Um, and why do you suppose corporations like Microsoft set out to "kill their competition" in the first place? I suppose some sort of 'benign monopolist' who (for some unfathomable reason) refrained from abusing monopoly power wouldn't be so bad, but I've yet to encounter such a beast. That is not to say monopolists always attempt to charge everybody the highest possible price; in fact, differentiating between various customer types (i.e. consumer versus corporate etc.) is one of the hallmarks of monopoly AFAIK.
Wait...you were told that if we're the only intelligent life form in the universe (which isn't exactly easy to verify), there _must_ be some sort of "god"? Seems like a non sequitur at best to me.
Was this course offered by the department of theology by any chance:) ? Seriously though, you'd think a science professor would know a thing or two about Occam's razor...
Ah yes, Asimov, Kubrick...Do you know that both were Jewish? Seriously, I'm not trolling. Are you aware of that fact or what? Because if you are, I'd love to know how you reconcile your hatred for Jews (and blacks, and Asians, and every other non-'Aryan' race out there, no doubt) with your apparent enjoyment of their work.
No wait, let me guess. Those people weren't _really_ Jewish -- it's all a(nother) massive Zionist conspiracy!
On an unrelated note, I am rather intrigued by your sig. Why must Saudi Arabia fall? After all, I'm sure they hate the Jews as much (if not more) than you do; you should recognise them for the allies in the struggle against Zionism that they surely are rather than calling for their annihilation.
I own both a VCR and a DVD player, but I don't have cable. It's just not worth it to me; all the global news coverage I could possibly want is available online (in fact, I rank many blogs far higher than most mainstream media outlets), and I can rent tapes and DVD's when I'm in the mood for a movie. If and when cable (or satellite) companies decide to offer true per-channel subscription, I might be interested in getting HBO or an independent movie channel say. Until then, I think I'll hold on to my money.
Re:I'd have read it but...
on
Linus Is A Hero
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I beg to differ. Sure, Flash can be annoying but so can yellow text on a pink background. There's a time and a place for Flash; just because something has the capacity to be used for Evil(TM) doesn't mean it has no legitimate applications.
Look, it's a YANSR -- Yet Another Negative Solaris Review. How is this 'another view', exactly? The first Solaris-related story (a few months ago) concluded that 'it'll probably suck'. The recent review proclaimed that 'it sucks' (in so many words), and now this 'new perspective' reveals that -- whoa there -- it _really_ sucks.
I mean, come on. Soderbergh guilty of being a film student (I guess I'll have to boycott Taxi Driver and Raging Bull from now on)? A 'trick' ending (I'd love to hear an explanation of what was so 'tricky' about it)? A cynical, jaded New York audience not giving George 'what a plebeian' Clooney the benifit of the doubt (SHOCK!! HORROR!!!)?
Granted, the movie does have some very real faults (hint: it's not the 'conceit somewhat larger than a fully grown blue whale'. God, that's the worst fucking simile I've ever had the misfortune to chance upon). Sadly however, none of them are addressed in this 'new review'. On the other hand, it _is_ so terrifically 'biting', 'cutting' and 'cynical' in that wonderful New York way we all know and love -- I should think that alone places it a cut above the sort of review that attempts to honestly 'discuss' the 'content' of the 'movie at hand'.
Perhaps 'Solaris bashing' should be added to the list of Slashdot topics. I can see it now:
Step 1: Bash Solaris Step 2: Bash Solaris some more Step 3: Profit!!
or maybe even
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, Solaris bashes YOU!
P.S. For a far more balanced (if not uncritical) perspective, you might try the Salon review
What a load of horseshit. I'd love to see your sources (and no, The Guardian and The Independent don't fucking cut it). Yeah, the Israelis have made their share of costly mistakes, but this is plain ridiculous. What, they killed more Palestinians than the atomic bomb? Riiight. And WTF is up with the Vietnam - takeover failure business? What, it was all about oil or something? I guess everybody was _so_ much better off under Communist rule. Or perhaps you learned your history from Noam Chomsky (only).
