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User: Kardamon

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Comments · 88

  1. Re:Free? on The Semantics of Free Software vs. Open Source · · Score: 1

    [R]emember how Hitler demanded one are after another just prior to World War II. On the other hand, if she was open about her long-term goals all along, no one has any grounds to complain.

    Hitler was pretty open about his long term goals in "Mein Kampf", so nobody had a reason to complain??

    Christianity is often dumbed down into "if you're good, you'll go to heaven; if not, you'll burn in hell" (which is incorrect) or "if you believe in Christ, you'll go to heaven; if not, you'll burn in hell" (which is correct but incomprehensible since it doesn't explain the underlaying logic).

    I don't think Jesus ever said "those who don't believe in me will go to hell" (I think he would have been boggled by the idea of people *believing* in him), did he even mention "hell" at all? If one would want to dumb down Christianity, I think "love your neighbourgs" would come closest - but this of course could never be to the benefit of the church or the politicians.

  2. Re:Free? on The Semantics of Free Software vs. Open Source · · Score: 1

    OK, just start here

  3. Re:Prove it on Astronaut: 'Single-Planet Species Don't Last' · · Score: 1

    Yep, that's right.

  4. Re:Prove it on Astronaut: 'Single-Planet Species Don't Last' · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If our sun goes all bets are off though we need to find another solar system but I bet we could figure out something in 4.5 billion years.

    We already have a spare solar system, it's called Jupiter. The only thing we need to do is to transform it into a star an off we fly...

  5. Re:Portable bookmarks on How to Build a Better Browser · · Score: 1

    I never use the browser bookmarks: I just keep them in my gmail, so I can access them everywhere. You could even use your slashdot journal to put them in :-)

  6. Re:Why is more dimensions "better" on 3D User Interfaces · · Score: 1

    Well, I use the address bar of my browser as a kind of command line: I type an address with all the parameters and I get a graphical answer.

  7. Elite on Wing Commander 3 Reaches Ten Year Milestone · · Score: 2, Informative

    My favourite classic space sim remains Elite, which is 20 years old this year.

  8. Re: What's next for him? on Man Builds 7-foot Grandfather Clock from Lego · · Score: 1

    Wow, this is cool!

  9. Re: What's next for him? on Man Builds 7-foot Grandfather Clock from Lego · · Score: 1

    What about an analytical engine made of Lego?

  10. Re:This is what the Pentagon has to say about it on Human Activity to Blame For 2003 Heatwave · · Score: 1

    anyone who wants to govern,shouldn't be allowed to.
    I agree with this. This reminds me of an Arthur C. Clarke novel ("The Far Earth"? I've read it in translation...) in which the rulers are appointed by a lottery among the people who do not want to rule.

    Remember: "climate" is not the same as "weather".

  11. Re:article NOT A RANT, those are legitimate gotcha on MySQL Database Design and Optimization · · Score: 1

    I second this. Also see here.

  12. This is what the Pentagon has to say about it on Human Activity to Blame For 2003 Heatwave · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is the Petagon Climate Report) which was leaked through The Observer.
    An interview whith one of its athors (Doug Randall) is here.
    The BBC has some reactions from scientists on it.

  13. Poincaré and Hilbert on Enter the Relativity Challenge · · Score: 1

    Einstein's work was already in very simple laymen's terms. I don't know what the point is in trying to make it into braindead powerpoint.

    Einstein's work on STR is "Poincaré for dummies", Einstein's work on GTR is "Hilbert for dummies".

    STR
    Einstein's paper "On the electrodymanics of moving bodies" contains nothing new. It was actually Poincaré who was the first to correctly state the special theory of relativity (the transformation formulas were found by Woldemar Voigt in 1887, H.A. Lorentz in 1892, Sir Joseph Larmor and others)
    In 1898, Poincaré attacks the distinction Lorentz and Larmor make between "local time" and "universal time": "Nous n'avons pas l'intuition directe de l'égalité de deux intervalles de temps. Les personnes qui croient posséder cette intuition sont dupes d'une illusion... Le temps doit être défini de telle facon que les équations de la méquanique soient aussi simples que possible. En d'autres termes, il n'y a pas une manière de mesurer le temps qui soit plus vrai qu'une autre; celle qui est généralement adoptée est seulement plus commode. ...Il a commencé par admettre que la lumière a une vitesse constante, et en particulier que sa vitesse est la même dans toutes les directions. C'est là un postulat sans lequel aucune mesure de cette vitesse ne pourrait être tentée. Ce postulat ne pourra jamais être vérifié directment par l'expérience; il pourrait être contredit par elle, si les résultats des diverses mesures n'étaient pas concordants. Nous devons nous estimer hereux que cette contradiction n'ait pas lieu et que les petites discordances qui peuvent se produire puissent s'expliquer facilement. ...c'est que je veux retenir, c'est qu'il nous fournit une règle nouvelle pour la recherche de la simultanéité... Il est difficile de séparer le problème qualitatif de la simultanéité du problème quantitatif de la mesure du temps; soit qu'on se serve d'un chronomètre, soit qu'on ait à tenir compte d'une vitesse de transmission, comme celle de la lumière, car on ne saurait mesurer une pareille vitesse sans mesurer un temps. ...La simultanéité de deux événements, ou l'ordre de leur succession, l'égalité de deux durées, doivent être définies de telle sorte que l'énoncé des lois naturelles soit aussi simple que possible. En d'autres termes, toutes ces règles, toutes ces définitions ne sont que le fruit d'un opportunisme incoscient." (H. Poincaré, La mesure du temps, in Revue de métaphysique et de morale 6 (1898), pp. 1-13)
    In 1902, Poincare writes there is no absolute time and no absolute space: "1. There is no absolute space, and we only conceive of relative motion; and yet in most cases mechanical facts are enunciated as if there is an absolute space to which they can be referred. 2. There is no absolute time. When we say that two periods are equal, the statement has no meaning, and can only acquire a meaning by a convention. 3. Not only have we no direct intuition of the equality of two periods, but we have not even direct intuition of the simultaneity of two events occurring in two different places. I have explained this in an article entitled 'Mesure du Temps.' 4. Finally, is not our Euclidean geometry in itself only a kind of convention of language ? Mechanical facts might be enunciated with reference to a non-Euclidean space which would be less convenient but quite as legitimate as our ordinary space; the enunciation would become more complicated, but it still would be possible. Thus, absolute space, absolute time, and even geometry are not conditions which are imposed on mechanics. All these things no more existed before mechanics than the French language can be logically said

