Belief has a LOT to do with it. Good work is being done, but not much is known about genetic activity yet, in spite of the impression that is given on TV.
AC, you have been watching this thread of comments very closely. You are replying immediately. Since you are posting anonymously, you must be re-loading the Slashdot story and examining just this one part of it to see if there has been a reply.
Are universities and the U.S. government itself "extreme left-wing fringe"? See the links below:
"Anyone interested in the activities of secret U.S. agencies may
have been interested in a segment of the CBS show "60 Minutes"
about the secret involvement of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger in the killing of General Rene Schneider of Chile. The
show aired on Sunday, September 9, 2001. General Schneider was a
strong supporter of democracy. Here are links to information about
U.S. interference with democracy in Chile:
The question is not whether the links are good. The question is whether the information is true. Most people in the U.S. are not aware of the U.S. government's support for violent dictatorships, for example. But that support is not disputed by those who have studied the history. There are even U.S. government web sites that document support for violence dictatorships, for example.
Much better sources are available, for example, books. The ones I supplied came from a quick googling.
The activities of the FDA and Agriculture Department are openly discussed. Twenty years ago, most people in the U.S. did not know the CIA was training terrorists to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, for example. That training is now used against United States citizens. The CIA calls this "blowback".
It's painful to me, but I have had to accept that the U.S. government is
corrupt in some ways. United States government agencies, such as the NSA, CIA,
and FBI, have become global police that operate mostly in secret, without
control or oversight by the people, and mostly without any kind of effective
external control. United States citizens are allowed to know about these
agencies only what the U.S. government wants them to know. (NSA is National Security Agency. CIA is Central Intelligence Agency. FBI is Federal Bureau of Investigation. These are
official U.S. government web sites.)
Hidden elements of the U.S. government have become the most violent force the
world has ever known, with a long history of acting in a violent manner and
supporting violent dictatorships: The U.S. government has bombed 24
countries in the 58 years since the Second World War. The list below
includes only countries bombed, not countries in which the U.S. government was
responsible for other violence. The list includes only violence since the
Second World War, not the extensive violence before the war. Most U.S.
citizens are surprised and skeptical when they see the list, so a few links
have been provided to supporting information. For more information, try the Google search engine or see the links
below.
If you want to believe that you are almost a chimpanzee, that's fine, but I'm not believing. Note that the researchers ignored DNA that is not expressive. That may be a sensible idea, or it may be that the ignored DNA expresses itself in a way that has not been discovered.
The Internet DID NOT EXIST in the 60s and 70s. That was DarpaNet. The Internet is a public utility; DarpaNet was used by DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, an organization of the U.S. government that studies the best way to kill people and destroy property.
Darpa's inter-net began to be used by universities and by people who had some connection with universities, such as people at Tektronix, a company that was manufacturing oscilloscopes for military use.
The big contribution of Al Gore was his championing the idea of making the inter-net the public utility now called the Internet. It seems obvious now, but back then it was not at all obvious that private computers needed to be connected. There was a LOT of opposition to making the inter-net public.
The old inter-net was extremely useful, but its uses were extremely limited compared to the Internet we have now.
Several years ago, people were saying that Vint Cerf was the "father of the
Internet". I found Vint's email address somewhere and wrote to him. He said
that it was true that Al Gore was an originator of the Internet; Al was the
first government leader to support making the old DarpaNet and the old,
largely proprietary Internet into a public utility. Vint was one of the
technical fathers of the Internet, but Al Gore was the father of the public
utility we know today.
It is difficult to imagine now, but those who were on the Internet before it
became a public utility often did not want it to be public. That was in the
days before spam email and pop-up ads.
Joel Spolsky was theorizing about Sun in what he calls Strategy
Letter V. (See the bottom for the paragraphs about Sun.) He wondered why
Sun wants Java, and he was not able to guess.
Here is a theory: Sun wants its own software to be secure and fast. However,
there is a conflict of interest. Sun makes more money if its customer's
software is easily de-compiled. If Sun sales people find one customer doing
particularly well, it is easy for Sun's other customers to de-compile the
original customer's Java code and re-write it to work for their own purposes.
This would benefit Sun because the salesmen could more readily sell the
hardware that runs the Java program. Slow and easily decompiled makes more
money for Sun.
Did I make enough jokes in my parent comment about Java being slow? They
should rename Java and call it InsultMe. Most of the time when I see a Java
program, it is so slow and the GUI is so quirky that I feel insulted that
someone expects me to think it is acceptable.
Intel's optimizing compiler helps it compete with other CPU manufacturers.
Microsoft once sold a slow Pascal compiler. This doesn't seem to fit, but most of Microsoft's operating system sales are to computer manufacturers. This puts pressure on Microsoft to make its software as slow as customers will accept. Later Pascal compilers, by other vendors, were more than 10 times faster on the same machine.