And you didn't see anyone in the US skip a beat did you? I mean, you _have_ heard about this thing we like to call 'the left', right? The Americans may be self-centered or arrogant, but I'm not sure how that excuses the sort of despicable statements you're making.
I don't mind getting modded down for this (which I know I will be), I just wish people would address the actual points I made (I can just see the European responses now: "Points you made? You, sir, are an idiot. Americans/Jews must die"). And once again, Arab News articles and other racist state propaganda are _not_ acceptable sources.
And don't even get me started on the Americans being the 'real' racists; whoever sincerely believes that obviously hasn't travelled very widely. I mean fuck, am I the only one who gives a shit about womens rights? Or how about human rights? Does no one else reaise 'human rights violations' doesn't mean 'human rights violations commited by Israelis"? No wonder the Americans are running the world -- everybody else's brain seems to have turned to mush all of a sudden.
Obviously I can only speak for myself, but personally I found the love story to be a powerful aspect of the book. As for the dialogue being awkward, I'm not sure what language you read the book in, but IIRC the only available English translation is terrible. Lem actually has a great ear for dialogue -- check out some of Michael Kandel's translations to see what I mean.
Re:Bad adaptation
on
Review: Solaris
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Soderbergh didn't 'turn' Solaris into a love story, he merely emphasised the love story over other narrative elements, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for an adaptation to do IMO. In Lem's book, the love story is more of a backdrop, and the main theme is indeed the contact (or lack thereof) between humanity and the ocean (Solaris). Lem thought all those anthropomorphic aliens populating Western sci-fi were totally ridiculous -- the actual life forms we may encounter could be so staggeringly different from ourselves communication would prove just about impossible. However, the love story is there and it's a major, major theme (if you think such things didn't interest Lem, you obviously haven't read The Mask). Tarkovsky, who made the original (far, far slower yet superior) Solaris wasn't exaclty faithful to the book either (in fact, Lem reportedly hated his version). I think it's perfectly pointless to simply port the source material to another medium. The best adaptations, much like the best remixes, uncover elements you never knew were there. Take what Kubrick did with Burgess's A Clockwork Orange -- he totally subverted the message of the book, yet did so brilliantly. Why not enjoy both?
No, Solaris won't be a success. Film nerd won't give it a chance because Clooney's in it, sci-fi nerds will claim it's unferior to Lem's book and most 'normal people' will find it 'too slow' (whatever the fuck that means). This is a shame, because the movie really is pretty good, all things considered. Ah well.
Nice troll; I'm bored, so I'll bite (hint: peppering your post with Marienbad references just might give you away -- but of course you knew that already). Aaaanyway.
So Solaris is arguably the second-worst movie ever made is it? And the reason for that is because you couldn't understand what it was about, is that right (incidentally, does the expression 'non-sequitur' mean anything to you)? Are you seriously suggesting that Solaris is worse than, oh I don't know, The Phantom Menace? Or 8mm? But then you were only being facetious about the 'second worst' bit, weren't you? I certainly agree that some 'classics' are overrated. Take Godard's Weekend for example -- I really hated it personally, but some people think it's amazing (or at least claim that they think it's amazing). It's all a matter of taste (or lack thereof) I guess. At any rate, Solaris is a movie that has to be approached on its own terms in order to be properly appreciated (sounds pretentious as fuck I know). If you're not willing to put the effort in, fine. But please don't equate it with other 'difficult' films that are merely crappy -- some people out there haven't seen it, and I sincerely hope your rather 'cutting' remarks don't cause them to avoid it.
There. An angry film nerd response, all according to your most devious scheme. Good night, and happy future trolling.
P.S. I saw Soderbergh's remake the other night and it was surprisingly good. Go see it if you haven't already.
Hmmm...The writer of the UnrealTournament article gripes that Xandros uses ReiserFS as the default file system, instead of ext3, which is journaled. But isn't ReiserFS journaled as well, and faster to boot? I don't know much about Reiser, that's just what I heard.
Sure, maybe you won't make another LOTR, but you might make Pi, which was one of the best sci-fi movies of the 90s IMO. There are some really good independently produced movies out there, many of which are anything but 'clunky-but-adorable'.
