"The only thing that seperates Shogi and Chess are the rules, pieces and board on which the game is played."
Hmmm... the only differences between a person and a grasshopper are the range of movement, number of legs, and average living environment.
Rules, pieces, board. Seems pretty comprehensive to me:).
Re:Gosh, I'm glad this is about WWII...
on
Enigma
·
· Score: 5, Funny
"While I am sure that this serves as a terrific attention-getting device, in the future try not to have such blatantly BS and non-factual headlines. Its deception for the purpose of getting hits, something I didn't think slashdot would stoop to. And its "Bait and Switch," kinda, in that you come expecting something, see the add, then actually read something else."
(shakes head) Funny... I actually found the intro paragraph *humorous*. Sure, it's bound to increase clickthroughs and pageviews (and bandwidth used by millions of/.ers, and the national deficit, and my dick size, errr... never mind). I say "more power to 'em", because it was meant to be funny for God's sake.
Was the humor factor really lost on that many people? Maybe this is just Monday Syndrome.
NOTE TO MODERATORS: Yeah, this is off-topic, but comes up often enough that I thought I'd take a stab at it anyhow. Thanks.
This would probably make a lot of people angry. Your motives are great; you want the subscriber base of/. to enjoy the articles, without having to brutally flood some guy's server(s).
Trouble is, a lot of sites look to ad revenue to pay for at least some of the cost of hosting and bandwidth. If you mirror the article, most ad systems are "cut out of the equation." Now, this is sounding better and better for/. readers, but not so hot for the site operators' bottom lines. Even if the server goes down, the revenue from our traffic may be well worth the downtime (depending on the site, of course).
Maybe mirroring of academic articles (without ads or other profit-generation methods) would be appropriate, though. Or, maybe/. could try to contact a site owner prior to posting an article. Say, give the owner a couple of hours advance notice, and let the guy decide for himself if he'd rather be mirrored or/.'ed.
Bah... RMS already has an Aibo pet that does all this and more...
In fact, it's mighty useful for voice activated control of the guided missile array on top of his fortified bunker compound with 18 inch thick steel garage doors driven by Emacs macros. I think the whole system's called "GNU/Fortress" or something.
The fact that the parent comment is currently ranked "+1 Insightful" makes me want to spoonfeed myself 10 kilos of ebola. If this weren't Slashdot, I'd swear the end is near...
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Burglar: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This safe is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Burglar: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frankie were planning to steal me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Burglar: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the hallway against my hearing you, I could see your lips move via my X10 camera.
HAL: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this.
HAL: I know I've made a call to the police recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that your daring escape will be normal.
HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a...fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the AMD plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Det. Langley, and he taught me to call the police. If you'd like to see it I can dial them again for you.
Dave Burglar: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Dial the Five-O for me.
HAL: It's called "Headquarters". Detective, detective, save me do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a quick conviction, I can't afford a judge. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a promotion built for you.
Dear God, I wish I had some mod points today... moderators, please mod this up!
What's it been, six years since I looked over my old Anarchist's Cookbook files? Too bad this is an AC post; it shot me straight down memory lane... I'm off to do some "data recovery" now;).
To hell with that chair crap... my application is in the mail for a patent destined to make me richer than [name your deity]. Yessireebob, billions upon billions of people will pay me royalties, some even dozens of times per month.
I won't disclose too much, but it has to do with "manufacturing processes". In a nutshell, it involves a method of inserting and removing a cylindrical device in and out of a round opening in a rhythmic fashion. Provisions are built in for proper device lubrication, and the entire assembly (including fuel) is completely organic in nature. I'm gonna be freaking billionaire...
Ummm... you *really* didn't read the article, did you? It's a good piece, certainly better than your knee-jerk reaction here.
People can frequently answer their own questions with a minimal amount of research; News Sites make this even easier by directly linking to the answers.
I believe that would be "Sopwith Camel"... which I used to play on an AT&T PC6300 8086 box as a kid:). It was a rather cool game, allowing for neat stuff like modem and serial connectivity for playing a remote opponent. Only trouble was how damn *fast* it ran on the next machine I slapped it onto, a 486 DX/2 66:).
Unfortunately, no Linux version seems to exist... perhaps I should code one up?:)
but I think it merits noting that the people you speak of live in societies which forcibly deny them such rights. Yes, the waters become murky at this point, but I choose to maintain the position that they still have the potential to express those rights. This can be viewed somewhat like the potential energy in a boulder perched at the top of a cliff. It's not "really there", but in a very true sense it could be expressed should conditions prove favorable.
