Umm...PIPA hardly compares to Bob Jones University. Please check out PIPA's about us page to see who they are funded by: http://www.pipa.org/about.html. Yes, Ben and Jerry's is on there, but I hardly think of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and etc. as bastions of liberal ideology. It's not really fair to compare PIPA to a Christian-oriented college. More importantly, by making this claim of bias, you are attempting to discount the conclusion of the report--that many Bush supporters in the U.S. are sadly out of touch not only with what the rest of the world thinks about their leadership but also what the solid conclusions of experts have been on the subject of WMDs and Iraq. Please don't load this with bias that doesn't exist.
Okay, so I'm a big Half-Life fan, I really can't wait for the sequel to that game to be released. But my OTHER favorite game of all time has to be ICO. This game approached, more than any other that I've ever played, the sort of ideal achievement that a video game should approach: it coordinated an atmosphere, along with an explorable world, and a simple objective with interesting puzzles, and deep characterization--although, ironically, you never really learn too much about any of the characters in the game. The sound cues are beautiful, and the graphics were extraordinary for the place and time (an early release on the PS2).
I realize this is kind of a fawning review of this game but really--if you think this is anything like something you would appreciate--check it out, and be excited for the release of the sequel. I believe ICO came closer than anything I've played before to being a work of art.
I love this movie. It is awful.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0104135/
Features the Paul brothers, who you may also know from 'The Barbarians,' a Conan knock-off. Great stuff. Truly awful.
I know this isn't exactly an answer, but I've found that I'm now in a position where the organization I work for is interested in using and contributing to open source projects, where I'm able to balance the more tedious work with working on code that I enjoy, where I'm finally working on larger scale projects that stretch my mind and add to my understanding of the real techniques and beauty of programming. It helps that it is a small organization that is growing fairly quickly, with good resources.
I've also found that I'm able to work on my home computer doing more sysadmin-type stuff on my off hours--I don't always have the energy or time to work on real projects, but I feel like I get enough out of my day-to-day that I don't mind, and I get enough satisfaction out of my current project (setting up my Gentoo linux box as a personal sound studio...don't mean to be a Gentoo proselytizer, just what I'm having fun with right now).
So I guess the moral of the story is: it's not inconceivable that you can find an organization that will let you stretch yourself in the direction you want to move--unless you have a philosophical objection to this.
This may be a bit more extreme example, but a friend of mine was trying to transfer her driver's license from Texas or something to New York. It had her name like this: F. Middle Last on some of her stuff (like social security card and Texas license) and First M. Last on other stuff of hers. She was there for hours, but they wouldn't trust that she was who she said she was, even though everything else obviously matched up just fine. She actually had to do something ridiculous like get a signed and stamped copy of her birth certificate from Texas, I don't remember exactly what.
While this example is a bit different, and I would imagine slightly more susceptible to this kind of BS, I would say, yes, it can happen to you! Get that sh*t standardized!
Our head of technology is working on a company strategy where there will be financial and in-kind contributions from the company, and where each tech employee is expected to contribute in some form. He told me in an aside how difficult it is to come up with 'donees'--there's no easy way to find eligible, worthy projects who really need the help.
Oh, and we are looking for on-site people in the New York City area...A+ people.
We've hosted some meet-ups for open source organizations, and we do have a fairly extensive plan to give more back to the OS community--I was corrected this morning. So ignore my previous comment on this!
Here you go Slashdotters, my two cents. I'm sure you'll have some good criticisms of this letter as well:
Dear NYTimes,
I'm glad to hear that comics are showing a renaissance and newfound
respectability right now. It would seem from the piece that this is
largely the result of major bookstores assigning more
particularly-labeled sections to the 'graphic novel' section, and also
the product of indie film adaptations of indie comics gracing our
theaters in the last few years; this rather than, say, increased sales
of comics, the expanded potential for creation and distribution that
software tools and the Internet has brought, or the success of
comic-derived or influenced films such as Brian Singer's X-Men series,
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series or the Matrix trilogy (and to a lesser
extent manga such as Tezuka Osamu's manga Metropolis or Masamune
Shirow's Ghost in the Shell). Point being, with Spider-Man 2 having
something of an edge on the recent adaptation of Pekar's American
Splendor in terms of viewership, I might argue that Spider-Man would
have been worth a mention.
That is, it would have been worth a mention unless the renaissance
McGrath speaks of has nothing to do with the volume of "comix" or
"sequential art" readership, but only the volume of a certain narrowly
defined artistic content that lies within the pages of some comics.
It's good to know that, as in mainstream fiction lit, comics with a
sci-fi or fantasy theme (especially super-hero comics "churned out in
installments by the busy factories at Marvel and D.C.") have escaped the
title of 'high-art'--perhaps then those comics will also continue to
escape the hubris of mainstream art-lit as sci-fi has. Based on the
piece, it would seem as though comics as high art didn't really happen
until Mr. Spiegelman put out Maus. Or maybe we should go back to R.