I'm not sure I follow you. Obviously just because two algorithms have the same asymptotic time complexity doesn't mean the constants hidden by the O notation don't make a huge difference in practice. How this makes O(n) != O(cn) I don't think I understand. Also, when you're writing production code you don't ususally spend tons of time trying to figure out whether something has compexity 1.5n^2 + 3n - 12 or 2.3n^2 + 2n + 1 (that's the whole point of using O notation, isn't it?). This is a minor point though so let's not quibble about it.
>using O(cN) where c is a bigger constant over an >O(N) time algorithm
Actually, O(cn) and O(n) denote the same class of functions if c is a constant (much like O(1) V.S. O(c) for any other constant c). You are probably referring to the fact that different functions in O(n) may require different constants c and n_0 (s.t. f(n) = n_0).
Here's a little experiment you might want to try: pick a query, any query, and compare how high up the list the relevant results are in Google and AltaVista.
The reason people switched to using Google is that it's a _much_ better search engine (not to mention the fact that it's cleaner, commercial free, etc). Or that's why I switched anyhow.
Um...I don't know if you've read Sokal's book Fashionable Nonsense, but in it he makes painfully clear (as though it weren't clear enough already from the Social Text article) that his problem with postmodernism isn't 'non-determinism', or 'non-linearily', or anything of the sort. Rather, he points out that the works of many respected post-modernist 'intellectuals' (most of them French, coincidentally) are pure gibberish. These people brazenly use highly technical mathematical terminology without having the most rudimentary understanding of the underlying mathematical concepts. Moreover, the vast majority of their intended audience have no mathematical training whatsoever, and are thus unable to pick up on this. I do think that there are some similarities to the whole Sokal thing here though. Some physicists appear to be concerned that certain physical theories (e.g. string theory) have grown so obscure as to be unverifiable and hence unfalsifiable and nonsensical. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with physics availing itself of sophisticated mathematical tools, so long as there's actually some, you know, physics going on the background.
And that's exactly why most innovative music these days is produced in the US. Labels such as Basic Channel, Compost, Ninja Tune, Moving Shadow, Mo' Wax, Hardleaders, Pork and Warp are all based in...uh...hold on a minute...nevermind.
I hope you were kidding, and I feel truly sorry for you if you weren't. And yes, the music scene in Israel is in fact more akin to the European one. Wait, was that supposed to be an insult? Oh dear.
Erm...I guess you're just trying to be funny or something, but there's always a chance some people will take this sort of thing seriously, so, for the record, disco is _NOT_ a huge part of Israeli culture. Trance was pretty big there for a while (in fact I think 'Israeli trance' is something of a well-established trance subgenere, or was for a while anyway), but disco? Give me a break.
On a (somewhat) related note, why does Reuters keep referring to Israeli clubs as 'discotheques', as is "The explosion occured at a Tel-Aviv discotheque"? I mean, is it that hard to call them 'clubs'? Cause that's what they are. Clubs. The seventies are over, people. Sheesh.
Of course you were probably just trolling or attempting to be humorous or whatever, but anyway.
Your point is well taken. It is certainly possible to criticise Israel without being anti-Jewish -- in fact, I've been doing that myself for years. Pity so few choose do so. If you asked me a few years ago what Sharon's chances of getting elected were I'd have replied 'nil' without hesitation. However, after the Barak fiasco I can hardly blame the Israelis for giving a hawk like Sharon carte blanche. At any rate, comparing Saddam and Sharon is disengenuous to say the least. I'm not trying to stifle debate here, I just wish it were a bit more...informed, shall we say. Are you seriously saying that reprinting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not anti-Jewish? Then how about five and six years old calling Jews dirty pigs and apes that must be destroyed on state TV? Or what about firing people solely for being Israeli, even though they are long-standing Palestinian rights advocates (Mona Baker anyone?)? And what about Durban, not anti-Jewish either? Or how about dedicating untold amounts of editorial space to rants about fictitious massacres without publishing a retraction? Or carrying signs saying "Peace now" while wearing fake suicide bomber (uh, sorry, 'freedom fighter') outfits? And what about people who whine about fake atrocities yet couldn't care less about little children being blown to bits in pizzerias? I'm trying really really hard to continue believing that European anti-Israeli sentiments aren't indicative of a resurgence of age-old virulent anti-semitism, but
it's getting more and more difficult every day.
