The ending to snowcrash did suck, and so did the ending to Cryptonomicon.
Sthephenson's work is really more about the trip then the destination. You should really read Cryptonomicon though, don't be put off by Snow Crash (which I enjoyed reading, personaly). Cryptonomicon can't really even be called Sci-fi, and it's a very enjoyable, fun, read.
It's "like stephenson's work" as in "I like stephensons work," and "I like this" and "I have a complete lack of understanding of liturature with which I could construct a statement about this work"
I truly find it awe inspiring that a computer literate person can speak so fluid with common losers.
okay.
Perhaps if we would require a common computer literacy test before someone can get online, we could eliminate this mentality that "Computers are Bad, all they do is give me Spam and steal my credit cards"
Or, maybe tests should be given to see how well 'computer literate' people can actually express themselves in English before being hired to jobs that require interaction. Just a thought.
Then again, with something like that you'd be sure the RIAA would write up the text for it, then the MPAA would sue them under the DMCA for copywrite infringement for the use of the work "Hackers"
You can buy the autopr0n.com pr0n viewer App* from me for the low, low price of US$10,000. It comes with 113,590 porographic.jpg files.
(*requires M$ access)
But seriously, lots of custom software is written in java every day. Also, lots windows programs are actualy written in java with JNI and lots of wrapping.
If you write a java applet using the standard java 1.1 API (M$ stopped work on keep up with the standard once they got sued, for obvious reasons) it'll run on MS's implementation.
If you write to MS's specs, it won't work on othe JVMs, however.
If by "web" you mean "english speaking web". The english speaking web is what most of what english speaking people see when they get online. Most people actualy surf the web in their native language (unless they live in germany or sweeden where everyone speaks perfict english, I would guess).
If you look at Alexia's top websites, you'll see that like half of them are actualy korean.
Actually, I think Netscape did more harm to java in the early days then Microsoft's. I actually read one of the affidavits in the case by a technical expert, who outlined the incompatibilities. They were tiny. *TINY*. And yet, Netscape was still shipping only the java 1.0 API. People couldn't write code for the newer, more robust 1.1 API and have it work with Netscape. They could write the code to work in IE, however. And if they avoided Microsoft documentation that might mix the incompatible stuff with the regular stuff they would have been fine.
Did MS purposely taint the API: almost certainly, there was no reason for them to put their functions and code in the Java.* packages. Did it really matter: not as much as Netscape sticking with 1.0.
Microsoft might have made stuff worse over time, but who knows. But anyway, microsoft probably wanted to kill Java and in a way, they succeded.
The custom viewer app I wrote to moderate Autopr0n.com is still pretty slow on my duron 1.2ghz. It basicaly renders all the.jpg on a page into a back buffer so youc an flip through them quickly. It can take up to 10 seconds to decompress all the pics.
So, it would be nice to get as fast a computer as I can get my hands on:)
no, you are not a rocket scientist.
on
Meteorite Hits Girl
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· Score: 4, Funny
but from what I've learned, small rocks falling from outer space burn up in a brief little fireball, and big rocks falling from outer space MAKE GIANT FUCKING HOLES IN THE GROUND.
is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes
When was the last time you ran windows? The uptimes are pretty good these days. Besides, if a game needed to stay running for months in order to enjoy it, you'd obviously have to write it to survive a system reboot... I don't want to buy an UPS to play a game.
That would require spending thousands of dollars on proprietary hardware. It's kind of missing the point of Linux.
Besides, the mac world already has tons of people trying to bring games to it. They might be unsuccessful over all, but I doubt dropping support for the Linux world would help much.
I've never really tried gaming on linux, but from what I've hear it's pretty difficult to get the games going. It can take hours sometimes to get systems set up to play the games correctly.
I wonder if anyone else has other experiances. A lot of people belive that most linux users who play computer gams have a windows partition for that.
First, like many people here, I don't understand how a nuclear explosion won't destroy the ship it is trying to move through Space at "warp speed". This seems pretty dangerous to me. Good luck finding anyone to fly that thing!
That's because you're stupid, not because it isn't possible.
Hope out to particleadventure.com to read up real quick on the physics behind anti-matter. With an anti-matter drive, where the matter is anihalated into pure energy (momentarly) why both at this point dealing with nuclear? Yes I know AM is somewhat rare but jeez you think the leftist,socialist, posing as demoncrate fool tree-huggers are going to allow a nuclear drive?
Eventualy all of those afraid of nukes will die off. There's no rational reason to be afraid of them.
Anyway, antimatter is a bit more then 'rare' a single atom of antihydrogen costs something like $100,000 to produce. A billion dolars gets you just ten thousand atoms worth. that's about 1.5*10^(-10) jouls of energy.
In other words, not a lot. Even if it just cost $1 to produce a single hydrogen atom of antimater, it would require $7.2 billion to get as much energy as a watch battery. But it dosn't, it costs ~ $100,000.
