds stupid, but sales is an important part of innovation.
Slashdot Mirror
If I do anything with a new source control system (or anything else that messes with my files, like encryption or backup software) that I am "trying out", i.e. do not yet fully understand, I back up whatevery I am checking in or adding to the repository. Not offsite,nothing elaborate, CTRL-C, CTRL-V to a different disk, done. Once I am fully comfortable with the software I might get rid of the copy.
They're cloning the tulips
History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Last time, the crash involved somewhat viable companies and ideas that were vastly overfunded and overvalued. This time round, I see nothing but tulips and outright scams. Just look at that filecoin thing. I wonder if, in a few weeks, they'll have part of their supply of coins "stolen by hackers" as well, or if they'll syphon the money out in other ways and simply fold. Or perhaps some other idiot will buy them.
Which musicians? Bach is dead. Ishizaka is happy to release her work free (libre) to the public. Apparently so are the musicians involved in the actual performance. Who are we to tell them otherwise?
Now I disagree with Stallman on many points, and I prefer to use other licenses over GPL, but in this case I'd agree with him that "free" is a better word to apply to this project than "open"
We're posting about it instead of doing something useful...
One guy called Baby Driver "a soundtrack with a movie attached". A bit harsh, but it's another one of those things wrong with movies. Several movies (most notably Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2) did well by adding a nice feelgood soundtrack to it; it works in that kind of movie. However in Baby Driver this felt rather contrived, using a lame plot device to shoehorn that soundtrack in there.
But the year so far has seen a rather poor harvest of movies. Dunkirk was pretty decent. But they even managed to screw up the Alien franchise.
Intellectual diversity is not the same thing as cultural relativism, which when taken too far holds that all opinions hold equal weight. Intellectual diversity means that all opinions and ideas are heard... and then judged and weighed on merit. It means you can still label objectively wrong opinions as such, but not out of hand, a priori. Which is what is happening in some circles, and it's kind of the same thing as racial discrimination: ideas are not rejected or suppressed because of the merits of the idea itself, but because of its "heritage": where does this idea come from, who uttered it, where was it published, what school of thought does it belong to? And more importantly: does its color match our warm and cozy filter bubble?
Nope, we should not all think the same about minorities. There are many cultural differences between groups of humans and even important biological ones, but in most cases these are statistical biases rather than absolutes. What pretty much all people agree on these days is that we should not judge an individual member of a group on statistically aberrant traits of that group, in fact it's illegal in a lot of cases.
But when we're talking about the position of each group in society and the question of when, how (and if) we should improve it, in other words matters of diversity, the differences between groups and the cause of those differences are very important points to consider. And there we are dealing with a lot of unknowns and assumptions rather than established facts. Why are so few women in tech; is it because they suck at it, because they feel threatened by its predominantly male culture, or because women "naturally" tend to prefer other pursuits? Why so few women execs; is it because the patriarchy is sitting on its glass ceiling, or because women tend to place a much higher value on work-life balance which doesn't fit well with the busy life of senior management? No easy answers; not even in the social sciences -- where, of all places, groupthink is becoming a real issue -- will you find clear answers and strong agreement; a lot of what might be mistaken for established facts are in fact unverified and unscientific opinions of a small but extremely vocal subgroup.
These are important questions to answer before you can begin to formulate a plan to address any differences, or even determine if you should address them in the first place. When it comes to addressing bias against minorities, we need intellectual diversity: honest research and a respectful but open discussion, not repressive groupthink.
Doctors stopped wondering about the how and why of stuff up people's assholes a loooong time ago.
As Gad Saad said: "We're good at promoting endless forms of diversity: racial diversity, ethnic diversity, religious diversity, sexual orientation diversity, and so on. But the most important diversity of all, which is intellectual diversity: no, that one we simply won't tolerate. We should all think the same way. "
And get a man in the crow's nest. Arrrr!
You'd hope that these services (Netflix included) would start offering pay-per-view options so that you can watch the 1 or 2 shows you're interested in at a reasonable price. But of course these companies are very keen to suck you into a monthly plan, so even if they offer pay-per-view at all, I am sure that they'll leave out part of the offering, especially popular original content. Or they'll price it unreasonably high.
