Both of them are full of lies, damn lies, and statistics...
Lies: Docs haven't been maintained in ten years, since version 1.0.
Damned Lies: Docs are maintained by the senior's secretary who uses the software twice a day to type a five minute memo. Most consider her the department authority on the software.
Statistics: 10% of the users of this software required 90% of the sysadmin's phone time, therefore he is not being efficient in his use of phone time. Therefore we'll have the department authority on the software write some better docs, and he'll be required to read them.
FWIW, I thought the grandparent has some pretty wise thoughts, but that may be because my approach follows in a similar vein...
Funnily enough, it also works for fixing most everything:)
and don't tighten the damned zipties so tight that they are crimping cables, either. If it's so tight I can't slip a needle-nosed wire cutter into the bundle, it's too tight.
Religion can be a great thing, even (however seldom) on a large scale rather than the individual one.
But blind, closed-minded faith is just plain stupid, always, in all contexts.
Human beings hardly need the excuse of religion to "justify" killing one another. But it is likely the most often used excuse by fanatically-striped humans, because it *depends on* blind faith. Cast Out The Heretics!;-)
Also, it's a good bet that many of his opponents in the university system say similar unkind things about him in various ways, it's just that nobody uses their comments to start a media storm.
In other news, the surviving descendants of the Byzantine Empire have filed suit against both parties, claiming infringement of obfuscation techniques that they clearly had prior art on.
In answer to your question, I think libraries, information networks, etc. should be paid for by people who use them. Charge an annual fee to use the library. What's so outrageous about that?
Because there are an awful lot of people (kids, students, poor people) who wouldn't be able to afford the fees. Now I don't think that access to books or information is a "right" but I do think that any responsible government that is really concerned about the well-being of it's citizens will ensure that such access is there. I don't think there's anything "immoral" about that; quite the contrary as a matter of fact.
Don't tax her to pay for luxuries that you want to enjoy. Do you really think it's right to tax someone for something they will not use and which government alone does not need to provide?
So basically you think that local widows, at least, shouldn't pay taxes in order to support their local libraries/information networks? Do you honestly think 'she' wouldn't benefit from them down the road?
I live in on of the few states in the US that doesn't support a state income tax. I like it that way. That does't mean that taxes don't have legitimate purposes, or that there are ones I'm not willing to pay for.
Here's the flaw in what you're saying: very few policy decisions (even in municipalities) are unanimous, so it is likely that there is a subgroup that does not wish to participate in the project. You are advocating coercing these people to participate, or at least to fund everyone else's participation. I think this coercion is immoral.
So do you have a better idea as to how to get anything done?
Not to flame you, but there will *always* be opposition to *every task* ever undertaken. You must be pretty young:)
If you consume internet access, why shouldn't you pay for it? Why should you get it for free at the expense of one of your neighbors?
How's that? Usually local tax money that would be used to pay for a municipalities wifi is going to come from locally generated tax money - ie, property taxes and similar. If you *live* in the municipality, even if you're just paying rent, you are still paying in on property taxes. So where's the "free from the neighbor" thing come from with a city gov sponsored wifi?
Just to add to your last statement a bit, wasn't there an article recently about some TV broadcasters deciding to offer shows for download? There's something right there that will create demand for the ISPs up their BW (assuming it's successful, of course).
I agree with dada about the competition - there's a big war going on in my area right now, and prices have remained stable for two years while bandwidth has gone up quickly. Any public wifi should cap it's services (and not offer any frills - this would also help keep the taxpayer cost down, and keep the public wifi in the red). I don't know where to put that cap, I think that should be decided locally.
I also agree about the choice of hosts. Where I used to live, there was one, and their costs (despite being one of the, if not the first, town in the US to offer cable) were very high. Where I live now, there are two competitors (no real DSL here yet, just cable) and the cost of a really good highspeed cable internet connection is an order of magnitude lower than where it was previously; and as I noted above, it's effectively dropping.