>I think he is referencing our unstinting support
>of Israel despite their many atrocities
Oh yes, the atrocities! How dare those fucking Jews get blow to bits while commuting to work? The nerve of some people! And then they proceed to get chopped to pieces by nail bomobs while out clubbing! What's next, being detonated during religous ceremonies? Oh wait, they do that too. Those damn Jews! We really ought to do something about them. The way they slaughter Palestinian kids for fertilizer and drink the blood of slain Christian babes. It's a wonder nobody has had the bright idea of exterminating them yet! Oh wait...Yeah anyway, what the fuck were they thinking killing all those hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin and sneakily burying the bodies in unmarked mass graves? The Jenin masscare must be answered for!!! Except...oh yeah, Amnesty International admitted there was never any masscare, so forget about that. Moving right along...The Six Days war, what's up with that? Those fucking Jews think that just because all of their Arab neighbours decide to band together and wipe Israel off the map they can, like, defend themselves and shit? Fuck that! They should have gone like lambs to the slaughter. Except...isn't that what we accused them of during WWII? I guess so..Uh..yeah...anyhow, Sharon is a nasty nasty man. Cause like..uh..erm..yeah, well, he doesn't want peace in the region, see? Nevermind that Arafat turned down Barak's Camp David proposal for a Palestinian state, with a capital in Jerusalem no less, opting to initiate a new intifada. That proposal was obviously flawed, see, because it would have been a compromise for both sides, and those damn Jews know well enough that the Palestinians are a proud people and can't be arsed to compromise. So in conclusion...let us not let pesky facts get in the way of good old fashioned Jew-bashing, k?
I find it amazing that Europeans can muster so much blind hatred (or is it jealosy?) for Americans. Being Canadian myself, I'm not exactly a huge fan of the US, but these sort of remarks are simply intolerable. How is a terrorist act perpetrated by wealthy Saudi engineers and backed by a Saudi multi-millionaire whose stated purpose it is to establish an Islamic world order an act of "revenge" exactly? Enlighten me please. What, are you equating the cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocents with misguided support for the Contras or something? If I hear another one of those "root-causes" arguments I'm going to puke. Do you have any idea what sort of activities the British were engaged in while _they_ were in a similar position of power (the Sepoy rebellion comes to mind)? Anything the Americans ever did pales by comparison. So they occasionally meddle in world affairs; it's not like they're the first (or the last, for that matter). Nothing, NOTHING justifies the horror of September 11th, and standing idly by is the last thing you want to do.
Or perhaps we should just sign a peace accord with Osama...like the one Chamberlain signed with Hitler.
I have cookies enabled in Mozilla 0.9.9 (outdated, I know), and I certainly didn't specifically block Google. And yet the Cookie Manager has no record of any Google-related cookies whatsoever. At any rate, I find most cookies to be convenient and harmless, and if you mistrust a particular site you can always block it and remove the offending cookie.
You must mean "who", not "whom", which is objective (i.e. "Whom did you have in mind?"). In any case, last time I checked "a person that..." was perfectly grammatical. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary handily supplies the following Shakespeare quote: "I'll make a ghost of him that lets me" (as opposed to "him _who_ lets me", which of course would have been just as legitimate).
>A "virtual base class" is a strange and obscure >feature of C++ a lot of people don't know about: >look it up.
Let's not make rash assumptions about what Tony does and does not know, shall we? Especially when he's making perfect sense. Suppose you have two classes that publicly inherit from Automobile (the former NOT being abstract at all), Car and Truck say. Now let's say you want a new class, imaginatively called Caruck, to publicly inherit from both Car and Truck. You should probably make Car and Truck _virtual_ Automobiles, so that Caruck only has one copy of Automobile's variables.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, and why do you suppose corporations like Microsoft set out to "kill their competition" in the first place? I suppose some sort of 'benign monopolist' who (for some unfathomable reason) refrained from abusing monopoly power wouldn't be so bad, but I've yet to encounter such a beast. That is not to say monopolists always attempt to charge everybody the highest possible price; in fact, differentiating between various customer types (i.e. consumer versus corporate etc.) is one of the hallmarks of monopoly AFAIK.
