How exactly is that going to happen? Since this was all written down thousands of years ago, how is someone going to talk to those rabbis? WABAC perhaps?
well, compared with the people/beings they usually communicate with, surely it would be easy to talk to someone who did actually exist once?
That's great, but those are all post-hoc explanations, attempts to rationalise inconsistencies which were either not appreciated or were considered unimportant by the various scriptwriters involved. As you say yourself, there are plenty more throughout the Star Trek shows and movies. If you can rationalise them, why can't you do the same for the cartoons?
Huh? It's a science fiction show. Given that the live-action shows themselves are frequently contradictory (when did they first meet the Romulans again? What do Klingons look like? What are stardates?), what grounds are there for saying the cartoons are any different?
The UNIX trademark is owned by The Open Group, and they do a pretty good job of defending it - better than Linus has done with Linux, some might say.
What would really be good would be if the rest of the material relating to Unix, copyrights et al, were put into the public domain, once and for all. Then we could all read the Lyons book again!
A lot of Slashdot readers (myself included) access the site from work, e.g. at lunch or when slacking off, and may have to use Windows there - maybe even IE aswell. However I'd expect a high share for Firefox.
I heard the debate on radio, and I assume the only reason you think that is that you agree with Hitchins' perspective. Galloway is a strange character, and you may or may not agree with him, but he's a ferocious debater. Hitchins never had a chance - he did well even to land a few hits.
Do you think it's gotten worse recently (The Reg I mean)? They also have a campaign against speed cameras, which I don't particularly appreciate. I used to think it had a healthy dose of humorous cynicism; now it just seems like there are too many rants, and if it's not a rant it's a press release. But maybe it was always like that and I've just grown tired of it.
Yeah I know, but they aren't usually quite so vitriolic about it. It's like the Wikipedia people stole their girlfriends at college or something, and they can't let it go.
And they do like some things - like iPods and and Google Earth. They love Google Earth.
I wouldn't go to a traditional enyclopedia to learn about relativity either. Encyclopedias are not good places to learn about complex ideas, they are compendia of facts and summaries.
I agree. The fact that it has to be read with a discerning mind doesn't detract from its usefulness in areas where it is strong.
The argument that it should be judged by its weakest content is false, and wilfully ignores the fact that Wikipedia actually provides a source of information on many things that simply aren't covered elsewhere - particularly not in traditional reference works. Net culture is one of these, and as far as I'm concerned it's just as important to have a store of knowledge on that as it is to have economic data on countries of the world or potted histories of the kind that Britannica et al fill their pages with.
I've never understood why the Register staff seem to have such a personal vendetta against Wikipedia. I've no problem with them reporting inaccuracies or criticism such as this, and I know that a lot of their content is opinion rather than reportage, but 'wikki-fiddler' is a pretty juvenile and unprofessional term to use.
Regarding Wikipedia itself, I find it to be pretty useful as a repository of widely-known information (dates, names etc), very useful on computer-related information, and perhaps not so useful or reliable on other things. But that's still a net positive. Why the hostility?
This is of course primarly a recruitment website, and they know their target market: saddo jerks like themselves who get off on the idea that they are in a real-life spy movie. I'm sure the weenies who join the CIA are the same: probably all want to be in a Tom Clancy novel. Then they prick around spending enormous amounts of our money, and what do we get for it: reports about 'threats' here and baddies there, all self-sustaining bullshit which doesn't seem to have to be accounted for like everybody else's work does.
If my company was responsible for any one of the massive fuckups which the intelligence agencies serve up on a regular basis we'd be out of business permanently. Some of the mistakes they make are remedial, like basing 'confident' WMD reports on the testimony of a few individuals who had a clear interest in having the US invade Iraq. And yet we're still paying for them to come up with more 'intelligence', and passing whatever fucked-up laws they ask for so they can gather more data - even though they are incapable of using the enormous amount of data they already have. Where's the hard evidence that it's worth the money? Who audits them and where do we see the results? Oh sorry - it's top secret.