Crumb, who seems to provide the alienated loser blueprint for the
majority of artists examined in the article (forgive my gross
generalization; I recognize their talent and own some of their works).
It would seem that in this alternative comic universe, Stan Lee is
exclusively a pulp writer with no complexity or lasting impact and Will
Eisner doesn't even exist (the omission of any mention of Will Eisner I
find to be one of the strangest inconsistencies in the entire piece).
I'd like to point out that writers such as Brian Michael Bendis, Grant
Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Kurt Busiek (among many others, like the
incomparables Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore) are all accomplished and
talented, and dare I say it, they occasionally make art. The scathing
socio-political satire of "Transmetropolitan," the postmodern
philosophical complexity of "The Filth," the film noir dialogue and
themes of "Alias" and "Powers," the super-hero drama of Astro City--all
of these were worth Mr. McGrath's time, especially considering the lack
of range of the artists that were profiled--are
(semi-)autobiographical alienation stories the best or most important
of what comics can express? And while I could go into greater depth on
this item, I think Mr. McGrath should consider his implication that the
'assembly line' artists working with such writers are interchangeable.
He might also have discussed Neil Gaiman's veering back toward the
'real novel' world with his publication of some books without
pictures...but then perhaps we're back at the 'sci-fi ain't literature'
dilemma.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in his conclusion Mr. McGrath
unbelievably suggests that "this is a medium probably not well suited to
lyricism or strong emotion." I find this ironic considering the
elegant sample from Seth's "Clyde Fans: Book One" that was included in
the piece and especially in regards to the depth and complexity of
emotion in the McSweeney's sample from Chris Ware. I've also found the
work of Adrian Tomine (whom you profiled two paragraphs above this
absurd statement!) to be some of the most gut-wrenching and real stuff
I've ever read or seen, in any format--and there's many more writers
out there. How could one say something so foolish after reading even a
smidgen of the collection of serious work in this medium?
Okay, this will sound awful, however: we haven't yet, but we are planning on it. I say this with the excuse that we are a really, really young company, and haven't had the time to formulate a plan to contribute back to the community. But we fully recognize the debt we owe the open-source community and we intend to give back as much as possible, as soon as possible.
...that the company I'm working for now, The Ladders (theladders.com) finds great $100k+ jobs (kind of ironic that) and provides a weekly newsletter, and we have used almost exclusively open-source software to grow our business. Yes, I'm dropping a plug, but I want to emphasize that open-source software definitely provides jobs rather than takes them away. This is a fallacy that needs to be corrected and understood by business people--you can build businesses with open-source, and a lot of times, you can't build them without it.
Re:Reminds me off the great novel by Bruce Sterlin
on
Mechanical Computing
·
· Score: 1
$my_previous_post =~ s|great novel|very interesting book|g;
Satisfied? Sheesh, you slashdotters are so picky sometimes...
Reminds me off the great novel by Bruce Sterling
on
Mechanical Computing
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
...and William Gibson, called The Difference Engine. I recommend it, it's a fascinating idea, which is basically: what if computer became available much earlier, in the form of mechanical computers--they would take up entire factory buildings, and people would essentially become experts at creating these ornate ivory punchcards (if I remember correctly...). Actually, I should really pick it up and read it again.
Maybe it's more complex than that. Maybe the people their targetting are generally selectively chosen based on race and religion. Maybe the people being targetted are being detained without their rights being recognized. Maybe these are people who are never getting into the position where they CAN fight it all the way to the supreme court. Maybe their citizenship is dubious or new, maybe their interaction with the larger mainstream society is such that they are not yet familiar with the way things can work. Maybe it costs a lot of freaking money to fight it all the way to the supreme court. I don't know, I'm just throwing some possibilities out there--because it seems like what you are talking about is easier said than done.
Privacy rights however are obviously something completely different, and 'in this age of paranoia', your right to privacy is one of the first victims.
Yes, exactly. And now the government has a record of some of the interesting activity he's been engaging in. Perhaps he's gone in a file somewhere, a separate memo has been sent to some higher up State or Federal organization, he's being catalogued in a database...
I think the thing that really scares the shit out of me is the implicit threat and removal of rights that the police officer put forth. Previously, from what I understand, someone could demand that they see a warrant, a judge would have had to specifically grant that warrant, and some rights were preserved. There were some checks and balances in place. Now, all of a sudden, the executive branch can just say "hey, we need to see your stuff, and if you don't let us do it, we'll get someone else to do it. Sucks to be you." Police state, you're looking more and more similar to what we have...
'Transactional' is a buzzword? 'Persistence' is a buzzword? As far as I understand it, those have well-defined meanings within software design methodology. There is a big freaking difference between a persistent object and a non-persistent object. And I think you'll find that 'transactional' can occasionally be used in a technical, practical way. Go figure.