Wait...you were told that if we're the only intelligent life form in the universe (which isn't exactly easy to verify), there _must_ be some sort of "god"? Seems like a non sequitur at best to me.
:) ? Seriously though, you'd think a science professor would know a thing or two about Occam's razor...
Was this course offered by the department of theology by any chance
Ah yes, Asimov, Kubrick...Do you know that both were Jewish? Seriously, I'm not trolling. Are you aware of that fact or what? Because if you are, I'd love to know how you reconcile your hatred for Jews (and blacks, and Asians, and every other non-'Aryan' race out there, no doubt) with your apparent enjoyment of their work.
No wait, let me guess. Those people weren't _really_ Jewish -- it's all a(nother) massive Zionist conspiracy!
On an unrelated note, I am rather intrigued by your sig. Why must Saudi Arabia fall? After all, I'm sure they hate the Jews as much (if not more) than you do; you should recognise them for the allies in the struggle against Zionism that they surely are rather than calling for their annihilation.
I own both a VCR and a DVD player, but I don't have cable. It's just not worth it to me; all the global news coverage I could possibly want is available online (in fact, I rank many blogs far higher than most mainstream media outlets), and I can rent tapes and DVD's when I'm in the mood for a movie. If and when cable (or satellite) companies decide to offer true per-channel subscription, I might be interested in getting HBO or an independent movie channel say. Until then, I think I'll hold on to my money.
I beg to differ. Sure, Flash can be annoying but so can yellow text on a pink background. There's a time and a place for Flash; just because something has the capacity to be used for Evil(TM) doesn't mean it has no legitimate applications.
Look, it's a YANSR -- Yet Another Negative Solaris Review. How is this 'another view', exactly? The first Solaris-related story (a few months ago) concluded that 'it'll probably suck'. The recent review proclaimed that 'it sucks' (in so many words), and now this 'new perspective' reveals that -- whoa there -- it _really_ sucks.
I mean, come on. Soderbergh guilty of being a film student (I guess I'll have to boycott Taxi Driver and Raging Bull from now on)? A 'trick' ending (I'd love to hear an explanation of what was so 'tricky' about it)? A cynical, jaded New York audience not giving George 'what a plebeian' Clooney the benifit of the doubt (SHOCK!! HORROR!!!)?
Granted, the movie does have some very real faults (hint: it's not the 'conceit somewhat larger than a fully grown blue whale'. God, that's the worst fucking simile I've ever had the misfortune to chance upon). Sadly however, none of them are addressed in this 'new review'. On the other hand, it _is_ so terrifically 'biting', 'cutting' and 'cynical' in that wonderful New York way we all know and love -- I should think that alone places it a cut above the sort of review that attempts to honestly 'discuss' the 'content' of the 'movie at hand'.
Perhaps 'Solaris bashing' should be added to the list of Slashdot topics. I can see it now:
Step 1: Bash Solaris
Step 2: Bash Solaris some more
Step 3: Profit!!
or maybe even
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, Solaris bashes YOU!
P.S.
For a far more balanced (if not uncritical) perspective, you might try
the Salon review
>Israel (Palestinian Genocide): 100 000 Dead
What a load of horseshit. I'd love to see your sources (and no, The Guardian and The Independent don't fucking cut it). Yeah, the Israelis have made their share of costly mistakes, but this is plain ridiculous. What, they killed more Palestinians than the atomic bomb? Riiight. And WTF is up with the Vietnam - takeover failure business? What, it was all about oil or something? I guess everybody was _so_ much better off under Communist rule. Or perhaps you learned your history from Noam Chomsky (only).