In my country: 33% CO2 emissions from transportation (and we do a lot of that). Almost half of that is ships, the other half road transportation (47% of transport, or 15% of total). About half that is transport of people, making up just over 8% of total CO2. Swapping every single car and bus for an electric model charged with 100% renewable electricity will net you an 8% savings on CO2 (2014 figures). The actual savings are likely to be a lot lower, and come at considerable cost to people. Better to focus on something else?
Cars are a popular "environmental" target here because of the common misconception about these figures; it makes the seriously high taxes on them easy to sell as both the left and the right still feel guilty about driving.
It's also a powerful message for the rest of the world in case NK decides to attack SK with its considerable conventional armed forces: "Nothing to see here, move along, and do NOT mess with us today"
All those floods, storms, heat waves, and other events are being caused by humans, using fossil fuels
The contribution of modern personal vehicles to global warming, while not tiny, is a lot smaller than you might think. Cleaner cars and better fuel economy are great, but if you want to save the planet, don't get too hung up about cars. There are much bigger fish out there to fry.
OH DEAR GOD NO WHYYYYYY? We have enough god damn movies based on comic books, in fact it seems that pretty much all recent big budget action flicks are based on comics. And they suck, one or two notable exceptions aside. What the hell, is the writer guild strike still on or something?
If the battery is cheap enough (and somewhat recycable), replacing the car pack every 2 years or so might be acceptable. Unfortunately the article is a bit low on details; they mention that the battery is lighter, but no hard details on power density per kg or per m3.
Also, Li-ion batteries are great for infrequently used equipment. My old cordless drill with NiMH cells either had to be left on the charger (which craps out the batteries eventually) or left unplugged which meant the batteries would be empty when I needed the tool. My new drill with Li-ion can be left in the drawer and still be ready for duty after a year. How do these alkaline batteries behave when left alone for a long time?
This. And make sure those fines are paid out of their own pockets, not from the company coffers.
That seems fair. Especially since copyright, despite having the word "right" in it, certainly is a privilege. A temporary one, granted by society and for the benefit of society.
I agree. And have them fight in an abandoned "tactical village" so that there's plenty of room for these things to throw each other into / through buildings, smash cars over each other's heads, etc. You know, Michael Bay stuff.
So what happens? Simply what has already been happening for a while. Cars won't be banned but excessively taxed instead. The left loves this because they hate the middle class individualism that cars represent (not kidding: some openly admit this). The greens love this because they think it'll save the environment (it won't, modern cars are quite clean and if you want to improve the environment you'd better focus on other things). And the right loves this because it brings in sweet sweet tax revenue without raising the kind of taxes that everyone gets upset about. No one likes higher taxes, but people have been brainwashed into believing that the car is the root of all environmental evil to such an extent that even conservatives can be convinced to take one for the team on this issue.
Ending socialist (nay, fascist [wikipedia.org]) policies like minimum parking requirements
I'd rather have that than the socialist policy of an upper limit on parking. This was rather popular with a number of councils here for a while. I remember working in an office in an industrial estate with zero public transport or options for biking unless you're Froome, yet the council insisted on allowing only 70% of the reasonable amount of parking these offices required. So some people came in crazy early, and the latecomers parked on sidewalks, in parks, or they used the parking lot of a nearby church (a brisk 15 minute walk away).
Another point: cars (in most places in Europe) haven't been the main contributor to air pollution for a while now. Want to make a big improvement in air quality? Don't ban modern petrol cars and certainly don't ban electric ones. Ban older diesels, maybe. But in many European cities you can make an even bigger gain by banning fireplaces and BBQs, a huge source of particulate matter. The air in cities was orders of magnitude worse than it is now before we switched to gas for heating and cooking, and before cars hit the mainstream.
Musk is not an inventor but an innovator. Invention is coming up with new ideas. Innovation is putting the right ideas together and putting the result into practice. The iPhone didn't really contain anything new, yet it was a game changer. Electric cars have been around for ages, but Musk built the first ones that even petrolheads actually wanted to drive (and didn't look like shit). This transportation system is not a new idea but if he pulls it off, it'll be the first one to go into service.
Sure, there's a weird cult around Musk and a lot of hype around everything he does... but sometimes that's what it takes to get the investors signed up and the right minds on board. It sounds stupid, but sales is an important part of innovation.
You might be mixing up innovating and inventing.