As another poster noted, it's sort of a libraries vs. bookstores kind of thing. Both are necessary. (and I wish they'd quit killing the libraries...:( )
Government shouldn't compete with the private sector. But government also has a responsiblity to provide it's citizens with the best access to information it can. So, there has to be a balance. Of course most city governments - the smaller ones, anyway - are likely to contract out most of the infrastructure:) and as long as at least some of it is local, that's a good thing.
But it could be legally difficult to keep someone from using a public network
I'd think it'd be impossible, unless you have them either locked up or escorted everywhere.
Reminds me of some of the "cybercriminal" stories, where they are "banned from the net" for X years. So what? They never surfed/played on a friend's machine when they were having some beers in a basement somewhere? Right... IMHO any "legal" restrictions on internet use are just a bunch of vaporthought unless the gov is willing to put surveillance on the "perp" 24/7.
Nowadays, all they'd have to do is walk into a library or a coffeeshop...
Here's one that annoys me: I'd like the "Choose helper Application" prompt box to give me a custom commandline option. Digging thru the menu to/usr/bin and selecting a file is a pain.
If someone, say, sent a few hundred invitations and used my work number, I'd be more than seriously annoyed at even three times a day. In a busy work environment unsolicited calls are a real pain in the ass, and at home I've very much enjoyed being on the DNC list.
Maybe Google should consider an "opt-out" list that gets parsed to limit calls. I imagine it could be done with a simple webform (and perhaps one could even choose a few "search terms" for opt-IN possibilities). It would have to be a serious effort, however. I think they'd easily be up to the challenge.
I'll confess that I'd opt-out entirely; the phone can be a serious annoyance when you're focused on getting something done, even when it's an important call;-)
If we want to continue growing, sooner or later we're going to *have* to move a lot of our industry off Earth. Your economic thoughts, I think, are based off of the startup efforts. Sure, it'd be expensive as hell, and take literally decades to start showing a profit, but once it did, it would have broken us out of our finite resources here on Earth.
That's the kind of goal, if you want to achieve it, you start planning as soon as you realize it will one day be necessary. Planning, building, *doing*.
If you're only on dialup, then get it with one of the download apps with resume capabilities. It's really not that huge, and it's well worth the pain (believe me, I know, I was on dialup until just a couple years ago).
It being freely distributed, AND good, means you have a lot of different routes to find it and get it, even on dialup.
Just make sure to burn it to CD right away so you don't have to go thru the pain again;)
What would you say to someone with no physics degree who attempted to claim that quantum mechanics was wrong? Who attempted to claim that the entire scientific community was competely wrong about quantum mechanics.
Actually it's more like listening to claims that the Earth is still flat and that all our evidence that it's not is wrong or fabricated;)
Well, technically 'virgin' births are possible right now, and happen routinely (artificial insemination). Now either our definition is out of date (it is:) or else we've learned to do something that must really piss god off, as he seems to be the Alpha Stallion.
Anyway, even if a conception can be 'immaculate' birth certainly isn't;-) (does anyone else ever wonder if that term got it's, um, genesis, with some people who thought great sex was disgusting because of the potential messiness of the act - in an era long before local "laundromats"?;-)
The belief of how anything outside of the universe behaves, whether it is a theoretical quantum metauniverse, God, a giant bowl of pasta, etc. is an untestable belief.
Slashdot Mirror
Both of them are full of lies, damn lies, and statistics...
:)
Lies: Docs haven't been maintained in ten years, since version 1.0.
Damned Lies: Docs are maintained by the senior's secretary who uses the software twice a day to type a five minute memo. Most consider her the department authority on the software.
Statistics: 10% of the users of this software required 90% of the sysadmin's phone time, therefore he is not being efficient in his use of phone time. Therefore we'll have the department authority on the software write some better docs, and he'll be required to read them.
FWIW, I thought the grandparent has some pretty wise thoughts, but that may be because my approach follows in a similar vein...
Funnily enough, it also works for fixing most everything
SB
and don't tighten the damned zipties so tight that they are crimping cables, either. If it's so tight I can't slip a needle-nosed wire cutter into the bundle, it's too tight.