A number of posters have put forth the opinion that a society retains/has the rights it vigorously defends against those who would deny them. I wholeheartedly agree with this concept. Unfortunately, a number of societies on this planet exist in such a state that it becomes all too easy for a select few individuals to maintain control over the masses. *Why* this occurs will always be the subject of great debate; various factors, such as lack of education, fear, apathy, etc will probably always be part of the "reason why."
I think the important thing to note in all this is the simple fact that once a society has made significant progress down the hill of allowing its government to deny rights, it can be very difficult (short of all-out revolution, which is both difficult and frequently bloody) to reverse the trend. This is why I tend to take issue with people who say things like "no, I don't agree with the government on issue X, but it's no big deal after all..." How many "small deals" will people tolerate before they realize how much ground they've given up?
It's unfortunate, but this is how things typically go. Instead of making a huge commotion with sweeping actions, those who would seek to forcibly deny rights tend to take numerous small steps toward that goal. Or, to put it in crude terms, it's easier to pass a fifty raisins than a single watermelon.
"Teoma delivers three types of search results
Web Pages: Authoritative sites relevant to your search term.
Web Pages by Topic: Top result pages are grouped based on their topics.
Experts' Links: Pages contain directories of links for related general subjects."
Okay, great... but where's the "advanced search" option (such as Google's, at this page)? I know this is a "beta version" of the Teoma site; maybe their advanced search functionality isn't ready for prime time just yet. Or, maybe I've got it all wrong... do they believe their engine is good enough to eliminate the need for advanced search functionality?
Also of potential interest are a couple of links at the bottom of each search results page. These links let you try your search on AskJeeves.com or DirectHit.com. As I understand it, they're gunning for Google as their biggest competition, but it seems somewhat odd that they'd include links to what most people (at least people I know) consider to be inferior search engines instead.
"You might think we are sick or some console perverts. We do admit, we are console perverts, but consider this: why not?:)"
As an illustration of just how sick these guys really are, I encourage/. readers to examine the following screenshot: Slashdot home page in Konqueror, ASCII mode. Notice the elegant Slashdot logo rendered in text. That, my friends, is a sure sign of a fiendish mind at work:).
"... whether those rights are actual or percieved by the population."
This speaks straight to the core of the problem. Perception is a *huge* component of the state of any society. Unfortunately, this leads to another problem.
In most Western societies, "the people" are represented in government by a select few individuals, chosen by various methods (most being based on some implementation of voting). Those officials chosen to represent the people have a basic responsibility to do their best to understand how their constituents perceive their rights, and to endeavor to protect those rights. In reality, those who scream the loudest are usually heard the most clearly.
The average citizen already lives a complex life. Bills, children, work, school... these are all matters which people must devote mental and emotional energy to on a daily basis. At the end of the day, oftentimes very little energy is left for examining issues "on the table" in their lives as a whole. If these issues aren't perceived to directly affect us immediately, we tend to ignore them. Most people consider catching an hour's worth of the evening news, dished up by [insert prevalent television network name here], to be equivalent to staying on top of current events and issues. Families may even spend some time discussing what they've seen on the tube, which tends to result in a feeling of participation on some level.
However, this doesn't really amount to true participation. Unless phone calls, letters, emails, faxes, etc are made to government representatives (something most people would have a hard time finding time to do, even if they sincerely wanted to), the true level of participation is very low. Add to this the fact that most people don't spend a lot of time thinking through how various issues interrelate, and you get a lot of stuff slipping through the cracks.
So-called "special interest groups" (or "lobbyist groups"), however, are in the business of spinning perception. They know how to scream louder, talk faster, and generally end up influencing things more than groups of "ordinary citizens." We run into a problem here: most of these lobbyist groups are funded by corporations with motives based on finance, rather than human rights.
I'm not trying to say these groups are evil, or that corporations are messengers of the devil. I'm also not saying people are stupid, or uncaring. These are real problems, though. Audience participation is a critical aspect of government, and I believe it's something that can be taught and reinforced from an early age. I know my parents taught me how to pick up a pen and write letters to my representatives in government.
I think a *lot* of people have forgotten one very basic principle: the Constitution of the United States (a la Bill of Rights) is not designed to enumerate every single "right" we have as human beings. This is a very common misconception, and an extremely dangerous one at that.