I mean, what exactly were the buzzwords here? 'Tier?' 'Enterprise?' 'Build?' 'Introduction?' Do tell!
So, what was +5 insightful about this comment, other than its pandering to a the Slashdot contingent that doesn't bother reading or thinking very hard about the issues at hand?
Okay, this is a complete digression, and doesn't really invalidate your post's point, but I think you are a little off. Composers and their assistants, if they even have them, are both the architects and programmers. They also do preliminary compiling, or maybe, test cases when they hear the piece in their head or play a reduction of an orchestral piece on the piano. Unless they're playing a piece they wrote on their instrument of choice, of course, then, well, they're like the compiler really. But, a compiler that can make changes on the fly to increase the efficiency (read: expressiveness) of the code. Of course, in an orchestral situation, this might be the entire orchestra and the conductor--they are a big compiler really, aren't they? Then, of course, we can talk about an improvisatory band, which throws the whole thing to hell...or maybe we've got something going on like rtti or using a scripting language...well, this analogy is really breaking down, which serves to show that music is quite a different beast from computer programming in some ways, but it was fun getting here nonetheless.
amarodeeps asks:
I've had reconstructive surgery more than five times in the last two years, owing to an episode of explosive diarrhea gone bad (I'm a competitive explosive diarrhea vaulter, ranked twelfth in the world). Yesterday, I found out that my left cheek (not that cheek!) was used by a doctor in an ad to promote his plastic surgery practice. Is this legal? Should I be getting royalties? How should I approach this, do I need a lawyer? Should I really be asking this question on ask slashdot in the first place?? Thanks!
Looks like they have what you want for email, and it's pretty cheap--$39.95 a year. That is, if you're willing to pay for email separate from hosting.
In addition, it seems that Terabolic's email service is free of 'Poopyhead' and 'MegaCorp Suckage,' while still managing to be 'Magical.' What more could you ask for?
ANTI-DISCLAIMER: I have never worked for Terabolic, nor have I actually tried their email service. Caveat emptor.
The most fucked up thing about that is that I think it is where they get water to make Genesee beer from. But that could just be some sort of urban legend. I don't really need to know that not to drink the stuff though...eeeewwww....
Slashdot Mirror
I was incorrect. Kinda sad thought that I got modded up so quickly and highly. Kind of exposes Slashdot biases...
I withdraw my statement.
Umm...PIPA hardly compares to Bob Jones University. Please check out PIPA's about us page to see who they are funded by: http://www.pipa.org/about.html. Yes, Ben and Jerry's is on there, but I hardly think of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and etc. as bastions of liberal ideology. It's not really fair to compare PIPA to a Christian-oriented college. More importantly, by making this claim of bias, you are attempting to discount the conclusion of the report--that many Bush supporters in the U.S. are sadly out of touch not only with what the rest of the world thinks about their leadership but also what the solid conclusions of experts have been on the subject of WMDs and Iraq. Please don't load this with bias that doesn't exist.
Okay, so I'm a big Half-Life fan, I really can't wait for the sequel to that game to be released. But my OTHER favorite game of all time has to be ICO. This game approached, more than any other that I've ever played, the sort of ideal achievement that a video game should approach: it coordinated an atmosphere, along with an explorable world, and a simple objective with interesting puzzles, and deep characterization--although, ironically, you never really learn too much about any of the characters in the game. The sound cues are beautiful, and the graphics were extraordinary for the place and time (an early release on the PS2).
I realize this is kind of a fawning review of this game but really--if you think this is anything like something you would appreciate--check it out, and be excited for the release of the sequel. I believe ICO came closer than anything I've played before to being a work of art.
I love this movie. It is awful. http://imdb.com/title/tt0104135/ Features the Paul brothers, who you may also know from 'The Barbarians,' a Conan knock-off. Great stuff. Truly awful.
I know this isn't exactly an answer, but I've found that I'm now in a position where the organization I work for is interested in using and contributing to open source projects, where I'm able to balance the more tedious work with working on code that I enjoy, where I'm finally working on larger scale projects that stretch my mind and add to my understanding of the real techniques and beauty of programming. It helps that it is a small organization that is growing fairly quickly, with good resources.
I've also found that I'm able to work on my home computer doing more sysadmin-type stuff on my off hours--I don't always have the energy or time to work on real projects, but I feel like I get enough out of my day-to-day that I don't mind, and I get enough satisfaction out of my current project (setting up my Gentoo linux box as a personal sound studio...don't mean to be a Gentoo proselytizer, just what I'm having fun with right now).
So I guess the moral of the story is: it's not inconceivable that you can find an organization that will let you stretch yourself in the direction you want to move--unless you have a philosophical objection to this.