Science Fiction is the "fiction of what could be but is not", while fantasy is the fiction of what is not and could not be".
By that definition, Serenity is very definitely fantasy, because for a single star system to form like that is impossible. Not just unlikely, but impossible: it would have a dynamic stability of tens of years.
Even the Solar system is unstable, but over a much longer period because, to first order, it essentially consists of just Jupiter and the Sun. To second order you can add the other gas giants, and the only stable orbits for them are at increasingly huge distances from the Sun, all well outside the habitable zone.
When I tried it I found it clunky and akward. Perhaps I missed something, but I don't recall being able to navigate left, right, up or down through the desktops, for example.
Seemed to me like it was written by someone who had heard a description of a VDM but never actually used one.
Nevertheless I think both cygwin and a VDM are essential to make Windows useable. I've been using a shareware one for a while, which sort of works.
I'm inclined to agree. For me, a sign of quality in hardware is the ability to take a few dents and scratches and still work. If people are saying their nanos are so scratched as to be unusable then that's another thing - but all the pictures I've seen are of pretty minor stuff.
I think the problem is that the shiny plastic aesthetic of the nano is the very thing which appeals to people who are really bothered about scratches. I'm far more likely to buy a device with an aluminium case, or which looks more functional than funky.
quo loco is indeed ablative, but it's not ablative absolute. in takes the ablative when it has the meaning in or on (and accusative when it means into, onto, or against).
I agree, this journalist doesn't seem to know what MSN actually is. And is he suggesting that Google are somehow going to control how OS updates are distributed?
Really, I'm confused by all tis talk of Google challenging Microsoft. Until Google launches a new Office suite or perhaps even a browser, I don't see what exactly is supposed to be hurting the guys at Redmond. What web sevices, other than hotmail (which hasn't gone away) and MSN does Microsoft depend on.
I believe the OED has always favoured 'ized' in places where most other non-American authorities give 'ised'.
In this instance, the most common usage in Britain and Ireland would certainly be 'localised'. In fact the usage of 'ized' probably dropped during the last century in Britain and Ireland in a sort of rejection of the American spelling - the OED probably preserves an earlier more common British usage of the letter 'zed'. (or 'zee').. A lot of British speakers are now reluctant to use the letter anywhere other than at the start of a word, lest they be accused of Americanization.
I'd be happy to use 'z' more widely if, in return, Americans would agree to spell 'colour' correctly.
The whole point of IMAP is that by keeping the mail on an IMAP server---and keeping track of read/unread status etc---it can be read from multiple clients at multiple locations.
I suppose you could use fetchmail or something similar to get the mail off the Exchange server and onto an IMAP server.. might have to look into that if our IT dept goes the Exchange route.
Slashdot Mirror
It is if you sold her the crack.
Alternatively, some people suggest that it might just be a made up thing from a science-fiction tv show.
well, compared with the people/beings they usually communicate with, surely it would be easy to talk to someone who did actually exist once?
That's great, but those are all post-hoc explanations, attempts to rationalise inconsistencies which were either not appreciated or were considered unimportant by the various scriptwriters involved. As you say yourself, there are plenty more throughout the Star Trek shows and movies. If you can rationalise them, why can't you do the same for the cartoons?
Huh? It's a science fiction show. Given that the live-action shows themselves are frequently contradictory (when did they first meet the Romulans again? What do Klingons look like? What are stardates?), what grounds are there for saying the cartoons are any different?
What would really be good would be if the rest of the material relating to Unix, copyrights et al, were put into the public domain, once and for all. Then we could all read the Lyons book again!
A lot of Slashdot readers (myself included) access the site from work, e.g. at lunch or when slacking off, and may have to use Windows there - maybe even IE aswell. However I'd expect a high share for Firefox.
we haven't demonstrated the ability to do that either.