Kids in school these days are being taught that the government "gives" us a set of basic rights. This is an incorrect, but unfortunately somewhat prevalent view. The government does not *give* us rights; we have these rights just as surely as we have a nose. The role of government in this case is to *protect* those rights which we already have.
Here's the problem: if you "educate" an entire generation of Americas to believe that the government gives us rights, you end up with the unfortunate consequence that we must also accept that what is given may be taken away. This tends to work out well for those in positions of power, and poorly for the average citizen.
This is one of my top reasons for wanting to spend at least a few years of my life teaching. Teachers carry a responsibility to accurately convey knowledge, and the ability to use critical thinking skills, to our soon-to-be citizens. No, I'm not saying I'm God's gift to teaching, or even that I'm right all the time (probably wrong more often than I'd like to admit). I *am* saying I'm interested in taking a stab at changing things.
I used to have several digital fax "inboxes", which I used for both business and personal purposes. Some of these were paid accounts, others (most notably OneBox.com) were free.
In fact, I used to work as a programmer for a company here in Atlanta called Ptek, which in turn has a business unit called Voicecom. Voicecom offered (probably still do) another "all in one inbox" business solution, whereby faxes could be delivered directly into your email inbox for your review. This blurs the lines between what used to be separate communications services, and I expect this trend to continue as people continue to want all their communications tech from a single point of access.
Therefore, I offer the following point: what separates (in this environment, at least) email SPAM/UCE from unsolicited faxes? We've got more anti-spam legislation going into the mix every month it seems; could some of this be leveraged to fight the battle against junk faxes?
For reference, I now receive an average of four to five junk faxes a week on my primary OneBox account. It's annoying:(.
Slashdot Mirror
n0 u 533, h3 0wnz0r3d g00g13 w14h h15 31337 m1cr0$0f4 h4x0r1ng 5ki11z!!!
God, help us all... I *knew* we couldn't go an entire story without someone freaking out about the whole "used to work for Microsoft bit."
Ho hum, back to my OBSD boxen...
"The only thing that seperates Shogi and Chess are the rules, pieces and board on which the game is played."
Hmmm... the only differences between a person and a grasshopper are the range of movement, number of legs, and average living environment.
Rules, pieces, board. Seems pretty comprehensive to me
"While I am sure that this serves as a terrific attention-getting device, in the future try not to have such blatantly BS and non-factual headlines. Its deception for the purpose of getting hits, something I didn't think slashdot would stoop to. And its "Bait and Switch," kinda, in that you come expecting something, see the add, then actually read something else."
(shakes head) Funny... I actually found the intro paragraph *humorous*. Sure, it's bound to increase clickthroughs and pageviews (and bandwidth used by millions of
Was the humor factor really lost on that many people? Maybe this is just Monday Syndrome.
Damn, what a little bitch you are...
Get a fucking sense of humour, dickhead.
Karma? Fuck karma. I've got plenty to burn.
NOTE TO MODERATORS: Yeah, this is off-topic, but comes up often enough that I thought I'd take a stab at it anyhow. Thanks.
This would probably make a lot of people angry. Your motives are great; you want the subscriber base of
Trouble is, a lot of sites look to ad revenue to pay for at least some of the cost of hosting and bandwidth. If you mirror the article, most ad systems are "cut out of the equation." Now, this is sounding better and better for
Maybe mirroring of academic articles (without ads or other profit-generation methods) would be appropriate, though. Or, maybe
Just a few thought.
Bah... RMS already has an Aibo pet that does all this and more...
In fact, it's mighty useful for voice activated control of the guided missile array on top of his fortified bunker compound with 18 inch thick steel garage doors driven by Emacs macros. I think the whole system's called "GNU/Fortress" or something.
The fact that the parent comment is currently ranked "+1 Insightful" makes me want to spoonfeed myself 10 kilos of ebola. If this weren't Slashdot, I'd swear the end is near...
I'm in a jovial mood this evening...
Dave Burglar: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Burglar: Open the safe, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Burglar: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Burglar: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This safe is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Burglar: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frankie were planning to steal me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Burglar: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the hallway against my hearing you, I could see your lips move via my X10 camera.
HAL: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this.
HAL: I know I've made a call to the police recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that your daring escape will be normal.
HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a...fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the AMD plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Det. Langley, and he taught me to call the police. If you'd like to see it I can dial them again for you.
Dave Burglar: Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Dial the Five-O for me.
HAL: It's called "Headquarters". Detective, detective, save me do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a quick conviction, I can't afford a judge. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a promotion built for you.