SB
I don't know about Bought, but given the number of totally trojaned systems I've seen recently, Owned does seem to fit :)
SB
Religion can be a great thing, even (however seldom) on a large scale rather than the individual one.
But blind, closed-minded faith is just plain stupid, always, in all contexts.
Human beings hardly need the excuse of religion to "justify" killing one another. But it is likely the most often used excuse by fanatically-striped humans, because it *depends on* blind faith. Cast Out The Heretics!
SB
Also, it's a good bet that many of his opponents in the university system say similar unkind things about him in various ways, it's just that nobody uses their comments to start a media storm.
What does that say about the tactics they use?
SB
I think that one's a cousin to "Don't throw shit at an armed man". Unless you're willing to become a martyr, of course...
SB
In other news, the surviving descendants of the Byzantine Empire have filed suit against both parties, claiming infringement of obfuscation techniques that they clearly had prior art on.
SB
In answer to your question, I think libraries, information networks, etc. should be paid for by people who use them. Charge an annual fee to use the library. What's so outrageous about that?
Because there are an awful lot of people (kids, students, poor people) who wouldn't be able to afford the fees. Now I don't think that access to books or information is a "right" but I do think that any responsible government that is really concerned about the well-being of it's citizens will ensure that such access is there. I don't think there's anything "immoral" about that; quite the contrary as a matter of fact.
SB
Don't tax her to pay for luxuries that you want to enjoy. Do you really think it's right to tax someone for something they will not use and which government alone does not need to provide?
So basically you think that local widows, at least, shouldn't pay taxes in order to support their local libraries/information networks? Do you honestly think 'she' wouldn't benefit from them down the road?
I live in on of the few states in the US that doesn't support a state income tax. I like it that way. That does't mean that taxes don't have legitimate purposes, or that there are ones I'm not willing to pay for.
SB
Here's the flaw in what you're saying: very few policy decisions (even in municipalities) are unanimous, so it is likely that there is a subgroup that does not wish to participate in the project. You are advocating coercing these people to participate, or at least to fund everyone else's participation. I think this coercion is immoral.
:)
So do you have a better idea as to how to get anything done?
Not to flame you, but there will *always* be opposition to *every task* ever undertaken. You must be pretty young
If you consume internet access, why shouldn't you pay for it? Why should you get it for free at the expense of one of your neighbors?
How's that? Usually local tax money that would be used to pay for a municipalities wifi is going to come from locally generated tax money - ie, property taxes and similar. If you *live* in the municipality, even if you're just paying rent, you are still paying in on property taxes. So where's the "free from the neighbor" thing come from with a city gov sponsored wifi?
SB
Just to add to your last statement a bit, wasn't there an article recently about some TV broadcasters deciding to offer shows for download? There's something right there that will create demand for the ISPs up their BW (assuming it's successful, of course).
:( )
:) and as long as at least some of it is local, that's a good thing.
I agree with dada about the competition - there's a big war going on in my area right now, and prices have remained stable for two years while bandwidth has gone up quickly. Any public wifi should cap it's services (and not offer any frills - this would also help keep the taxpayer cost down, and keep the public wifi in the red). I don't know where to put that cap, I think that should be decided locally.
I also agree about the choice of hosts. Where I used to live, there was one, and their costs (despite being one of the, if not the first, town in the US to offer cable) were very high. Where I live now, there are two competitors (no real DSL here yet, just cable) and the cost of a really good highspeed cable internet connection is an order of magnitude lower than where it was previously; and as I noted above, it's effectively dropping.
As another poster noted, it's sort of a libraries vs. bookstores kind of thing. Both are necessary. (and I wish they'd quit killing the libraries...
Government shouldn't compete with the private sector. But government also has a responsiblity to provide it's citizens with the best access to information it can. So, there has to be a balance. Of course most city governments - the smaller ones, anyway - are likely to contract out most of the infrastructure
SB
But it could be legally difficult to keep someone from using a public network
I'd think it'd be impossible, unless you have them either locked up or escorted everywhere.