And you didn't see anyone in the US skip a beat did you? I mean, you _have_ heard about this thing we like to call 'the left', right? The Americans may be self-centered or arrogant, but I'm not sure how that excuses the sort of despicable statements you're making.
I don't mind getting modded down for this (which I know I will be), I just wish people would address the actual points I made (I can just see the European responses now: "Points you made? You, sir, are an idiot. Americans/Jews must die"). And once again, Arab News articles and other racist state propaganda are _not_ acceptable sources.
And don't even get me started on the Americans being the 'real' racists; whoever sincerely believes that obviously hasn't travelled very widely. I mean fuck, am I the only one who gives a shit about womens rights? Or how about human rights? Does no one else reaise 'human rights violations' doesn't mean 'human rights violations commited by Israelis"? No wonder the Americans are running the world -- everybody else's brain seems to have turned to mush all of a sudden.
Obviously I can only speak for myself, but personally I found the love story to be a powerful aspect of the book. As for the dialogue being awkward, I'm not sure what language you read the book in, but IIRC the only available English translation is terrible. Lem actually has a great ear for dialogue -- check out some of Michael Kandel's translations to see what I mean.
Soderbergh didn't 'turn' Solaris into a love story, he merely emphasised the love story over other narrative elements, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for an adaptation to do IMO. In Lem's book, the love story is more of a backdrop, and the main theme is indeed the contact (or lack thereof) between humanity and the ocean (Solaris). Lem thought all those anthropomorphic aliens populating Western sci-fi were totally ridiculous -- the actual life forms we may encounter could be so staggeringly different from ourselves communication would prove just about impossible. However, the love story is there and it's a major, major theme (if you think such things didn't interest Lem, you obviously haven't read The Mask). Tarkovsky, who made the original (far, far slower yet superior) Solaris wasn't exaclty faithful to the book either (in fact, Lem reportedly hated his version). I think it's perfectly pointless to simply port the source material to another medium. The best adaptations, much like the best remixes, uncover elements you never knew were there. Take what Kubrick did with Burgess's A Clockwork Orange -- he totally subverted the message of the book, yet did so brilliantly. Why not enjoy both?
No, Solaris won't be a success. Film nerd won't give it a chance because Clooney's in it, sci-fi nerds will claim it's unferior to Lem's book and most 'normal people' will find it 'too slow' (whatever the fuck that means). This is a shame, because the movie really is pretty good, all things considered. Ah well.
Nice troll; I'm bored, so I'll bite (hint: peppering your post with Marienbad references just might give you away -- but of course you knew that already). Aaaanyway.
So Solaris is arguably the second-worst movie ever made is it? And the reason for that is because you couldn't understand what it was about, is that right (incidentally, does the expression 'non-sequitur' mean anything to you)? Are you seriously suggesting that Solaris is worse than, oh I don't know, The Phantom Menace? Or 8mm? But then you were only being facetious about the 'second worst' bit, weren't you? I certainly agree that some 'classics' are overrated. Take Godard's Weekend for example -- I really hated it personally, but some people think it's amazing (or at least claim that they think it's amazing). It's all a matter of taste (or lack thereof) I guess. At any rate, Solaris is a movie that has to be approached on its own terms in order to be properly appreciated (sounds pretentious as fuck I know). If you're not willing to put the effort in, fine. But please don't equate it with other 'difficult' films that are merely crappy -- some people out there haven't seen it, and I sincerely hope your rather 'cutting' remarks don't cause them to avoid it.
There. An angry film nerd response, all according to your most devious scheme. Good night, and happy future trolling.
P.S.
I saw Soderbergh's remake the other night and it was surprisingly good. Go see it if you haven't already.
Hmmm...The writer of the UnrealTournament article gripes that Xandros uses ReiserFS as the default file system, instead of ext3, which is journaled. But isn't ReiserFS journaled as well, and faster to boot? I don't know much about Reiser, that's just what I heard.
Sure, maybe you won't make another LOTR, but you might make Pi, which was one of the best sci-fi movies of the 90s IMO. There are some really good independently produced movies out there, many of which are anything but 'clunky-but-adorable'.