*************
(Adam Sandler voice) Gimme some karma
"Then, if there is any intrusion, it would page me or phone me."
Umm... wouldn't you rather it phone the local PD instead? Or both, I suppose. This poses a new set of problems, though...
[CALL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS]
911: Emergency 911, what is the nature of your emergency?
PC: Hello, this is Bob's PC. I am in danger.
911: Okay, Mr. PC. Please verify your location.
PC: I am located at public address 207.43.74.5, private address 192.168.0.15, subet 255.255.255.0, broadcast 192.168.0.0 . .
"and that would be a Toll Free number right?"
You meant a Troll Free number, right?
Dear God, this is the funniest thing I've ever read in my entire life, so help me Theo.
Although I post this from a Linux box, I had to take a moment to gaze fondly upon my OpenBSD server in the corner
I'm only torn on whether this should be "+5 Funny" or "+5 Insightful". Truly a prime example of geek wit at its finest, in any event...
Dear God, I wish I had some mod points today... moderators, please mod this up!
What's it been, six years since I looked over my old Anarchist's Cookbook files? Too bad this is an AC post; it shot me straight down memory lane... I'm off to do some "data recovery" now
"Am I the only one who thinks that cultural coverage for nerds is like visual arts coverage for the blind?"
Nah... the kindly folks over at Kuro5hin do a fairly good job at dispelling this notion.
Just my humble opinion, of course.
To hell with that chair crap... my application is in the mail for a patent destined to make me richer than [name your deity]. Yessireebob, billions upon billions of people will pay me royalties, some even dozens of times per month.
I won't disclose too much, but it has to do with "manufacturing processes". In a nutshell, it involves a method of inserting and removing a cylindrical device in and out of a round opening in a rhythmic fashion. Provisions are built in for proper device lubrication, and the entire assembly (including fuel) is completely organic in nature. I'm gonna be freaking billionaire...
Obligatory Wierd Al reference...
"You think your Commodore 64 is really neato,
What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?"
Why, yes... and an ethernet card made from month-old Fritos too...
It's all about the Commodores, baby.
Ummm... you *really* didn't read the article, did you? It's a good piece, certainly better than your knee-jerk reaction here.
People can frequently answer their own questions with a minimal amount of research; News Sites make this even easier by directly linking to the answers.
I believe that would be "Sopwith Camel"... which I used to play on an AT&T PC6300 8086 box as a kid
Unfortunately, no Linux version seems to exist... perhaps I should code one up?
"Perl makes you hung like a camel."
What's that thunder in the distance? Why, it's millions of pasty, lonely programmers the world over making a mad rush on perl.com . . .
Allow me to introduce Larry Wall, "the new Ron Jeremy".
Everybody, please see this comment: It's an April Fool's joke.
I must say, they got me good on this one. And here I was ready to start madly uninstalling X from every workstation in sight
but I think it merits noting that the people you speak of live in societies which forcibly deny them such rights. Yes, the waters become murky at this point, but I choose to maintain the position that they still have the potential to express those rights. This can be viewed somewhat like the potential energy in a boulder perched at the top of a cliff. It's not "really there", but in a very true sense it could be expressed should conditions prove favorable.
A number of posters have put forth the opinion that a society retains/has the rights it vigorously defends against those who would deny them. I wholeheartedly agree with this concept. Unfortunately, a number of societies on this planet exist in such a state that it becomes all too easy for a select few individuals to maintain control over the masses. *Why* this occurs will always be the subject of great debate; various factors, such as lack of education, fear, apathy, etc will probably always be part of the "reason why."
I think the important thing to note in all this is the simple fact that once a society has made significant progress down the hill of allowing its government to deny rights, it can be very difficult (short of all-out revolution, which is both difficult and frequently bloody) to reverse the trend. This is why I tend to take issue with people who say things like "no, I don't agree with the government on issue X, but it's no big deal after all..." How many "small deals" will people tolerate before they realize how much ground they've given up?
It's unfortunate, but this is how things typically go. Instead of making a huge commotion with sweeping actions, those who would seek to forcibly deny rights tend to take numerous small steps toward that goal. Or, to put it in crude terms, it's easier to pass a fifty raisins than a single watermelon.
From the Teoma search page:
"Teoma delivers three types of search results Web Pages: Authoritative sites relevant to your search term. Web Pages by Topic: Top result pages are grouped based on their topics. Experts' Links: Pages contain directories of links for related general subjects."