There is heavy competition in C++ compilers, so Microsoft's version is fast.
What about VB? Is is fast? For most of its lifetime, I've heard that it is not. No competition.
Probably the DEC hardware sales people were a dominant force in the company. I can think of a particular situation in which a company that was pushed to add a new VAX, when faster compiler output would have been better, and half the cost.
It was somewhat shocking to me, but back in the VAX days I learned that
software made by hardware manufacturers is as slow as they can get the
customer to accept. That makes customers buy more hardware.
Following the theme of naming products after food items, Sun's next software
product is "Molasses".
If customers accept Molasses, the next January they will release an upgrade
called "Molasses in January". The following product will break the naming
tradition: It will be a run-anywhere language called "The check is in the
mail". After that, there is "When pigs fly", and "When hell freezes".
The big question in the computing world is how not to become a dog on some
manufacturer's leash. Woof, woof, where do you want me to go today, Bill,
Steve, or Scott?
Lawyers are often 100% adversarial with people whom they detect cannot supervise them well. You MUST know the law yourself. You MUST think about what should and should not be legal. You cannot sensibly leave important questions about legality to people who make $350 per hour for dealing with confusing legal situations. There is a HUGE conflict of interest. Lawyers make more money if non-lawyers cannot understand the law.
A statement such as, "Women as hypersexualized killers distracts attention from their unequal status", distracts attention from the question of why someone wants to spend time watching women as hypersexualized killers.
All tax software should be open source, and should be provided by the government. Intuit's abuse shows why. We haven't seen the end of abuse like this. Intuit has showed why governments can have nothing to do with closed source, proprietary software.
The purpose of government is NOT to provide easy profits to one group.
Maybe the answer to spam is for the president of the U.S. (a real one, not George Bush) to make a speech to the nation and ask everyone never to respond to unsolicited email. If no one ever responded, spam would not pay.
Groups interested in public welfare need to get the message out.
Maybe speaking Klingon is not a delusion. Maybe speaking Klingon is a defense for people who have suffered too much pain in English. Anyway, remember that speaking Klingon is rare, and the government would pay for it only if there were no other way to communicate with a seriously mentally ill patient. That communication would almost certainly reduce the cost of treatment, not raise it.
Slashdot Mirror
The shoe store suggestion above is by far the best for me.
Big issue: Keep CDs in low humidity. I would like to buy little packages of silica gel dehumidifiers, but I don't know where to get them.
I've had CDs develop fungus, and become completely useless. Low humidity prevents this.
Belief has a LOT to do with it. Good work is being done, but not much is known about genetic activity yet, in spite of the impression that is given on TV.
Are universities and the U.S. government itself "extreme left-wing fringe"? See the links below:
"Anyone interested in the activities of secret U.S. agencies may have been interested in a segment of the CBS show "60 Minutes" about the secret involvement of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the killing of General Rene Schneider of Chile. The show aired on Sunday, September 9, 2001. General Schneider was a strong supporter of democracy. Here are links to information about U.S. interference with democracy in Chile:
"National Security Archive Chile Documentation Project
'PBS News Hour: "... evidence of a policy to undermine democracy in Chile and to support dictatorship there"
"Hinchey Report, CIA Activities in Chile This is a U.S. government document."
The question is not whether the links are good. The question is whether the information is true. Most people in the U.S. are not aware of the U.S. government's support for violent dictatorships, for example. But that support is not disputed by those who have studied the history. There are even U.S. government web sites that document support for violence dictatorships, for example.
Much better sources are available, for example, books. The ones I supplied came from a quick googling.
The activities of the FDA and Agriculture Department are openly discussed. Twenty years ago, most people in the U.S. did not know the CIA was training terrorists to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, for example. That training is now used against United States citizens. The CIA calls this "blowback".
Hidden elements of the U.S. government have become the most violent force the world has ever known, with a long history of acting in a violent manner and supporting violent dictatorships: The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries in the 58 years since the Second World War. The list below includes only countries bombed, not countries in which the U.S. government was responsible for other violence. The list includes only violence since the Second World War, not the extensive violence before the war. Most U.S. citizens are surprised and skeptical when they see the list, so a few links have been provided to supporting information. For more information, try the Google search engine or see the links below.
There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [
Interesting, but we don't know if probability applies to this situation.
If you want to believe that you are almost a chimpanzee, that's fine, but I'm not believing. Note that the researchers ignored DNA that is not expressive. That may be a sensible idea, or it may be that the ignored DNA expresses itself in a way that has not been discovered.
Everyone is just using the new word to describe the old service.
I'm not an authority. Everything I posted here was verified by Vint Cerf himself, in an answer to a private email message.
The Internet DID NOT EXIST in the 60s and 70s. That was DarpaNet. The Internet is a public utility; DarpaNet was used by DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, an organization of the U.S. government that studies the best way to kill people and destroy property.