This may be a bit more extreme example, but a friend of mine was trying to transfer her driver's license from Texas or something to New York. It had her name like this: F. Middle Last on some of her stuff (like social security card and Texas license) and First M. Last on other stuff of hers. She was there for hours, but they wouldn't trust that she was who she said she was, even though everything else obviously matched up just fine. She actually had to do something ridiculous like get a signed and stamped copy of her birth certificate from Texas, I don't remember exactly what.
While this example is a bit different, and I would imagine slightly more susceptible to this kind of BS, I would say, yes, it can happen to you! Get that sh*t standardized!
Our head of technology is working on a company strategy where there will be financial and in-kind contributions from the company, and where each tech employee is expected to contribute in some form. He told me in an aside how difficult it is to come up with 'donees'--there's no easy way to find eligible, worthy projects who really need the help.
Oh, and we are looking for on-site people in the New York City area...A+ people.
We've hosted some meet-ups for open source organizations, and we do have a fairly extensive plan to give more back to the OS community--I was corrected this morning. So ignore my previous comment on this!
Here you go Slashdotters, my two cents. I'm sure you'll have some good criticisms of this letter as well:
Okay, this will sound awful, however: we haven't yet, but we are planning on it. I say this with the excuse that we are a really, really young company, and haven't had the time to formulate a plan to contribute back to the community. But we fully recognize the debt we owe the open-source community and we intend to give back as much as possible, as soon as possible.
...that the company I'm working for now, The Ladders (theladders.com) finds great $100k+ jobs (kind of ironic that) and provides a weekly newsletter, and we have used almost exclusively open-source software to grow our business. Yes, I'm dropping a plug, but I want to emphasize that open-source software definitely provides jobs rather than takes them away. This is a fallacy that needs to be corrected and understood by business people--you can build businesses with open-source, and a lot of times, you can't build them without it.
$my_previous_post =~ s|great novel|very interesting book|g; Satisfied? Sheesh, you slashdotters are so picky sometimes...
...and William Gibson, called The Difference Engine. I recommend it, it's a fascinating idea, which is basically: what if computer became available much earlier, in the form of mechanical computers--they would take up entire factory buildings, and people would essentially become experts at creating these ornate ivory punchcards (if I remember correctly...). Actually, I should really pick it up and read it again.
Maybe it's more complex than that. Maybe the people their targetting are generally selectively chosen based on race and religion. Maybe the people being targetted are being detained without their rights being recognized. Maybe these are people who are never getting into the position where they CAN fight it all the way to the supreme court. Maybe their citizenship is dubious or new, maybe their interaction with the larger mainstream society is such that they are not yet familiar with the way things can work. Maybe it costs a lot of freaking money to fight it all the way to the supreme court. I don't know, I'm just throwing some possibilities out there--because it seems like what you are talking about is easier said than done.
Yes, exactly. And now the government has a record of some of the interesting activity he's been engaging in. Perhaps he's gone in a file somewhere, a separate memo has been sent to some higher up State or Federal organization, he's being catalogued in a database...
I think the thing that really scares the shit out of me is the implicit threat and removal of rights that the police officer put forth. Previously, from what I understand, someone could demand that they see a warrant, a judge would have had to specifically grant that warrant, and some rights were preserved. There were some checks and balances in place. Now, all of a sudden, the executive branch can just say "hey, we need to see your stuff, and if you don't let us do it, we'll get someone else to do it. Sucks to be you." Police state, you're looking more and more similar to what we have...
I mean, what exactly were the buzzwords here? 'Tier?' 'Enterprise?' 'Build?' 'Introduction?' Do tell!
So, what was +5 insightful about this comment, other than its pandering to a the Slashdot contingent that doesn't bother reading or thinking very hard about the issues at hand?
Need more information. Please help.
Now back to your regularly scheduled program.
XHTML and CSS? Really pretty powerful, once you can wrap your head around browser-independent and effective ways to use CSS.
Can't wait for some hot rishathra!!!
Think they'll get Jeri Ryan to play Halrloprillalar? Sexy!
...then you might want to check out Terabolic.com's service:
https://secure.terabolic.com/signup/indexsingleema il.php
Looks like they have what you want for email, and it's pretty cheap--$39.95 a year. That is, if you're willing to pay for email separate from hosting.
In addition, it seems that Terabolic's email service is free of 'Poopyhead' and 'MegaCorp Suckage,' while still managing to be 'Magical.' What more could you ask for?
ANTI-DISCLAIMER: I have never worked for Terabolic, nor have I actually tried their email service. Caveat emptor.
I dunno, but this strikes me as the acts of a desperate company: http://afr.com/articles/2004/01/23/1074732570036.h tml
The most fucked up thing about that is that I think it is where they get water to make Genesee beer from. But that could just be some sort of urban legend. I don't really need to know that not to drink the stuff though...eeeewwww....