I'm not sure I follow you. Obviously just because two algorithms have the same asymptotic time complexity doesn't mean the constants hidden by the O notation don't make a huge difference in practice. How this makes O(n) != O(cn) I don't think I understand. Also, when you're writing production code you don't ususally spend tons of time trying to figure out whether something has compexity 1.5n^2 + 3n - 12 or 2.3n^2 + 2n + 1 (that's the whole point of using O notation, isn't it?). This is a minor point though so let's not quibble about it.
that should be s.t. f(n) less than or equal to cn for all n bigger than or equal to n_0. Things got screwed up somehow.
>using O(cN) where c is a bigger constant over an
>O(N) time algorithm
Actually, O(cn) and O(n) denote the same class of functions if c is a constant (much like O(1) V.S. O(c) for any other constant c). You are probably referring to the fact that different functions in O(n) may require different constants c and n_0 (s.t. f(n) = n_0).
Here's a little experiment you might want to try: pick a query, any query, and compare how high up the list the relevant results are in Google and AltaVista. The reason people switched to using Google is that it's a _much_ better search engine (not to mention the fact that it's cleaner, commercial free, etc). Or that's why I switched anyhow.
Um...I don't know if you've read Sokal's book Fashionable Nonsense, but in it he makes painfully clear (as though it weren't clear enough already from the Social Text article) that his problem with postmodernism isn't 'non-determinism', or 'non-linearily', or anything of the sort. Rather, he points out that the works of many respected post-modernist 'intellectuals' (most of them French, coincidentally) are pure gibberish. These people brazenly use highly technical mathematical terminology without having the most rudimentary understanding of the underlying mathematical concepts. Moreover, the vast majority of their intended audience have no mathematical training whatsoever, and are thus unable to pick up on this. I do think that there are some similarities to the whole Sokal thing here though. Some physicists appear to be concerned that certain physical theories (e.g. string theory) have grown so obscure as to be unverifiable and hence unfalsifiable and nonsensical. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with physics availing itself of sophisticated mathematical tools, so long as there's actually some, you know, physics going on the background.
And that's exactly why most innovative music these days is produced in the US. Labels such as Basic Channel, Compost, Ninja Tune, Moving Shadow, Mo' Wax, Hardleaders, Pork and Warp are all based in ...uh...hold on a minute...nevermind.
I hope you were kidding, and I feel truly sorry for you if you weren't. And yes, the music scene in Israel is in fact more akin to the European one. Wait, was that supposed to be an insult? Oh dear.
Erm...I guess you're just trying to be funny or something, but there's always a chance some people will take this sort of thing seriously, so, for the record, disco is _NOT_ a huge part of Israeli culture. Trance was pretty big there for a while (in fact I think 'Israeli trance' is something of a well-established trance subgenere, or was for a while anyway), but disco? Give me a break. On a (somewhat) related note, why does Reuters keep referring to Israeli clubs as 'discotheques', as is "The explosion occured at a Tel-Aviv discotheque"? I mean, is it that hard to call them 'clubs'? Cause that's what they are. Clubs. The seventies are over, people. Sheesh. Of course you were probably just trolling or attempting to be humorous or whatever, but anyway.
Your point is well taken. It is certainly possible to criticise Israel without being anti-Jewish -- in fact, I've been doing that myself for years. Pity so few choose do so. If you asked me a few years ago what Sharon's chances of getting elected were I'd have replied 'nil' without hesitation. However, after the Barak fiasco I can hardly blame the Israelis for giving a hawk like Sharon carte blanche. At any rate, comparing Saddam and Sharon is disengenuous to say the least. I'm not trying to stifle debate here, I just wish it were a bit more...informed, shall we say. Are you seriously saying that reprinting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not anti-Jewish? Then how about five and six years old calling Jews dirty pigs and apes that must be destroyed on state TV? Or what about firing people solely for being Israeli, even though they are long-standing Palestinian rights advocates (Mona Baker anyone?)? And what about Durban, not anti-Jewish either? Or how about dedicating untold amounts of editorial space to rants about fictitious massacres without publishing a retraction? Or carrying signs saying "Peace now" while wearing fake suicide bomber (uh, sorry, 'freedom fighter') outfits? And what about people who whine about fake atrocities yet couldn't care less about little children being blown to bits in pizzerias? I'm trying really really hard to continue believing that European anti-Israeli sentiments aren't indicative of a resurgence of age-old virulent anti-semitism, but it's getting more and more difficult every day.