I remember reading an interview with Freeman Dyson a couple years ago in wired. He mentioned a week he visited his Daughter, Esther, at Harvard. During the time, she never attended a single class.
When he asked her about it, she said something like "you don't go to Harvard to study, you go to meet people."
It's interesting that she was one of the fist heads of ICANN.
You are using the term "cognitive dissonance" incorrectly.
The idea is that people want to have a consistent view of themselves. They want to believe that they are rational or whatever. So, whenever something happens that they wouldn't normally expect themselves to do, they change their ideas about themselves. The reason they do this is (theoretically) to avoid cognitive dissonance. It is believed that cognitive dissonance is actually a physically uncomfortable condition or emotion.
So an example would be if, for example, you helped a girl with her car, you might think she was better looking then if you hadn't.
"cognitive dissonance" does not refer to the conclusion you draw, nor the theory.
---
The other odd thing is that tmark even brought it up at all. Is he saying the manager or whoever took a social psych class and wants to pay people more because he believes that if he pays more money, then people are going to work harder for him and thus like him more? Does he want to pay people more so that he can manipulate his own emotions and make himself like the contractor more?
They care about how much it will do for them. If an app is going to make a company a million dollars a year, why not pay someone really good $10,000 even if you think you could do it in 16 hours?
Maybe it is easy, but so what? It makes absolutely no difference how easy it is to the overall value they get.
The only thing you'd need to look out for is idiot MCSEs with over-inflated egos, but beyond that, it's probably better to go with someone with more experience, a better presentation, whatever if you've got the money.
Well, IP address for a lot of dialup users are reassigned each time they connect. For AOL users, this means millions of possible address. Given that AOL has something like 40% market share in the US, IP based tracking won't work that well.
On the other hand, cookie based systems work well, and are linked to user accounts on specific computers.
Opting out is done by setting the double click cookie to zero or something, and it seems to work pretty well.
I remember opting out and starting to see ads for feminine hygiene stuff. Maybe it was really a kind of punishment:P
Slashdot Mirror
The ending to snowcrash did suck, and so did the ending to Cryptonomicon.
Sthephenson's work is really more about the trip then the destination. You should really read Cryptonomicon though, don't be put off by Snow Crash (which I enjoyed reading, personaly). Cryptonomicon can't really even be called Sci-fi, and it's a very enjoyable, fun, read.
It's "like stephenson's work" as in "I like stephensons work," and "I like this" and "I have a complete lack of understanding of liturature with which I could construct a statement about this work"
I truly find it awe inspiring that a computer literate person can speak so fluid with common losers.
okay. Perhaps if we would require a common computer literacy test before someone can get online, we could eliminate this mentality that "Computers are Bad, all they do is give me Spam and steal my credit cards"
Or, maybe tests should be given to see how well 'computer literate' people can actually express themselves in English before being hired to jobs that require interaction. Just a thought.
Then again, with something like that you'd be sure the RIAA would write up the text for it, then the MPAA would sue them under the DMCA for copywrite infringement for the use of the work "Hackers"
Uh, yeah okay...
You can buy the autopr0n.com pr0n viewer App* from me for the low, low price of US$10,000. It comes with 113,590 porographic .jpg files.
(*requires M$ access)
But seriously, lots of custom software is written in java every day. Also, lots windows programs are actualy written in java with JNI and lots of wrapping.
Name 10 open source applications that can be bought at the store.
HAH OPEN SOURCE IS DEAD!
If you write a java applet using the standard java 1.1 API (M$ stopped work on keep up with the standard once they got sued, for obvious reasons) it'll run on MS's implementation.
If you write to MS's specs, it won't work on othe JVMs, however.
English is the Lingua Franca of the Web
If by "web" you mean "english speaking web". The english speaking web is what most of what english speaking people see when they get online. Most people actualy surf the web in their native language (unless they live in germany or sweeden where everyone speaks perfict english, I would guess).
If you look at Alexia's top websites, you'll see that like half of them are actualy korean.
Actually, I think Netscape did more harm to java in the early days then Microsoft's. I actually read one of the affidavits in the case by a technical expert, who outlined the incompatibilities. They were tiny. *TINY*. And yet, Netscape was still shipping only the java 1.0 API. People couldn't write code for the newer, more robust 1.1 API and have it work with Netscape. They could write the code to work in IE, however. And if they avoided Microsoft documentation that might mix the incompatible stuff with the regular stuff they would have been fine.
Did MS purposely taint the API: almost certainly, there was no reason for them to put their functions and code in the Java.* packages. Did it really matter: not as much as Netscape sticking with 1.0.
Microsoft might have made stuff worse over time, but who knows. But anyway, microsoft probably wanted to kill Java and in a way, they succeded.
That doesn't even make any sense. You could argue that a JVM style system is best for server applications, but then what's the point of .net?
:). But you could still write your own stuff.
You could argue that Java's GUI APIs suck, and you might have a point
Hrm, both namebase and googlewatch seem to be down. Is this just an innocent slashdoting?
Or have the Google gods turned their clusters towards more sinister deeds, silencing their critics.