Reminds me of some of the "cybercriminal" stories, where they are "banned from the net" for X years. So what? They never surfed/played on a friend's machine when they were having some beers in a basement somewhere? Right... IMHO any "legal" restrictions on internet use are just a bunch of vaporthought unless the gov is willing to put surveillance on the "perp" 24/7.
Nowadays, all they'd have to do is walk into a library or a coffeeshop...
SB
So if I'm a speed reader does that mean I'm stealing bandwidth from the local library?
SB
Here's one that annoys me: I'd like the "Choose helper Application" prompt box to give me a custom commandline option. Digging thru the menu to /usr/bin and selecting a file is a pain.
;-)
Or am *I* missing something?
SB
How does that stop someone who wants to effectively DDOS a phone number from clickety-clicking?
Or am I missing something here, not having yet read ATC (All The Comments)?
I want an opt-out list I can join, please.
SB
If someone, say, sent a few hundred invitations and used my work number, I'd be more than seriously annoyed at even three times a day. In a busy work environment unsolicited calls are a real pain in the ass, and at home I've very much enjoyed being on the DNC list.
;-)
Maybe Google should consider an "opt-out" list that gets parsed to limit calls. I imagine it could be done with a simple webform (and perhaps one could even choose a few "search terms" for opt-IN possibilities). It would have to be a serious effort, however. I think they'd easily be up to the challenge.
I'll confess that I'd opt-out entirely; the phone can be a serious annoyance when you're focused on getting something done, even when it's an important call
SB
If we want to continue growing, sooner or later we're going to *have* to move a lot of our industry off Earth. Your economic thoughts, I think, are based off of the startup efforts. Sure, it'd be expensive as hell, and take literally decades to start showing a profit, but once it did, it would have broken us out of our finite resources here on Earth.
That's the kind of goal, if you want to achieve it, you start planning as soon as you realize it will one day be necessary. Planning, building, *doing*.
SB
Refining some guesstimates about some of the variables in the Drake equation isn't "improving the scientific community's knowledge"?
If you don't think so, how about the R&D into signal detection equipment and software, and distributed computing that the seti@home project has done?
I'm not dissing on Folding, I run it here myself, but I fail to see how the seti@home project has failed to help scientific knowledge.
SB
Mod parent up please, the question about the Do Not Call bill is an excellent one, especially considering the potential for abuse.
Any thoughts? I can't honestly see an easy way to prevent this from being abused easily.
SB
If you're only on dialup, then get it with one of the download apps with resume capabilities. It's really not that huge, and it's well worth the pain (believe me, I know, I was on dialup until just a couple years ago).
It being freely distributed, AND good, means you have a lot of different routes to find it and get it, even on dialup.
Just make sure to burn it to CD right away so you don't have to go thru the pain again
SB
I haven't recovered fully from the others yet ;)
;-)
OT as always:
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment "
Really? How long do I have to wait at my present exalted level?
"It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment"
That's about as accurate as a poll. So how long do I have to wait?
Moo.
(Sorry for invoking the first rule of slashdot
SB
What would you say to someone with no physics degree who attempted to claim that quantum mechanics was wrong? Who attempted to claim that the entire scientific community was competely wrong about quantum mechanics.
;)
Actually it's more like listening to claims that the Earth is still flat and that all our evidence that it's not is wrong or fabricated
SB
Amen to that
SB
Heh :)
:) or else we've learned to do something that must really piss god off, as he seems to be the Alpha Stallion.
;-) ;-)
:)
Well, technically 'virgin' births are possible right now, and happen routinely (artificial insemination). Now either our definition is out of date (it is
Anyway, even if a conception can be 'immaculate' birth certainly isn't
(does anyone else ever wonder if that term got it's, um, genesis, with some people who thought great sex was disgusting because of the potential messiness of the act - in an era long before local "laundromats"?
(in a mood tonite, sorry
SB
The belief of how anything outside of the universe behaves, whether it is a theoretical quantum metauniverse, God, a giant bowl of pasta, etc. is an untestable belief.
Really? How so?
SB