Surely cross-platform nature of OO.o is the whole point?
I heard the debate on radio, and I assume the only reason you think that is that you agree with Hitchins' perspective. Galloway is a strange character, and you may or may not agree with him, but he's a ferocious debater. Hitchins never had a chance - he did well even to land a few hits.
Do you think it's gotten worse recently (The Reg I mean)? They also have a campaign against speed cameras, which I don't particularly appreciate. I used to think it had a healthy dose of humorous cynicism; now it just seems like there are too many rants, and if it's not a rant it's a press release. But maybe it was always like that and I've just grown tired of it.
And they do like some things - like iPods and and Google Earth. They love Google Earth.
I wouldn't go to a traditional enyclopedia to learn about relativity either. Encyclopedias are not good places to learn about complex ideas, they are compendia of facts and summaries.
The argument that it should be judged by its weakest content is false, and wilfully ignores the fact that Wikipedia actually provides a source of information on many things that simply aren't covered elsewhere - particularly not in traditional reference works. Net culture is one of these, and as far as I'm concerned it's just as important to have a store of knowledge on that as it is to have economic data on countries of the world or potted histories of the kind that Britannica et al fill their pages with.
Regarding Wikipedia itself, I find it to be pretty useful as a repository of widely-known information (dates, names etc), very useful on computer-related information, and perhaps not so useful or reliable on other things. But that's still a net positive. Why the hostility?
If my company was responsible for any one of the massive fuckups which the intelligence agencies serve up on a regular basis we'd be out of business permanently. Some of the mistakes they make are remedial, like basing 'confident' WMD reports on the testimony of a few individuals who had a clear interest in having the US invade Iraq. And yet we're still paying for them to come up with more 'intelligence', and passing whatever fucked-up laws they ask for so they can gather more data - even though they are incapable of using the enormous amount of data they already have. Where's the hard evidence that it's worth the money? Who audits them and where do we see the results? Oh sorry - it's top secret.
By that definition, Serenity is very definitely fantasy, because for a single star system to form like that is impossible. Not just unlikely, but impossible: it would have a dynamic stability of tens of years.
Even the Solar system is unstable, but over a much longer period because, to first order, it essentially consists of just Jupiter and the Sun. To second order you can add the other gas giants, and the only stable orbits for them are at increasingly huge distances from the Sun, all well outside the habitable zone.
and the characters, like he did with Lord of the Rings.
Seemed to me like it was written by someone who had heard a description of a VDM but never actually used one.
Nevertheless I think both cygwin and a VDM are essential to make Windows useable. I've been using a shareware one for a while, which sort of works.
I think the problem is that the shiny plastic aesthetic of the nano is the very thing which appeals to people who are really bothered about scratches. I'm far more likely to buy a device with an aluminium case, or which looks more functional than funky.
quo loco is indeed ablative, but it's not ablative absolute. in takes the ablative when it has the meaning in or on (and accusative when it means into, onto, or against).
Really, I'm confused by all tis talk of Google challenging Microsoft. Until Google launches a new Office suite or perhaps even a browser, I don't see what exactly is supposed to be hurting the guys at Redmond. What web sevices, other than hotmail (which hasn't gone away) and MSN does Microsoft depend on.
In this instance, the most common usage in Britain and Ireland would certainly be 'localised'. In fact the usage of 'ized' probably dropped during the last century in Britain and Ireland in a sort of rejection of the American spelling - the OED probably preserves an earlier more common British usage of the letter 'zed'. (or 'zee').. A lot of British speakers are now reluctant to use the letter anywhere other than at the start of a word, lest they be accused of Americanization.
I'd be happy to use 'z' more widely if, in return, Americans would agree to spell 'colour' correctly.
Foo 2 Bar Bar Bozos
I suppose you could use fetchmail or something similar to get the mail off the Exchange server and onto an IMAP server.. might have to look into that if our IT dept goes the Exchange route.