Darpa's inter-net began to be used by universities and by people who had some connection with universities, such as people at Tektronix, a company that was manufacturing oscilloscopes for military use.
The big contribution of Al Gore was his championing the idea of making the inter-net the public utility now called the Internet. It seems obvious now, but back then it was not at all obvious that private computers needed to be connected. There was a LOT of opposition to making the inter-net public.
The old inter-net was extremely useful, but its uses were extremely limited compared to the Internet we have now.
Several years ago, people were saying that Vint Cerf was the "father of the Internet". I found Vint's email address somewhere and wrote to him. He said that it was true that Al Gore was an originator of the Internet; Al was the first government leader to support making the old DarpaNet and the old, largely proprietary Internet into a public utility. Vint was one of the technical fathers of the Internet, but Al Gore was the father of the public utility we know today.
It is difficult to imagine now, but those who were on the Internet before it became a public utility often did not want it to be public. That was in the days before spam email and pop-up ads.
Joel Spolsky was theorizing about Sun in what he calls Strategy Letter V. (See the bottom for the paragraphs about Sun.) He wondered why Sun wants Java, and he was not able to guess.
Here is a theory: Sun wants its own software to be secure and fast. However, there is a conflict of interest. Sun makes more money if its customer's software is easily de-compiled. If Sun sales people find one customer doing particularly well, it is easy for Sun's other customers to de-compile the original customer's Java code and re-write it to work for their own purposes. This would benefit Sun because the salesmen could more readily sell the hardware that runs the Java program. Slow and easily decompiled makes more money for Sun.
Did I make enough jokes in my parent comment about Java being slow? They should rename Java and call it InsultMe. Most of the time when I see a Java program, it is so slow and the GUI is so quirky that I feel insulted that someone expects me to think it is acceptable.
Interesting.
Intel's optimizing compiler helps it compete with other CPU manufacturers.
Microsoft once sold a slow Pascal compiler. This doesn't seem to fit, but most of Microsoft's operating system sales are to computer manufacturers. This puts pressure on Microsoft to make its software as slow as customers will accept. Later Pascal compilers, by other vendors, were more than 10 times faster on the same machine.
There is heavy competition in C++ compilers, so Microsoft's version is fast.
What about VB? Is is fast? For most of its lifetime, I've heard that it is not. No competition.
Probably the DEC hardware sales people were a dominant force in the company. I can think of a particular situation in which a company that was pushed to add a new VAX, when faster compiler output would have been better, and half the cost.
It was somewhat shocking to me, but back in the VAX days I learned that software made by hardware manufacturers is as slow as they can get the customer to accept. That makes customers buy more hardware.
Following the theme of naming products after food items, Sun's next software product is "Molasses".
If customers accept Molasses, the next January they will release an upgrade called "Molasses in January". The following product will break the naming tradition: It will be a run-anywhere language called "The check is in the mail". After that, there is "When pigs fly", and "When hell freezes".
The big question in the computing world is how not to become a dog on some manufacturer's leash. Woof, woof, where do you want me to go today, Bill, Steve, or Scott?
As he said, he intended to troll. But an accident of wording made his comment funny instead.
It's a tough world when a troll can't even get modded down.
Lawyers are often 100% adversarial with people whom they detect cannot supervise them well. You MUST know the law yourself. You MUST think about what should and should not be legal. You cannot sensibly leave important questions about legality to people who make $350 per hour for dealing with confusing legal situations. There is a HUGE conflict of interest. Lawyers make more money if non-lawyers cannot understand the law.
A statement such as, "Women as hypersexualized killers distracts attention from their unequal status", distracts attention from the question of why someone wants to spend time watching women as hypersexualized killers.
All tax software should be open source, and should be provided by the government. Intuit's abuse shows why. We haven't seen the end of abuse like this. Intuit has showed why governments can have nothing to do with closed source, proprietary software.
The purpose of government is NOT to provide easy profits to one group.
To avoid TurboTax product activation, I used TaxCut this year. I was worried about being able to access my tax information on some future computer.
I didn't like TaxCut. So, if Intuit really won't have copy protection, I will go back to TurboTax next year.
NTFS read-write support would be a VERY big deal. It would be one less way that Microsoft isolates its customers.
Maybe the answer to spam is for the president of the U.S. (a real one, not George Bush) to make a speech to the nation and ask everyone never to respond to unsolicited email. If no one ever responded, spam would not pay.
Groups interested in public welfare need to get the message out.
Because, if one component crashes, the other does also. They are that integrated.
Maybe speaking Klingon is not a delusion. Maybe speaking Klingon is a defense for people who have suffered too much pain in English. Anyway, remember that speaking Klingon is rare, and the government would pay for it only if there were no other way to communicate with a seriously mentally ill patient. That communication would almost certainly reduce the cost of treatment, not raise it.