We may never know.
The custom viewer app I wrote to moderate Autopr0n.com is still pretty slow on my duron 1.2ghz. It basicaly renders all the .jpg on a page into a back buffer so youc an flip through them quickly. It can take up to 10 seconds to decompress all the pics.
:)
So, it would be nice to get as fast a computer as I can get my hands on
but from what I've learned, small rocks falling from outer space burn up in a brief little fireball, and big rocks falling from outer space MAKE GIANT FUCKING HOLES IN THE GROUND.
What about medium sized rocks, smartass?
I've heard from people who have tired playing games on linux, assuming what I read was true, then my point stands.
I don't need to have seen a nuclear bomb go off to know they cause a lot of damage.
is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes
When was the last time you ran windows? The uptimes are pretty good these days. Besides, if a game needed to stay running for months in order to enjoy it, you'd obviously have to write it to survive a system reboot... I don't want to buy an UPS to play a game.
That would require spending thousands of dollars on proprietary hardware. It's kind of missing the point of Linux.
Besides, the mac world already has tons of people trying to bring games to it. They might be unsuccessful over all, but I doubt dropping support for the Linux world would help much.
I've never really tried gaming on linux, but from what I've hear it's pretty difficult to get the games going. It can take hours sometimes to get systems set up to play the games correctly.
I wonder if anyone else has other experiances. A lot of people belive that most linux users who play computer gams have a windows partition for that.
But who knows.
First, like many people here, I don't understand how a nuclear explosion won't destroy the ship it is trying to move through Space at "warp speed". This seems pretty dangerous to me. Good luck finding anyone to fly that thing!
That's because you're stupid, not because it isn't possible.
Hope out to particleadventure.com to read up real quick on the physics behind anti-matter. With an anti-matter drive, where the matter is anihalated into pure energy (momentarly) why both at this point dealing with nuclear? Yes I know AM is somewhat rare but jeez you think the leftist,socialist, posing as demoncrate fool tree-huggers are going to allow a nuclear drive?
Eventualy all of those afraid of nukes will die off. There's no rational reason to be afraid of them.
Anyway, antimatter is a bit more then 'rare' a single atom of antihydrogen costs something like $100,000 to produce. A billion dolars gets you just ten thousand atoms worth. that's about 1.5*10^(-10) jouls of energy.
In other words, not a lot. Even if it just cost $1 to produce a single hydrogen atom of antimater, it would require $7.2 billion to get as much energy as a watch battery. But it dosn't, it costs ~ $100,000.
I remember reading an interview with Freeman Dyson a couple years ago in wired. He mentioned a week he visited his Daughter, Esther, at Harvard. During the time, she never attended a single class.
When he asked her about it, she said something like "you don't go to Harvard to study, you go to meet people."
It's interesting that she was one of the fist heads of ICANN.
You are using the term "cognitive dissonance" incorrectly.
The idea is that people want to have a consistent view of themselves. They want to believe that they are rational or whatever. So, whenever something happens that they wouldn't normally expect themselves to do, they change their ideas about themselves. The reason they do this is (theoretically) to avoid cognitive dissonance. It is believed that cognitive dissonance is actually a physically uncomfortable condition or emotion.
So an example would be if, for example, you helped a girl with her car, you might think she was better looking then if you hadn't.
"cognitive dissonance" does not refer to the conclusion you draw, nor the theory.
---
The other odd thing is that tmark even brought it up at all. Is he saying the manager or whoever took a social psych class and wants to pay people more because he believes that if he pays more money, then people are going to work harder for him and thus like him more? Does he want to pay people more so that he can manipulate his own emotions and make himself like the contractor more?
Either way, it's a pretty bizarre conclusion.
Actualy, Freud probably just wanted money to buy more blow. He just didn't want to admit it.
because it costs less to live there. It's almost like you're paying them more in terms of psudo-'feel good' quality you get simply from paying a lot.
They care about how much it will do for them. If an app is going to make a company a million dollars a year, why not pay someone really good $10,000 even if you think you could do it in 16 hours?
Maybe it is easy, but so what? It makes absolutely no difference how easy it is to the overall value they get.
The only thing you'd need to look out for is idiot MCSEs with over-inflated egos, but beyond that, it's probably better to go with someone with more experience, a better presentation, whatever if you've got the money.
Most of the time, when more then one person uses a computer frequently, multiple user accounts are set up.
Under windows (as well as most unix installs) A persons cookies will be linked to their user accounts, not the PC itself.
And yes, most families really do have seperate user accounts set up.
Well, IP address for a lot of dialup users are reassigned each time they connect. For AOL users, this means millions of possible address. Given that AOL has something like 40% market share in the US, IP based tracking won't work that well.
:P
On the other hand, cookie based systems work well, and are linked to user accounts on specific computers.
Opting out is done by setting the double click cookie to zero or something, and it seems to work pretty well.
I remember opting out and starting to see ads for feminine hygiene stuff. Maybe it was really a kind of punishment