>I think he is referencing our unstinting support >of Israel despite their many atrocities Oh yes, the atrocities! How dare those fucking Jews get blow to bits while commuting to work? The nerve of some people! And then they proceed to get chopped to pieces by nail bomobs while out clubbing! What's next, being detonated during religous ceremonies? Oh wait, they do that too. Those damn Jews! We really ought to do something about them. The way they slaughter Palestinian kids for fertilizer and drink the blood of slain Christian babes. It's a wonder nobody has had the bright idea of exterminating them yet! Oh wait...Yeah anyway, what the fuck were they thinking killing all those hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin and sneakily burying the bodies in unmarked mass graves? The Jenin masscare must be answered for!!! Except...oh yeah, Amnesty International admitted there was never any masscare, so forget about that. Moving right along...The Six Days war, what's up with that? Those fucking Jews think that just because all of their Arab neighbours decide to band together and wipe Israel off the map they can, like, defend themselves and shit? Fuck that! They should have gone like lambs to the slaughter. Except...isn't that what we accused them of during WWII? I guess so..Uh..yeah...anyhow, Sharon is a nasty nasty man. Cause like..uh..erm..yeah, well, he doesn't want peace in the region, see? Nevermind that Arafat turned down Barak's Camp David proposal for a Palestinian state, with a capital in Jerusalem no less, opting to initiate a new intifada. That proposal was obviously flawed, see, because it would have been a compromise for both sides, and those damn Jews know well enough that the Palestinians are a proud people and can't be arsed to compromise. So in conclusion...let us not let pesky facts get in the way of good old fashioned Jew-bashing, k?
I find it amazing that Europeans can muster so much blind hatred (or is it jealosy?) for Americans. Being Canadian myself, I'm not exactly a huge fan of the US, but these sort of remarks are simply intolerable. How is a terrorist act perpetrated by wealthy Saudi engineers and backed by a Saudi multi-millionaire whose stated purpose it is to establish an Islamic world order an act of "revenge" exactly? Enlighten me please. What, are you equating the cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocents with misguided support for the Contras or something? If I hear another one of those "root-causes" arguments I'm going to puke. Do you have any idea what sort of activities the British were engaged in while _they_ were in a similar position of power (the Sepoy rebellion comes to mind)? Anything the Americans ever did pales by comparison. So they occasionally meddle in world affairs; it's not like they're the first (or the last, for that matter). Nothing, NOTHING justifies the horror of September 11th, and standing idly by is the last thing you want to do. Or perhaps we should just sign a peace accord with Osama...like the one Chamberlain signed with Hitler.
I have cookies enabled in Mozilla 0.9.9 (outdated, I know), and I certainly didn't specifically block Google. And yet the Cookie Manager has no record of any Google-related cookies whatsoever. At any rate, I find most cookies to be convenient and harmless, and if you mistrust a particular site you can always block it and remove the offending cookie.
> "that" should be "whom"
You must mean "who", not "whom", which is objective (i.e. "Whom did you have in mind?"). In any case, last time I checked "a person that..." was perfectly grammatical. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary handily supplies the following Shakespeare quote: "I'll make a ghost of him that lets me" (as opposed to "him _who_ lets me", which of course would have been just as legitimate).
>A "virtual base class" is a strange and obscure >feature of C++ a lot of people don't know about: >look it up.
Let's not make rash assumptions about what Tony does and does not know, shall we? Especially when he's making perfect sense. Suppose you have two classes that publicly inherit from Automobile (the former NOT being abstract at all), Car and Truck say. Now let's say you want a new class, imaginatively called Caruck, to publicly inherit from both Car and Truck. You should probably make Car and Truck _virtual_ Automobiles, so that Caruck only has one copy of Automobile's variables.