  14. OT: About your sig on Firefox Seeks Full Page Ad in New York Times · · Score: 1

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try. -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822.3.

    Do you mean dr. Spock or mr. Spock?

  15. Re:what product reaches 12.0? on Microsoft Plans New Server Products For Office v12 · · Score: 1

    Right, I did not think about Emacs - perhaps because vi is my office application...

  16. what product reaches 12.0? on Microsoft Plans New Server Products For Office v12 · · Score: 3, Informative

    As the submitter asked this :-)

    Cisco IOS Release 12.0
    Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.0 (Sybase ASE jumped from version 4 to version 10, leaving 5,6,7,8,9 to MS SQL Server)
    Hardware Compatibility Test (HCT) 12.0
    CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12.0
    Corel WordPerfect Office 12.0
    Domus.Cad 12.0
    Palm Tipsheet 12.0
    ALS Beamline 12.0
    OmniPage Pro 12.0
    SPSS for Windows 12.0
    Laplink Gold 12.0
    Etcetera...

  17. Re:Getting rid of NULLS by normalization. on An Alternative to SQL? · · Score: 1

    Thats why the relationists put so much importance in the distinction between the physical and the logical data model: the logical model can be normalized (without NULLs) and the physical model can put everything in one table containing NULLs for internal representation only.

  18. Getting rid of NULLS by normalization. on An Alternative to SQL? · · Score: 1

    Suppose you have a table like this:

    PK Value_1 Value_2
    -- ------- -------
    01 abc def
    02 efg hij
    03 klm NULL
    04 ghi jkl

    You can normalize it like this:

    Table_1 Table_2
    PK Value_1 PK Value_2
    -- ------- -- -------
    01 abc 01 def
    02 efg 02 hij
    03 klm 04 jkl
    04 ghi

  19. Re:Ooooooold News on Elite 4 Coming Soon · · Score: 1

    So, we remain victim of the fight between Bell and Braben... This is sad, maybe they should do some kind of deathmatch (Bell in a Cobra and Braben in a Python:) to settle the issue.

    We have to put our hopes in the Galileo Project then?

  20. Re:Ooooooold News on Elite 4 Coming Soon · · Score: 1

    While waiting for Duke Nukem Forever - oops Elite 4 - you can find the old Elite programmes in the archive on Ian Bell's website or play the remake Elite:The new Kind.

  21. Re:don't direct towards only the nerds on What Should 10-Year-Olds Know About IT? · · Score: 1

    The first time I've seen a computer (a military telecom mainframe called MITRA), in 1975, I was 6 years old. I understood that the thing could reason (infere) but not *think* and that the reasoning had to do something with 'logic gates'. Next I started experimenting with electronics kits and building those gates, a simple adder, a flipflop, etc... The clue to understand computers is boolean logic, all the rest follows from that.

    Now, I have children aged 8 and 10, The moment I really impressed them with what a computer can do, was when I demonstrated Prolog.

    I've got them started with the NeverWinter Nights Aurora toolkit: they started just putting buildings and mosters on a map by drag & drop and can next evolve into more sophisticated stuff (up to the NWN scripting language) from there.

  22. Cloudscape history on Derby Source Code Released · · Score: 4, Informative

    Cloudscape Inc was founded in 1996 and acquired by Informix Corp in september 1999. IBM got Cloudscape in 2000 when it bought Informix.

  23. Proudhon and property on Is IP Property? · · Score: 1

    Actually, Proudhon makes a difference between possession and property: I can posses a house because I happen to live in it. Property means that my children will inherit the house, so it leads to accumulation of wealth over the generations. Proudhon did not oppose possession but only property.

  24. Re:Taos on Universal Emulators Return · · Score: 1

    Somehow OT, but this reminds me of the PC and MS-DOS emulator for ARM/Archimedes back in 1987 (IIRC, it may have been 1988). My friends did not believe the Archimedes could emulate a PC before they had seen it run WordPerfect 5.

  25. Re:Einsteinian Physics & David Hilbert on Mysterious Force Affects Pioneer 10 & 11 Probes · · Score: 1

    Correction: I did not mean the law of gravitation but the gravitational field equation and the law of warpage.