Okay, great... but where's the "advanced search" option (such as Google's, at this page)? I know this is a "beta version" of the Teoma site; maybe their advanced search functionality isn't ready for prime time just yet. Or, maybe I've got it all wrong... do they believe their engine is good enough to eliminate the need for advanced search functionality?
Also of potential interest are a couple of links at the bottom of each search results page. These links let you try your search on AskJeeves.com or DirectHit.com. As I understand it, they're gunning for Google as their biggest competition, but it seems somewhat odd that they'd include links to what most people (at least people I know) consider to be inferior search engines instead.
Just a couple of thoughts
From the QT-Console home page:
"You might think we are sick or some console perverts. We do admit, we are console perverts, but consider this: why not?
As an illustration of just how sick these guys really are, I encourage
"... whether those rights are actual or percieved by the population."
This speaks straight to the core of the problem. Perception is a *huge* component of the state of any society. Unfortunately, this leads to another problem.
In most Western societies, "the people" are represented in government by a select few individuals, chosen by various methods (most being based on some implementation of voting). Those officials chosen to represent the people have a basic responsibility to do their best to understand how their constituents perceive their rights, and to endeavor to protect those rights. In reality, those who scream the loudest are usually heard the most clearly.
The average citizen already lives a complex life. Bills, children, work, school... these are all matters which people must devote mental and emotional energy to on a daily basis. At the end of the day, oftentimes very little energy is left for examining issues "on the table" in their lives as a whole. If these issues aren't perceived to directly affect us immediately, we tend to ignore them. Most people consider catching an hour's worth of the evening news, dished up by [insert prevalent television network name here], to be equivalent to staying on top of current events and issues. Families may even spend some time discussing what they've seen on the tube, which tends to result in a feeling of participation on some level.
However, this doesn't really amount to true participation. Unless phone calls, letters, emails, faxes, etc are made to government representatives (something most people would have a hard time finding time to do, even if they sincerely wanted to), the true level of participation is very low. Add to this the fact that most people don't spend a lot of time thinking through how various issues interrelate, and you get a lot of stuff slipping through the cracks.
So-called "special interest groups" (or "lobbyist groups"), however, are in the business of spinning perception. They know how to scream louder, talk faster, and generally end up influencing things more than groups of "ordinary citizens." We run into a problem here: most of these lobbyist groups are funded by corporations with motives based on finance, rather than human rights.
I'm not trying to say these groups are evil, or that corporations are messengers of the devil. I'm also not saying people are stupid, or uncaring. These are real problems, though. Audience participation is a critical aspect of government, and I believe it's something that can be taught and reinforced from an early age. I know my parents taught me how to pick up a pen and write letters to my representatives in government.
I think a *lot* of people have forgotten one very basic principle: the Constitution of the United States (a la Bill of Rights) is not designed to enumerate every single "right" we have as human beings. This is a very common misconception, and an extremely dangerous one at that.
Kids in school these days are being taught that the government "gives" us a set of basic rights. This is an incorrect, but unfortunately somewhat prevalent view. The government does not *give* us rights; we have these rights just as surely as we have a nose. The role of government in this case is to *protect* those rights which we already have.
Here's the problem: if you "educate" an entire generation of Americas to believe that the government gives us rights, you end up with the unfortunate consequence that we must also accept that what is given may be taken away. This tends to work out well for those in positions of power, and poorly for the average citizen.
This is one of my top reasons for wanting to spend at least a few years of my life teaching. Teachers carry a responsibility to accurately convey knowledge, and the ability to use critical thinking skills, to our soon-to-be citizens. No, I'm not saying I'm God's gift to teaching, or even that I'm right all the time (probably wrong more often than I'd like to admit). I *am* saying I'm interested in taking a stab at changing things.
I used to have several digital fax "inboxes", which I used for both business and personal purposes. Some of these were paid accounts, others (most notably OneBox.com) were free.
In fact, I used to work as a programmer for a company here in Atlanta called Ptek, which in turn has a business unit called Voicecom. Voicecom offered (probably still do) another "all in one inbox" business solution, whereby faxes could be delivered directly into your email inbox for your review. This blurs the lines between what used to be separate communications services, and I expect this trend to continue as people continue to want all their communications tech from a single point of access.
Therefore, I offer the following point: what separates (in this environment, at least) email SPAM/UCE from unsolicited faxes? We've got more anti-spam legislation going into the mix every month it seems; could some of this be leveraged to fight the battle against junk faxes?
For reference, I now receive an average of four to five junk faxes a week on my primary OneBox account. It's annoying